I liked it when we discussed someth
ing interesting to us, when we were taught to debate, when we had small-group discussions or set up a role-play. But I wasn't very good at chemistry. I always failed to learn formulas and terms properly. Maybe our chemistry teacher was too serious, too ac
ademic. She was not imaginative enough and her lessons were a little bit dull. There was not enough excitement for us to get interested in the subject.
I liked my class. I always felt at home there. Everybody was so friendly and easy to get along with. I was on good terms with my classmates and we often spent our free time together.

I've just left school and I would like to tell you a few words about it. My school is not very big. It is quite a modern three-storeyed building. More than four nundred pu
pils study there. It is a specialised school famous for its high-quality education and strict discipline.

My Day (мой обычны
й день)


I want to tell you about my daily routine. On working days I usually get up at half past 7 in the morning and go to the bathroom. I wash myself, brush my teeth and comb my hair. While I am in the bathroom my mother makes breakfast for
me and my brother. I usually have porridge, omelet or pancakes and a sandwich with cacao for breakfast. At half past 8 I leave home and go to school. It is not far from my house, but I don't like to be late for my classes, thatТ
s why I leave home earlier. On my way to school I often meet my classmates and friends. We talk and discuss things.
I usually have six lessons at school, sometimes seven, but never eight or nine. The first lesson starts at 9 oТ clock in the morning. At school we have a lot of sub
jects: Math, Russian, Literature, Biology, Geography, English, Computing, Physical Education and others. We learn a lot of interesting and useful things at school. At 12 oТ
clock we usually have lunch at school.

After school I go back home. I have my dinner at 3 oТ
clock in the afternoon. After dinner I go for a walk with my friends. In winter we play hockey or snowballs, in spring and autumn we usually play football in our yard. We have a football field nearby and spend lots of time there.

After wal
king I come back home and start doing my homework. When I have problems with it, I ask my mother or my brother for help. My father comes back from work very late, so I ask him for help just at the week-ends. At 7 oТ
clock in the evening my family has supper. After supper I like to play computer games or to watch some film.
I also have a habit of reading a bit before going to bed. So I lie down in the bed at half past 9 in the evening and read up to 10 oТ clock. Then I fall asleep.

ThatТ s my usual day.


My Hobbies and Pastime ( Мое
хобби и
времяпровождение )

Hobby is what people really like to do and do in their free time. People have very different hobbies that correspond to their interests.
One of the most popular hobbies is collecting different things. Some people collect badges and stamps, some people collect bottles or flowers. There are people who collect paintings or cars.

I collected pocket flashlights when I was at primary school. I have a collection of about fifteen flashlights. I remembe
r I used to hang them on the walls and to put on the bookshelves in the evening. I switched on all of them at the same time and was very excited because of this unusual light.
Making things with hands is another type of hobbies. This includes drawing,
knitting, painting, handicraft and others. For example, my granny is fond of knitting. All over the year she knits socks and scarves for everybody in our family. Playing computer games has become a very popular hobby nowadays. Lots of my friends are addic
ted to their computers. My parents donТ t allow me to play a lot, so I canТ t say that this is my hobby.
My major hobby is volleyball. I attend sport school 3 times a week. We have 2 and half hours of training. I usually get very tired after it but this sport game gives a great pleasure to me.


I also like listening to music. I have a big collection of CDs with different kinds of music. My favourite genres of music are rock and reggae. I also have some favourite singers and I collect information about them.


Now I want to talk about ways of spending free time. I think that hobbies and pastime are connected with each other because you do whatever you like in your free time. As for me I go to sport school during the week so at the week-ends I mostly go ou
t with my friends. We like to go to park. Sometimes we roller-skate there, sometimes just walk and eat some ice-cream. I think that itТ s very good just to walk and listen to birds singing. I like to be close to nature.

In the evenings I like to read. I like to spend a couple of hours with a new interesting book.


My Favourite Holidays and Celebrations
( Мои любимые
праздники )


I want to tell you about my favourite holidays. I have quite a lot of them. I usually celebrate holidays with my relatives and friends. We gather together, lay up the table full of food, dance and play different games.

New Ye
ar is my favourite holiday since early childhood. My brother and I usually decorate a New Year tree with colourful glass balls and toys. I also like cooking New Year supper. I always help my mother to decorate New Year dishes. At night we have a real feas
t. We eat what we have cooked and watch TV. After clock strikes midnight, New Year comes. We drink champagne and give each other presents.
My other favourite celebration is my birthday which is in May. On this day I am in the centre of attention. My pare
nts and friends give me presents. If the weather is nasty I have a birthday party at home. If the weather is fine I invite my friends to have picnic in the forest. I invite close friends and we have fun together.

I also like St.Valentirie's Day, which i
s a new holiday in Russia. It is celebrated on the 14-th of February. I like this holiday because it gives a lot of fun. We have Love mail at school. A box is placed on the ground floor of the building and anybody can put into it a card with the name of t
he person it is addressed to and the number of the form. In the middle of the day the mail is delivered and it is nice to get a card from a person you don't know.
I really enjoy holidays and celebrations!





My Favourite Writer
( Мой любимый
писатель )



I believe that books are one of the greatest wonders in the world. Books are the way to live hundreds of lives and to have thousands of adventures being at home. The work of my fantasy and imagination while reading is what makes me happy. I started read
ing myself at 5 years old. But first books that impressed me deeply were read to me by my mother. These are fairy tales of Christian Andersen and forest short stories of Vitalij Bianki.
If somebody asks me about my favourite writer I wonТ t probably fin
d the answer. Every book that I read becomes the best one for me for the time of reading. Usually I try to read the books of one author one by one. In such a way I can understand his thoughts, images, ideas and the writing manner better.

At the moment I
become acquainted with the works of John Fowles. John Fowles is an English novelist and essayist, master of layered story-telling, illusionism, and purposefully ambiguous endings. His first novel, and the first that I read, “The Collector”
, is a study of a clerk who is psychologically impelled to kidnap and murder. “The French LieutenantТ s Woman” is a “Victorian”
novel that has three endings. It reflects contemporary self-consciousness about nineteenth-century England and the form of the novel itself. I really enjoyed the works of John Fowles and for the time being I am going to start his book “The Magus”.



My Biography ( Моя
биография )

The topic that is given to me is «My biography»
. It sounds too meaningful. It means something very important. I am sorry to say that there is little to speak about my short past life. I am too young to have my own family, I am not married
yet. My name is Sergey. My last name is Petrov. The patronymic is Vadimovich. So my full name is Sergey Vadimovich Petrov. I am seventeen years old. I was born on the twelfth of June. I am a former pupil. I left school a month ago. I did not attend any n
u
rsery or kindergarten. I began to go to school at the age of six. It was eleven years ago. I had been studying at the same school for eleven years running without changing it. We had many subjects: history, English, biology and many others. I liked to stu
dy at school and my impressions of it are rather pleasant. My favorite subjects are English and informatics. On the English lessons we read and translate the text and learn new words. On the informatics lessons we write the pro¬
grams. That is why I choose English examination.


My School ( Учебный
день )


At the age of 6 or 7 ail boys and girls go to school. I am a schoolboy as well. My school number is 121. Our school is large, airy and light. It is neither old nor new. There is a large schoolyard and a stadium. We sometimes have physical train¬
ing lessons here. There are 3 floors in the school. There is a workshop on the ground floor. It is big and there are all kinds of iron-processing tools and machines here.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50