Table Of ContentМИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РФ
Нижегородский государственный университет им. Н.И. Лобачевского
Национальный исследовательский университет
ПРАКТИКУМ ПО ДОМАШНЕМУ ЧТЕНИЮ
«UNSOLVED MYSTERIES»
ЧАСТЬ 2
Практикум
Рекомендовано методической комиссией Института международных отношений
и мировой истории для студентов ННГУ, обучающихся по направлениям
подготовки 031900 «Международные отношения», 032000 «Зарубежное
регионоведение»
Нижний Новгород
2014
УДК 42.8 (07)
ББК 143.21я.73
П 69
П 69 ПРАКТИКУМ ПО ДОМАШНЕМУ ЧТЕНИЮ «UNSOLVED
MYSTERIES». ЧАСТЬ 2. Составители: Жерновая О.Р., Глазунова Н.А.,
Подгусков В.Н., Ходырева Е.Б.: Практикум. – Нижний Новгород:
Нижегородский госуниверситет, 2014. – 32с.
Рецензент: д.и.н., профессор И.В. Рыжов
Целью данного практикума является развитие необходимых навыков
анализа текста и ведения дискуссии, а также речевой и языковой компетенций,
у студентов 1-го и 2-го курсов факультета международных отношений,
изучающих английский язык как основной на среднем этапе обучения.
УДК 42.8(07)
ББК 143.21я.73
© Нижегородский государственный
университет им. Н.И. Лобачевского, 2014
Contents
Введение 4
UNIT I. THE MAN FROM NOWHERE 5
Pronunciation 5
Warm-up 5
Reading 5
Comprehension check 7
Word Study 8
Writing 9
Talking Point 9
UNIT II. LIZZIE BORDEN 10
Pronunciation 10
Warm-up 10
Reading 10
Comprehension check 13
Word Study 14
Writing 15
Talking Point 15
UNIT III. ANASTAIA 16
Pronunciation 16
Warm-up 16
Reading 16
Comprehension check 19
Word Study 20
Writing 21
Talking Point 21
UNIT IV. THE GIRL WHO JUST FADED AWAY 22
Pronunciation 22
Warm-up 22
Reading 22
Comprehension check 24
Word Study 24
Writing 26
Talking Point 26
UNIT V. AMBROSE BIERCE 27
Pronunciation 27
Warm-up 27
Reading 27
Comprehension check 29
Word Study 30
Speaking 31
Talking Point 31
Введение
Предлагаемый практикум по домашнему чтению может быть использован
для развития навыков чтения, письма и говорения у студентов, владеющих
средним уровнем (intermediate level) английского языка.
Все рассказы посвящены неразрешенным загадкам и представляют
интересный сюжетный материал, что, в свою очередь, дает возможность
учащимся выйти на обсуждение проблемных вопросов.
Все тексты сборника снабжены упражнениями на понимание содержания,
фонетическими упражнениями, лексическим комментарием, вопросами для
дальнейшей дискуссии и составления монологического или диалогического
высказывания, а также, письменными заданиями для написания эссе, газетной
статьи или рассказа.
В качестве заданий на развитие лексики в упражнения по каждому тексту
включены фразеологические глаголы и идиомы.
4
UNIT I
THE MAN FROM NOWHERE
Pronunciation
Note the pronunciation of the following words:
1. inquisitive
2. squinted
3. uttered
4. legible
5. inscribed
6. seized
7. purported
8. tutelage
9. wielding
10. assigned
Warm-up
Work in groups and discuss the following questions:
Have you ever heard about any inexplicable murder cases which were not solved and
still remain a puzzle? Compare your answers with your group-mates. Do they have
anything in common?
Reading
Read the text and answer the following questions:
1. Who was a strange young man first noticed by?
2. What did Kasper Hauser constantly repeat at the police station?
3. Where did the young man spend his first night in the city?
4. What was offered for anyone who could identify the young man?
5. What was Kasper Hauser taught to do under the tutelage of Dr. Daumer?
6. When and why did Kasper Hauser die?
He was a strange one all right … just as the authorities said … this young man
who acted as though he had just dropped in from another world.
He was just outside the new gate entrance to the city of Nuremberg, Germany,
when an inquisitive policeman first noticed him. He was clean but so poorly dressed
that he was almost ragged. The policeman later told his supervisors that he had first
been attracted to the young man by the difficulty with which he seemed to walk … as
though suffering from some deformity which caused him to stumble. His feet were
badly swollen; his eyes were squinted against the light.
The inquisitive policeman tried to question the lad but he learned nothing …
over and over the stranger kept repeating. …
“I want to be a soldier like my father was!”
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It didn’t sound like an expression of determination … but more like a chant …
as though the strange young man who uttered it was merely reciting words he didn’t
understand.
The policeman led him to the station, where the mayor and other local
dignitaries gathered to observe and question this unusual visitor. In a monotone the
young man continued to repeat his assertion that he wished to be a soldier like his
father.
His name? He evidently didn’t understand what they were saying and he stared
blankly. But when a pen was placed in his hand he giggled nervously and wrote in a
slow, legible hand … KASPER HAUSER. He could not … or would not … write
anything else. But on that quiet Whit-Monday* afternoon in 1828, the young man had
inscribed on the records the name that was to mark the beginning of a puzzle which
remains unsolved to this day.
When food was placed before him, he seized it in his hands and crammed it into
his mouth as though he were famished. A mug of cold milk was evidently something
he had never encountered before and he recoiled from it. Water he drank, but not until
he had sampled it with a forefinger.
Just before nightfall, while the baffled city fathers of Nuremberg were trying to
decide what to do with their enigmatic visitor, he presented them with two more
pieces to the puzzle … two letters wrapped in rags which he carried inside his tattered
vest. One letter purported to be from his mother. Dated sixteen years before, it urged
anyone who found the boy to send him to Nuremberg when he was seventeen so he
could enlist in the Sixth Cavalry of which his father had been member, according to
the letter.
The other missive was badly written and purported to be from someone who
had found the boy and cared for him but who could no longer support him.
Oddly, both letters were written on some sort of thin leather or parchment
which was not familiar to the officials at Nuremberg.
Kasper Hauser, if that was indeed his name, spent that first night with the city’s
most learned man, Dr. Daumer, where the young man promptly astonished his host by
trying to pick the flame off a candle. Further tests brought out that he had no depth
perception whatever and, although he seemed to be in full possession of his faculties,
they were as undeveloped as those of a baby.
Although the condition of his feet and legs indicated that he had walked a
considerable distance, no one could be found who had seen him on the road. A reward
was offered for anyone who could identify him. Pictures were distributed throughout
Europe, but to no avail. The more the officials probed, the deeper the mystery of
Kasper Hauser became.
Under the kind and patient tutelage of Dr. Daumer, Kasper Hauser learned
quickly … first to speak … and then to write. He told his newfound friends that he
had been raised since infancy in total darkness in a cellar … had never tasted
anything except black bread and water … had never seen the man who brought his
food in total darkness. He had seldom heard his speech … and then only a few words.
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But how, or why, or where he had spent those years he had no idea.
In October of 1829, Kasper came stumbling out of Dr. Daumer’s basement,
bleeding from a deep gash on the head which he said had been inflicted by a masked
man wielding a long knife. The city officials assigned two policemen o guard him
after that … but while they dozed on the afternoon of 14 December 1833 Kasper
Hauser went for a stroll in the park across the street … a stroll from which he came
staggering back a few minutes later … dying from a stab wound which surgeons said
could not have been self-inflicted.
The snow in the park revealed no footprints other than Kasper’s … and no trace
o the weapon.
The well-documented facts in the enigma of Kasper Hauser entitle it to a place
in the records as one of the strangest cases of its kind.
Von Feuerbach wrote of him: “Kasper Hauser showed such ignorance of the
simplest facts of life and such horror of the necessities of civilization that one feels
driven to believe that he was a native of another planet transferred by some miracle to
our own.”
Comprehension check
I. Some of these statements about Kasper Hauser are true, others are false.
Decide whether each statement is true or false and correct the false ones.
1. The policeman told his supervisors that he had first been attracted to the young
man by his poor shabby clothes.
2. The policeman led Kasper Hauser to Dr. Daumer’s place, where the mayor and
other local dignitaries gathered to observe and question this unusual visitor.
3. When the young man was given some food, he seized it in his hands and
crammed it into his mouth.
4. The strange young man had two unusual letters wrapped in rags which he
carried inside his tattered vest. One letter purported to be from his father.
5. The other missive was well written and purported to be from a man who had
found the boy and cared for him but who could no longer support him.
6. The young man promptly astonished Dr. Daumer by trying to pick the flame off
a candle.
7. The tests brought out that the young man was in full possession of his faculties,
although they were a bit undeveloped.
8. Under the tutelage of Dr. Daumer, Kasper Hauser learned to speak, to write and
to eat.
9. In November of 1829, Kasper was wounded by a masked man wielding a knife.
10. Kasper Hauser died from a stab wound which surgeons said could not have
been self-inflicted.
II. Answer more detailed questions:
1. Where did that mysterious case take place?
2. What did Kasper Hauser look like when he first appeared in the city of
7
Nuremberg?
3. What was the policeman attracted to the strange young man by?
4. Where did the policeman lead Kasper Hauser to?
5. Could the young man write?
6. How did Kasper Hauser eat when food was placed before him?
7. What two letters did the young man present the local dignitaries with?
8. Who were these letters purported to be from?
9. What was Dr. Daumer astonished by when Kasper Hauser stayed at his place?
10. What did the condition of Kasper Hauser’s feet and legs indicate?
11. Did the city officials manage to find anyone who could identify the mysterious
young man?
12. What did Kasper Hauser tell his newfound friends about his childhood?
13. What incident happened to Kasper Hauser in October of 1829?
14. Why were two policemen assigned to guard the young man?
15. When did Kasper Hauser come back home dying from a stab wound?
16. Why did that case remain unsolved?
Word study
I. Give definitions to the following verbs from the text:
1. to stumble
2. to squint
3. to utter
4. to recite
5. to stare (blankly)
6. to giggle
7. to seize
8. to cram
9. to recoil from
10. to sample
11. to inflict
12. to stagger
II. Find words in the text to the following definitions:
1. to visit someone informally without arranging a particular time
2. asking too many questions and trying to find out too many details about
someone or something
3. someone who has an important official position
4. written or printed clearly enough for you to read
5. being in a state of not understanding anything
6. to experience something
7. to claim to be or do something, even if this is not true
8. to join the army, navy
9. a letter
8
10. to not succeed in getting what you want
11. responsibility for someone’s education
12. to sleep lightly for a short time
13. to give someone a particular job or make them responsible for a particular
person or thing
14. a walk
15. a sign
III. Use the lexical units from the exercises above in the sentences of your own.
Writing
What do you think happened to Kasper Hauser? Write a paragraph of about
100-120 words giving your personal opinion.
Talking point
Retell this unsolved mystery using active vocabulary from the name of:
- a policeman who first noticed Kasper Hauser;
- one of the city officials;
- Dr. Daumer;
- a newspaper reporter.
9
UNIT II
LIZZIE BORDEN
Pronunciation
Note the pronunciation of the following words:
1. prominent
2. inexplicable
3. to sign
4. cautious
5. prussic acid
6. suspicious
7. epilepsy
8. spacious
9. verdict
10. guilty
11. curious
12. mature
Warm-up
Work in groups, discuss the following questions:
1. Do you know about any other inexplicable murder cases? Consider the cases of
Jack the Ripper, President J.F. Kennedy's assassination etc.
2. Why do you think these cases still remain unsolved mysteries? Compare your
answers with your group-mates. Do they have anything in common?
Reading
Read the text and answer the following questions:
1. What was one of the reasons Lizzie hated her stepmother?
2. Why did the Bordens keep their door locked?
3. According to Lizzie, where was she when her father was killed?
4. Where was Abby Borden?
5. Why did Lizzie want to buy poison?
6. How long did it take the jury to reach a verdict?
At 8.00 am, 4 August, the day was already hottest of the year. In the dining
room of their big white house in Second Street, members of the Borden family were
having breakfast. At the table sat prominent 70-year-old businessman Andrew
Borden, his second wife, Abby and a brother-in-law of Andrew's, John Morse. John
was manager of one of the Borden farms. Andrew's two daughters by his first
marriage, Emma and Lizzie, were absent. Emma was visiting friends in a nearby
town.
Lizzie, a rather unattractive, inhibited, unmarried woman of 32 had not yet
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