agosto 31, 2003
Restoring Britain's woodland
April 28, 2002
Readers help restore Britain’s woodland
SIX new forests are taking shape across Britain as part of a Sunday Times campaign to restore the country’s woodlands. Two weeks into the campaign, readers have already paid for 42,000 trees to be planted.
Among those to contribute to the planting is Lindsay Whitmore, 35, who has set up a direct debit so that one tree is planted every month for the rest of her life.
"I grew up in the countryside in Hampshire, and I now live in London, so I miss having trees around me," she said. "There is a danger that they will get fewer and fewer unless people make a concerted effort to do something about it."
The campaign is being run in conjunction with Future Forests , an environmental concern that plants trees for companies and individuals to offset the carbon dioxide their activities produce. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, the gas chiefly blamed for climate change.
"The beauty of encouraging the general public to plant trees in this way is that I am able to watch our site change day by day," said Lynn Searby, who is overseeing the new forest at Over Ardoch in Perthshire. "Although there are no mature trees here yet I can just visualise what it will look like in 10 years’ time."
Each tree costs £7, and can be bought at www.futureforests.com/sundaytimes. Those buying a tree receive a certificate and map showing its location. The forests are open to the public, so people can visit and watch their trees’ growth.
Last week the tree planting campaign was backed by the actress Alicia Silverstone and the actor Patrick Stewart, who were told about it at a United Nations reception in New York. Dan Morrell, the founder of Future Forests, had been invited to the Earth Day meeting after UN officials read about the campaign.
This week Morrell will visit Los Angeles for talks with film studios, including Columbia, DreamWorks, Warner and Disney, about making their films "carbon neutral" — paying for enough trees to offset the carbon dioxide produced in the making and screening of a film.
(Abridged)
In this test you're asked to Fill in the blanks. It's a text from a newspaper, about the forests in England.
The objective is to complete the test with the 13 phrases correctly filled. Please click here to launch the test in a separate window and enjoy!
Publicado por inesf às 03:49 PM
agosto 30, 2003
DiCaprio
PART ONE
Read the following text and do the tasks about it:
As the blond, blue-eyed icon for millions of teenage girls and more than a few boys everywhere, Leonardo DiCaprio emerged from relative television obscurity to become perhaps the hottest under-30 actor of the 1990s. After leading roles in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and James Cameron's Titanic , the actor became a phenomenon, spawning legions of websites and an entire industry built around his name.
Born in the town that would later make him famous, DiCaprio came into the world on November 11, 1974, in Hollywood. The son of a German immigrant mother and an underground comic book artist father who separated shortly after his birth, DiCaprio was raised by both of his parents, who encouraged his early interest in acting. At the age of two and a half, he had his first performer’s brush with notoriety and workplace ethics when he was kicked off the set of Romper Room for what the show's network considered "uncontrollable behavior." After this rather inauspicious start to his career, DiCaprio began to improve his skills – and, presumably, his professional behavior – with summer courses in performance art while he was in elementary school. He also joined the Mud People, an avant-garde theater group, with which he performed in Los Angeles, earning the title of "The Littlest Mud Person."
In high school, DiCaprio acted in his first real play and began doing commercials, educational films, and the occasional stint on the Saturday morning show The New Lassie. In What's Eating Gilbert Grape DiCaprio won an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, and at the tender age of 19, found himself being hailed as an actor to watch.
DiCaprio was catapulted into the stratosphere of international fame with his starring role in James Cameron's epic about a big boat and a bigger piece of ice. He won the hearts of teens everywhere with his title role in The Man in the Iron Mask. The film allowed him to explore his good and bad side, playing twins alongside such older and well-respected personages as Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne, John Malkovich, and Gérard Depardieu. Subsequently pushing forward with director Martin Scorsese for the epic Gangs of New York (2002), DiCaprio was cast as the protagonist in the tale of gangland violence in early America.
As if Scorsese's massive crime epic wasn't quite enough to give audiences their fill of DiCaprio, moviegoers would get yet another healthy dose of the tireless actor with the release of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can (2002), the true-life tale of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a scam artist so effective that he eluded authorities while assuming a number of high-profile false identities and racking-up over $2.5 million in fraudulent checks while jet-setting in twenty-six countries.
( ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide (abridged and adapted) )
1. Order the following sentences according to the sequence in the text:
a) Leonardo DiCaprio acted on a stage before he was three years old.
b) Last year DiCaprio performed the protagonist in two films of well-known directors.
c) After he played The Man in the Iron Mask DiCaprio became the idol of teenagers.
d) DiCaprio’s physical appearance attracts lots of young people.
e) When he was a school boy he belonged to a theater group.
f) Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t get famous on television.
g) While he was at highschool he performed many and various sorts of activities.
h) DiCaprio was nominated for an Oscar.
i) An iceberg and a ship took him to the top of fame.
j) Leonardo’s father was an artist.
2. Find evidence of the following statements in PARAGRAPH 2:
a. DiCaprio was born 28 years ago.
b. His parents were not a happily married couple.
c. DiCaprio’s mother and father wanted him to become an actor.
d. Leonardo DiCaprio started acting at a very early age.
e. His first experience as a artist was neither successful nor bright.
3. What do the following places refer to in the text?
a. Hollywood
b. Los Angeles
PART TWO
Rephrasing : finish each second sentence in such a way that it has the same meaning as the first one.
1. Millions of teenage girls and many boys regard Leonardo DiCaprio as an idol.
Leonardo DiCaprio ....................................................
2. Great film directors invite DiCaprio to perform important roles in their films, because DiCaprio works really hard.
If DiCaprio ...............................................................
PART THREE
Choose ONE of the following themes – A or B – and write 80-100 words about it.
A. You know Leonardo DiCaprio . Maybe you have already seen him acting in a film. What was the title of the film ? Did you like DiCaprio’s performance? Write about the character he played in that film.
B. “Names” is the short story we read in class. Write a description , both physical and psychological, of the main character in the story.
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Publicado por inesf às 11:47 PM | Comentários (1)
Future Forests
In this test you're asked to Fill in the blanks. It's a text from a newspaper, about the forests in England.
The objective is to complete the test with the 13 phrases correctly filled. Please click here to launch the test in a separate window and enjoy!
You can post your results, as well as some comments, in the next "Comments" link.
Publicado por inesf às 07:49 PM