ВАРИАНТ №9
I.Прочитайте и переведите текст
THE FATHER OF ASTRONAUTICS
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a cheerful, eccentric, self-educated genius. Deaf from scarlet fever at childhood, he had no formal schooling. But he was a natural mathematician, a practical inventor who made his own laboratory equipment, a writer of science fiction and a research worker. He was born in 1857 in Kaluga. In March, 1883 Tsiolkovsky completed an extraordinary accurate work Free Space, on how it was possible to orbit a sputnik around the Earth. This was probably the first use of the word "sputnik". Free Space was published in 1954 though he quoted some parts of it in his Dreams of Heaven and Earth published in Moscow in 1895. He wrote: "An Earth sputnik, similar to the Moon, but nearer to our planet, just about 300 versts from the Earth's surface, will represent a very small mass free front the pull of gravitation."
He discussed how to create sputniks and the speed of their movement in orbitr. Sixty-two years later, when the first sputnik was launched, it orbited at a height of about 300 versts and its speed reached eight versts a second, as the old scientist had told.
This selftaught scientist—most of his learning came from library shelves—was not interested only in the theory of space travel. In 1878 he constructed a primitive centrifuge to test—on chickens and mice—the effect of acceleration and overloading on living organisms.
At this time, too, he sketched instruments which could simulate conditions of weightlessness on the ground. Now all these sketches and manuscripts are in his museum-home at Kaluga, about 100 miles west of Moscow.
The results of his tests in the centrifuge with chickens were the following: it was found that they could stand loads of 5 to 6 Gs, but die when the G-load reached 10. This was contained in the work The Mechanics of Living Organisms which was read by a famous Russian physiologist of that time Sechenov. Sechenov was so impressed by the scientific arguments that he recommended the un-schooled Tsiolkovsky for membership of the Academy of Sciences, the recommendation was unanimously accepted.
In his work on the effects of speed he developed the principle of hermetically sealed space capsules similar to the one used by Gagarin. Experiment on stresses on the human body is still carried today.
In 1903 Tsiolkovsky published the Scientific Review on Space Research by Jet Engines, a work which is widely read today by specialists in this field.
In his modest cottage at Kaluga, in the time he could spare from teaching mathematics at a local school, he carried out his scientific work, but he was poorly paid and had no money to finance experiments. His life changed with the revolution, and practically everything he wrote saw the light of day. The principles for multistage rockets were described by Tsiolkovsky. On his 75th birthday meetings were held throughout the Soviet Union to honour him as "the father of astronautics". The government awarded him the "Red Banner of Labour". He died in 1935 confident that his lifetime's work would be realized.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUBBER
Here is the story of rubber. From the earliest time it was common knowledge to the Peruvians that when a cut was made in the outside skin of a rubber tree, a white liquid like milk came out, and that from this a sticky mass rubber might be made. This rubber is soft and wax-like when warm, so that it is possible to give it any form. The Peruvians made the discovery that it was very good for keeping out the wet. Then in the early part of the eighteen hundreds, the Americans made use of it for the first time. First they made overshoes to keep their feet dry. Then came a certain Mr. Mackintosh, who made coats of cloth covered with natural rubber. From that day to this our raincoats are still named after him.
But these first rubber overshoes and raincoats were all soft and sticky in summer, and hard and unelastic in the winter when it was cold. But the rubber we have today is not sticky, but soft and elastic, though very strong even in the warmest summer and the coldest winter. There would be no automobiles such as we have today without it. A lot of attempts to make rubber hard and strong came to nothing. First came the discovery that nitric acid (HNO3) made the rubber better. Then came the idea that rubber could be made hard and strong if mixed with sulphur (S) and put in the sun. Now it is common knowledge that the way to make rubber hard and strong—to "vulcanise" it, as we say—is by heating it with sulphur.
G-load — нагрузка в граммах
II.Переведите на русский язык следующие английские словосочетания:
1 formal schooling 6 self-taught scientist
2 an extraordinary accurate work 7conditions of weightlessness
3 the pull of gravitation 8 common knowledge
4 space travel 9 in the early part of the eighteen hundreds
5 outside skin 10. a lot of attempts
III.Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих словосочетаний:
1 изобретатель практик 6похожа на воск
2 научная фантастика 7держать ноги сухими
3 первое использование 8 ему мало платили
4 было найдено 9рекомендация единогласно принята
5 скромный дом 10плотно запечатанные капсулы
IV.Найдите в тексте слова, имеющие общий корень с данными словами. Определите, к какой части речи они относятся, и переведите их на русский язык:
Shoes, educate, invent, equip, taught, recommend, day, practical, elastic, know.
V.Задайте к выделенному в тексте предложению все типы вопросов: общий, альтернативный, разделительный, два специальных: а)к подлежащему, б)к любому члену предложения.
VI.Выполните анализ данных предложений, обратив внимание на следующие грамматические явления: формы глаголов to be, to have; оборот there is/are; степени сравнения прилагательных и наречий; множественное число существительных; Present, Past, Future Simple Active/Passive; модальные глаголы.
1 He died in 1935 confident that his lifetime's work would be realized.
2 But the rubber we have today is not sticky, but soft and elastic, though very strong even in the warmest summer and the coldest winter.
3 He was born in 1857 in Kaluga.
4 In his modest cottage at Kaluga, in the time he could spare from teaching mathematics at a local school, he carried out his scientific work, but he was poorly paid and had no money to finance experiments.
5 From that day to this our raincoats are still named after him.
VII.Ответьте на вопросы по тексту:
1 What sciences was Tsiolkovsky interested in?
2.What books by Tsiolkovsky were published?
3.What did Tsiolkovsky write about Earth sputniks?
4.What experiments did he make with the centrifuge?
5.Who discovered rubber?
6.What were the first things made of rubber?
7.How do we often call a raincoat?
VIII.Составьте аннотацию к тексту (2-3 предложения).
