MAKE THE DREAM COME TRUE! текст № 7
1. Read the article and say in 2-3 sentences what it is about.
Many people who are led up with living in overcrowded and polluted cities dream of moving to the country and having their own small farm, or smallholding*. The Telegraph newspaper published a report about families who had attempted to make that dream come true. One couple, Ed and Sally Budd, bought a small farm a few months ago. It consisted of a house in need of some repair and a plot of land. Ed and Sally are planning to restore the house and they have already begun growing vegetables. They've also got a few cows and sheep. Both Ed and Sally work in London and only visit their smallholding at weekends. Fortunately, a local farmer looks after their animals during the week in return for keeping his own animals on their land.
So far Ed and Sally are enthusiastic and they aren't at all afraid of all the hard work that they still have to do. Sally told the newspaper: "Eventually, we want to live all year round on our smallholding. We want our children to grow up here and to be able to play in the woods."
Of course, some people are very enthusiastic at the beginning, but they soon start making mistakes. The Telegraph describes the experience of two people, Liz Sharkland and Gerry Toms, who had a rather bad start. "We began in completely the wrong way," says Liz. "We saw an advertisement in the paper for this beautiful old farmhouse. We came up to see it and loved it immediately. It was July and the weather was very hot. We bought the place and moved in late autumn. Then it began to rain." The fields turned into mud and Liz and Gerry found that it was not suitable for keeping animals. Gradually, however, Liz and Gerry started to make progress. They learned a lot from simply living on the smallholding. Then Liz attended a smallholding course and studied for a Higher National Diploma in countryside management. Liz has now gained enough experience to be able to offer expert advice to other people who want to start a smallholding.
Living close to nature can be very rewarding*, but making a success of it requires a lot of hard work.
2. Read aloud the extract where Sally says why they want to live in the country.
3. What does the newspaper report say about Ed and Sally?
4. What mistake did Liz and Gerry make?
HOW TO BECOME A WINNER - текст № 8
1. Read the article and say in 2-3 sentences what it is about.
All sports people are under a lot of pressure to win. They also experience powerful emotions. When they win or do well, they feel excited and extremely happy. But when things go badly, they feel depressed and anxious. This is why athletes have to be mentally strong. In the past, athletes only trained to get physically fit. Today, professional sportsmen learn to control their mind too. England rugby player Johnny Wilkinson played brilliantly at the Rugby World Cup in 2003. But after that things started to go wrong. He was injured a lot and he wasn't playing so well. He told The Times: "I couldn't control my emotions. Things were going wrong and 1 couldn't do anything about the situation. The problem was that I couldn't control my mind. If I wanted to feel better, I knew I had to learn how to control it."
He read lots of books to try to understand how to solve the problem. He found the answer in books. Wilkinson said: "The books tell us that reality changes depending on how we look at it. This made me understand that I was making my own problems. I could solve my problems if I looked at reality differently."
In team sports such as football, it is important to create a team spirit. This can be very difficult because teams consist of people with different personalities. Professor Dave Collins is a sports psychologist. He says: "A team is like a monster with 11 heads. It's not easy to get all the players think in the same way, to help one another and to work together. But when you see a team that works as a unit, everything happens naturally and easily."
When there is a team spirit, the players help one another. They all take responsibility when things go badly. They do not blame individual players for mistakes. In this way, each player feels more confident and can concentrate better on the game.
Today, sports psychologists have an important job to do. They help athletes become mentally fit and develop a winning mentality. Having a winning mentality really can make a difference between winning and losing.
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