Course : ENGLISH B CLASS

Read the following text and answer the multiple-choice questions.

It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the tiny waves of a gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing boat upset the sea and the word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand seagulls flew close to the boat to fight for bits of food. It was another busy day beginning.

But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was practising. A hundred feet in the sky he lowered his feet, lifted his beak, and tried hard to hold a painful twisting curve through his wings. The curve meant that he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one... single... more... inch... of... curve... Then his feathers trembled, he stopped and fell. Seagulls, as you know, never stop. To stop in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonour. But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings again in that trembling hard curve -slowing, slowing, and stopping once more- was no ordinary bird.

Most seagulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight -how to get from shore to food and back again. For most seagulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this seagull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly. This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one's self popular with other birds. Even his parents were disappointed as Jonathan spent whole days alone, making hundreds of attempts to fly low, near the surface of the sea, experimenting. 

                                                                                                                                                                          (Words: 300)

Read the text and choose the correct option(A,B or C)for items 1-10.

Raphael was born on March the 28th or April the 6th, 1483. His father, Giovanni Santi, was a competent painter and was highly appreciated in Urbino, a region that housed one of the most glittering courts in Italy. This provided the young Raffaelo with quite a privileged upbringing within the culture of the Umbrian court. However, Raphael's mother dies in 1491 when he is eight years old. His father, Giovanni, dies three years later when he is still only eleven. Before his death, Giovanni manages to place his son as a trainee in the art studio of Pietro Perugino. Although Raphael very quickly escaped from the painting style of his trainer, he followed Perugino's method of constructing paintings all of his life. Raphael's move to Florence in 1504 was stimulated by his strong wish to learn more from the recognized great representatives of Florentine art. Leonardo da Vinci was at the peak of his fame and had returned to the city from Milan in 1500. Raphael copied figures by Leonardo and Michelangelo who had both studied the anatomy of the human body. In Florence, Raphael also completed three large pieces for inner church parts, The Ansidei Madonna, The Baglioni altarpiece, both commissioned by Perugian clients, and The Madonna del Baldacchino for a chapel in Santo Spirito, a Florentine church. One of his final paintings of the Florentine period is the magnificent Saint Catherine now in the National Gallery in London. Raphael was able to continue with his own developing style whilst absorbing the influences of Florentine art. At the age of 25, he found a patron, Pope Julius II, and was given the task of decorating rooms in the Pope's private apartments. The Stanza also known as the Raphael Rooms, are located on the upper floor of the Vatican Palace.   

Read the text and choose the correct option.

Muzon, a passionate supporter of Syrian girls’ education in Jordan’s refugee’s camps, has been regarded as Syria’s answer to Malala. When Muzon’s family escaped the war in Syria in 2013, they considered leaving her behind. The bright 14-year-old had been studying hard all year for her school exams and her aunt encouraged the family to let her stay and continue her education.

However, her father decided that the risks were too great and so the girl fled with him and her siblings across the border to Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp. “I knew she could make up for lost schooling, but if you lose your life there’s no way to make up for that” her father told me when I met the family in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp. Education has always played a big part in Muzon’s life. Both of her parents were teachers back in Syria’s southern area of Dara’a, and her aunt and uncle were head teachers at local schools. “I didn’t need them to tell me that education is important. I always just felt it,” she explains. “Our house was built by an engineer. When I was sick I went to a doctor. Education is everything in life.”

Now 17, not only has she continued her studies in Jordan, but she has become a powerful and high-profile supporter for education among Syrian refugees, especially young women and girls. Her campaigning shares a number of similarities to that of Malala, Pakistan’s Nobel Prize-winning education campaigner, whom Muzon considers a personal friend. “She taught me that no matter what obstacles I face in life, they can be overcome.” The family’s main home in Izra was close to a military base. Unable to tolerate the fighting any longer, they made their way to Jordan and settled initially in Za’atari refugee camp.  

 (Words: 300)

Read the text and decide if each statement (1-10) is True (A), False (B) or Not Mentioned (C).

Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488) was born in Florence in or about 1435. His father worked as a tile and brick maker and, later, as a tax collector. Verrocchio never married, and had to provide financial support for some members of his family. He was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith. He was an Italian sculptor, goldsmith and painter who worked at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence in the early Renaissance. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but a number of important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi. His greatest importance was as a sculptor and his last work, the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, is universally accepted as a masterpiece.

A small painting on panel of Tobias (“Tobias and the angel”) as he sets out on his journey with the Archangel Raphael, carrying the fish with which he was to heal his father's blindness, was probably painted as a private devotional picture. It is now in London at the National Gallery. “The Baptism of Christ”, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, was painted in 1474-75. In this work Verrocchio was assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, then a youth and a member of his workshop, who painted the angel on the left and the part of the background above. Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him. “The Madonna enthroned with John the Baptist and St Donato” is in the Cathedral at Pistoia. It had been left unfinished and was completed by Lorenzo di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice near the end of his life. He died in Venice in 1488. He is one of the most important Italian sculptors of the Renaissance.

                                                                                                                                                                (301 words)

Read the text and choose the correct option

Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, architect and poet and one of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Florence (Italy) where his father was the local magistrate. A few weeks after his birth, the family moved to Florence. In 1488, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. He then lived in the household of Lorenzo de' Medici, the leading patron of the arts in Florence. After the Medici were expelled from Florence, Michelangelo decided to move to Bologna and then to Rome. His primary works were sculptures in these early years. His 'Pietà' (1497) made his name and he returned to Florence a famous sculptor. Here he produced his 'David' (1501-1504). In 1505, Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo back to Rome and commissioned him to design Julius' own tomb. Due to quarrels between Julius and Michelangelo, and the many other demands on the artist's time, the project was never completed, although Michelangelo did produce a sculpture of Moses for the tomb. Michelangelo's next major commission was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (1508-1512). It was recognised at once as a great work of art and from then on Michelangelo was regarded as Italy's greatest living artist. Michelangelo was greatly affected by another artist of the day, Leonardo da Vinci. The two artists battled for different commissions in the city, but Michelangelo was summoned by the Pope to complete a vast number of projects. None of these were ever completed in their full mastery, as was the Sistine Chapel. In 1534, Michelangelo returned to Rome where he was commissioned to paint 'The Last Judgment' on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. From 1546 he was increasingly active as an architect. He died in Rome on 18 February 1564.

Answer a series of questions based on the meaning of the story of Jonathan Seagull.

Match the nouns to their definitions.

Match the verbs to their definitions.

In this activity you can match some nouns to their definitions.

Answer the following question:

Do you need coffee in your everyday life?Why?Why not?