Английский язык

ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ АГЕНТСТВО ПО ОБРАЗОВАНИЮ 

№ 1955 

Кафедра русского и иностранного языков и литературы 

 
 
 

Английский язык 

Учебное пособие по домашнему чтению 

Рекомендовано редакционно-издательским 
советом университета 

Москва     Издательский Дом МИСиС     2010 

УДК 811.111 
 
А64 

Р е ц е н з е н т  
канд. филол. наук О.Г. Прокофьева 

  
 

Английский язык: Учеб. пособие по домашнему чтению / 
А64 Т.Н. Галкина, Г.Н. Гращенкова, Е.Н. Зудилова, Л.И. Смирнова. – 
М.: Изд. Дом МИСиС, 2010. – 70 с. 
ISBN 978-5-87623-286-1 

Содержит оригинальные тексты английских и американских авторов.  
Упражнения направлены на расширение словарного запаса и развитие речи. 
В приложении отрабатываются наиболее сложные грамматические явления 
английского языка. 
Предназначено для студентов, обучающихся по направлению 080500 
«Менеджмент», а также может быть использовано студентами других специальностей. 

УДК 811.111 

ISBN 978-5-87623-286-1 
© Галкина Т.Н., Гращенкова Г.Н., 
Зудилова Е.Н., Смирнова Л.И., 2010 

Contents 

Text 1. Charlie Chaplin ..............................................................................4 
Text 2. Languages May Help You Go Places In Industry..........................7 
Text 3. Managing To Be The Best............................................................10 
Text 4. The Magic Of Movies ..................................................................13 
Text 5. Amazing Cities!............................................................................15 
Text 6. How To Be A Successful Inventor...............................................18 
Text 7. All In The Memory ......................................................................21 
Text 8. Twin Lives....................................................................................24 
Text 9. A Christmas Story ........................................................................27 
Text 10. Springtime On The Menu...........................................................31 
Text 11. The Great Depression.................................................................36 
Text 12. A Present From Strasbourg ........................................................40 
Text 13. Mendoza Sells Himself ..............................................................45 
Text 14. Sailing Down The Chesapeake...................................................51 
Text 15. Frankenstein ...............................................................................57 
Supplement. Focus On Grammar .............................................................63 

TEXT 1. CHARLIE CHAPLIN 

In a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, Chaplin was voted the 
greatest actor in movie history. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process – founding his own 
studio, United Artists, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. 
Griffith, and producing, casting, directing, writing, scoring and editing the 
movies he starred in. In the first decades of the 20th century, when weekly 
moviegoing was a national habit, Chaplin helped turn an industry into an 
art. In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10,000 a week made 
him the highest-paid actor – possibly the highest paid person – in the 
world. By 1920, “Chaplinitis,” accompanied by a flood of Chaplin dances, 
songs, dolls, comic books and cocktails, was rampant. Filmmaker Mack 
Sennett thought him “just the greatest artist who ever lived.”  
Born in London in 1889, Chaplin spent his childhood in shabby furnished rooms, state poorhouses and an orphanage. He was never sure who 
his real father was; his mother's husband Charles Chaplin, a singer, deserted the family early and died of alcoholism in 1901. His mother Hannah, a small-time actress, was in and out of mental hospitals. Though he 
pursued learning passionately in later years, young Charlie left school at 
10 to work as a mime and roustabout on the British vaudeville circuit.  
In 1910 he made his first trip to America. In 1913 he joined Sennett's 
Keystone Studios in New York City. There he made his first film Making 
a Living in 1914. 
The actor, not the camera, did the acting in his films. Never a formal 
innovator, Chaplin found his person and plot early and never totally  
abandoned them. For 13 years, he resisted talking pictures, launched with 
The Jazz Singer in 1927. Even then, the talkies he made, among them the 
masterpieces The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and 
Limelight (1952), were variations on his greatest silent films, The Kid 
(1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928) and City Lights (1931).  
On Chaplin's first night in New York in September 1910, he walked 
around the theater district, dazzled by its lights and movement. “This is it!” 
he told himself. “This is where I belong!” Yet he never became a U.S. 
citizen. An internationalist by temperament and fame, he considered patriotism “the greatest insanity that the world has ever suffered.” As the 
Depression gave way to World War II and the cold war, the increasingly 
politicized message of his films, his expressed sympathies with pacifists, 
communists and Soviet supporters, became suspect. 

Edgar Hoover's FBI put together a dossier on Chaplin that reached almost 2,000 pages. Wrongly identifying him a Jew passing for a gentile, 
the FBI found no evidence that he had ever belonged to the Communist 
Party. In 1952, however, two days after Chaplin sailed for England  
to promote Limelight. Loathing the witch-hunts and “moral pomposity” of 
the cold war U.S., and believing he had “lost the affections” of the American public, Chaplin settled with Oona and their family in Switzerland 
(where he died in 1977).  
At the end of City Lights, when the heroine at last sees the man who 
has delivered her from blindness, we watch her romantic dreams die. 
“You?” she asks, incredulous. “Yes,” the Tramp nods, his face, caught in 
extreme close-up, a map of pride, shame and devotion. It's the oldest story 
in show business – the last shall yet be, if not first, at least recognized, and 
perhaps even loved. 
 
ASSIGNMENTS 

1. Match the expressions on the left with their definitions on the right. 

1. 
to date 
1. 
звуковые фильмы 
2. 
weekly movie going 
2. 
обосноваться 
3. 
rampant 
3. 
выражать сочувствие  
в связи с чем-либо 
4. 
state poorhouses 
4. 
не желать принимать  
участие в «охоте на ведьм» 
5. 
a small-time actress 
5.  
политический подтекст 
6. 
work as a mime and roustabout 
6. 
процесс кинопроизводства 

7. 
talkies 
7. 
еженедельное посещение  
кинотеатров 
8. 
to abandon 
8. 
к данному моменту 
9. 
filmmaking process 
9. 
работать имитатором  
и разнорабочим 
10. 
to express sympathy with 
smth. 
10. 
безумный, неистовый 

11. 
to loose smb's affection  
11. 
продвигать, рекламировать  
12. 
to loath the witch-hunts 
12. 
большое преимущество 
13. 
to settle with  
13. 
отказываться от чего-либо 
14. 
to promote 
14. 
утратить чью-либо  
привязанность 
15. 
a politicized message  
15. 
заурядная актриса 

2. Suggest English synonyms and Russian equivalents for the following expressions. Reproduce the situations in the text in which they 
are used. 
1. to turn a filmmaking process into an art; 
2. the witch-hunt; 
3. to consider patriotism “the greatest insanity that the world has 
ever suffered”;  
4. a politicized message of one’s films. 

3. Give a written translation of the first paragraph of the text. 

4. Answer the questions: 
1. What was Chaplin’s innovation in filmmaking? 
2. Who did the acting in Charlie Chaplin’s films? 
3. Why do you think Charlie Chaplin resisted talking pictures for 
many years? 
4. Why did he leave America to settle in Switzerland?  
5. What are the most famous (your favorite) Chaplin’s films? 
6. Why do you think Charlie Chaplin is said to be the greatest actor in movie history? Are his films still popular nowadays?  

5. Retell the text using the expressions and key-words from the 
text. The text should be closed. The vocabulary list can be opened. 
Try to use each of them. 

6. Make a fact file of your favorite actor/actress. Work in pairs. 
Act as a journalist interviewing a film star. Choose the best questions 
to ask your partner from the list below (add more). Guess your partner’s favorite actor/actress name. 
– Have you always wanted to be an actor? 
– Have you achieved your ambitions? 
– What are you working on at the moment? 
– How many films have you starred in? What are they? 
– Is there any special relationship in your life? 
– How would you like people to remember you? 
– Describe your typical working day. 
– What have been the best/ worst moments in your career so far? 
 

TEXT 2. LANGUAGES MAY HELP YOU GO PLACES 
IN INDUSTRY 

Every year hundreds of modern language graduates leave university 
with romantic notion of “working with languages” – probably in exotic 
jobs overseas. After spending several months optimistically offering their 
services to international organizations, the BBC, the Foreign Service and 
language international companies, the truth dawns. 
There are, of course, many opportunities for teaching languages, ranging from the universities to primary school. Teaching apart, there are very 
few jobs for which languages as such are any qualification. And for these 
few competition is very tough. The world demand for conference interpreters (to take just one example) is about 1,111 which means about 60 
new entrants to the profession each year. Yet, there are 20, 000 hopeful 
students for interpreters in Europe. 
The key to using languages is to regard them as a bonus – as something extra to offer an employer or to bring to any chosen career. In overseas selling, in advertising, in information work, in libraries, a knowledge 
of languages can be a tremendous advantage – in some jobs it is essential. 
But the man concerned must first and foremost be an expert in sales, advertising, information work, or librarianship. 
The most direct application of languages is in translating, but even here 
the linguist has to reinforce his language with special commercial or technical knowledge. If he wants to earn a decent leaving, he must become an 
expert, say, in translating Russian papers on rocketry or Spanish legal 
contracts or Arabic sales literature. 
There is, however, a serious shortage of top-class technical translators, 
though only a few large organizations have translating departments of 
their own. It is a cardinal rule to translate only into one’s own language, 
so many jobs go to “mother tongues” – foreigners living in this country. 
Finally, because of the industry’s tendency to regards translators merely 
as “little black boxes that tick”, career prospects in this usual sense are 
limited. Translators tend to remain translators. 
Industry’s prejudice against the language graduate is not unjustified. 
Many of the traditional language degrees have been based on classical 
literature, with the result that even honored graduates are sometimes quite 
incapable of holding an ordinary conversation in French, or “couldn’t 
translate a simple sentence in German” – to quote two employers’ experience. Or as one graduate summed it up: “They did not think that teaching 
you to speak a language was a part of their job.” 

The practical approach to languages, understanding not only the language but the people who speak it is reflected in the radically different 
language courses which have developed in the past three or four years, 
mostly in the technological universities or technical colleges. Some of 
these combine language with depth study of the political, economic and 
social background of the relevant countries. Others incorporate a language 
in degree courses in engineering, metallurgy or communication sciences. 
Still others combine language with commerce or business studies.  
Overall the aim is to produce highly competent linguists who can put 
their language into practical use in technical or executive positions. They 
will have acquired a real appreciation of the countries studied.  
 
ASSIGNMENTS 

1. Match the expressions on the left with their definitions on the right. 
1.  а language graduate 
1.  
получать высокую  
(приличную) зарплату 
2.  tough competition 
2.  
поддерживать разговор  
на простую тему 
3.  direct application  
of languages 
3.  
выпускники, получившие  
диплом с отличием 
4.  to earn a decent leaving 
4.  
большое преимущество 
5.  to hold an ordinary  
conversation 
5.  
практический подход 

6.  “mother tongues” 
6.  
открыть правду, прояснить 
7.  social and economic  
background 
7.  
применить языковые знания  

8.  a tremendous  
advantage 
8.  
обогатить словарный запас  
(знания)  
9.  practical approach 
9.  
носители языка 
10. to dawn the truth 
10. 
Министерство иностранных дел 
11. honors graduates 
11. 
социальные и экономические  
условия  
12. put the language into  
practical use 
12. 
жесткая конкуренция 

13. to reinforce one’s language 13. 
руководящая должность 
14. the Foreign Service 
14. 
непосредственное применение 
знаний иностранного языка 
15. an executive position 
15. 
выпускник лингвистического  
института 

2. Suggest English synonyms and Russian equivalents for the following expressions. Reproduce the situations in the text in which they 
are used. 
1. to go places in industry; 
2. to regard smb. as “little black boxes that tick”; 
3. direct application of language;  
4. to reinforce language with some knowledge; 
5. to combine language with depth study of smth; 
6. social and economic background of a country. 

3. Make up your own situation using the expressions from the list 
above. Write. 

4. Translate the following passage into Russian (write): “Industry’s 
prejudice against the language graduates is not unjustified …” up to the end.  

5. Answer the questions in every detail with your text closed: 
1. Do the language graduates know what kind of work they are  
expected to do? 
2. Are there a lot of language jobs in this country and overseas? 
3. What’s the key to using languages?  
4. What does the practical approach to learning languages imply?  
5. Should a language learner concentrate on language only if he wants 
to go places in industry? 

6. Retell the text using the expressions and key-words from the 
text. Express your own opinion on the problem. Do you agree with the 
author? 

TEXT 3. MANAGING TO BE THE BEST 

The main reason living standards have improved so much in the 20th 
century is that businesses have become so much more productive. And it 
is managers who have helped drive that evolution. The great ones do more 
than just run things efficiently; they develop and put into practice ideas 
that transcend their company, their industry, even their national borders. 
Their ideas survive to become vocabulary in the halls of management and 
often in society at large. 
Alfred Sloan literally wrote the book on managing large organizations – My Years with General Motors. He came into a GM that was cash 
short, chaotic and nearly bankrupt – Ford had a 60 % market share – and 
brought discipline to a sprawling company, clearly defining the issues of 
planning, strategy and organization. He mastered the concept of market 
segmentation – Chevrolets for Everyman, Cadillacs for the wealthy – to 
better target GM's sales and avoid internal competition, a strategy that left 
Ford behind. Sloan also understood what managers today call “consumer 
insight” by visiting Ford dealers incognito to learn about buyer behavior 
and competitive offerings. 
At the beginning of the 1980s, 45-year-old Jack Welch became CEO of 
another giant, General Electric. Farsighted, he recognized the threat of 
competition from Japan and elsewhere and had the intellectual and emotional strength to deal with it. He set the tone for U.S. industry. GE became highly productive by undertaking a complex reorganization that 
simplified the company into one with dominant positions in its carefully 
chosen businesses. Welch then remade GE into a boundaryless organization 
that encouraged, and got, participation from employees at all levels. It was a 
monumental accomplishment in a company of GE's diversity and size.  
Roberto Goizueta, the late longtime CEO of Coca-Cola, proved that 
there is no such thing as a mature business. He defined exactly what business Coke was in a task that is far harder than you think. For instance, he 
taught his executives that when they set goals for market share, they 
needed to focus on the share of stomach, not the share of carbonated beverages. His adversary was water, not soda. By this definition, Coke's 
40 %-plus market share became 3 %, changing the company's view of 
growth. By 1997 he pushed Coke's overseas profits up to nearly 80 % of 
total earnings, from 65 %. This global view was reflected in people too.  
Countries other than America have also grown superb business leaders. 
One legend in Japan is Konosuke Matsushita, whose company includes 

Panasonic and other well-known brands. Witnessing his father's bankruptcy as a small child prompted Matsushita to develop new values of 
how an enterprise ought to be run. Like Sam Walton, he paid attention to 
the consumer and sought ways to increase demand and reduce prices. He 
forced the competition to embrace this concept, making the market grow 
while creating more profit. He also showed that human well-being and 
making money are not inconsistent. In downturns he found other jobs for 
redundant workers and preserved their dignity. This is the Japanese way, 
and he used it to build one of the largest corporations in the world. 
Do these four share common traits other than their leadership and superb business acumen? Yes. They were curious folks and hence lifelong 
learners. And they paid attention to people, realizing that the potential of 
any enterprise hinged on giving subordinates the maximum opportunity to 
succeed. Even in the 21st century, these characteristics will still be required of great managers. 
 
ASSIGNMENTS 

1. Match the expressions on the left with their definitions on the right. 
1. 
to put ideas into practice 
1. 
азбука менеджмента 
2. 
to transcend  
the company 
2. 
ставить задачи на увеличения 
доли участия компании на рынке

3. 
vocabulary in the halls 
of management 
3. 
предприимчивость, деловая 
хватка 
4. 
a sprawling company 
4. 
разваливающаяся компания 
5. 
to master the concept  
of market segmentation 
5. 
увеличить прибыли  

6. 
target sales 
6. 
уволенные рабочие 
7. 
“consumer insight” 
7. 
известные марки 
8. 
mature business 
8. 
целевые продажи 
9. 
set goals for market share
9. 
выходить за рамки компании  
10.
to push profits up 
10.
усовершенствовать концепцию 
рыночной сегментации 
11.
well-known brands 
11.
противник 
12.
redundant workers 
12.
задать тон (направить) развитие

13.
to set the tone for  
13.
зрелый/хорошо  
сформировавшийся бизнес 
14.
adversary 
14.
изучение потребительского 
спроса 
15.
business acumen 
15.
претворять в жизнь идеи