Staten Island — a string of firecrackers — followed by a boom: somebody

Must have lit an M-80.

Then a red carnation blossomed over Brooklyn — fireworks in Prospect

Park — and fireworks went off over Manhattan. We heard firecrackers

Going off in sheets and waves everywhere in New York. We also heard sirens

In Brooklyn — they could have been police cars, ambulances or fire engines.

Precisely at the turn of the year, it seems, a small fraction of the

People in New York City commit a crime of violence, get a fire going,

Or need an ambulance. A Staten Island Rapid Transit train rattled by.

There were no passengers in it, but the driver was leaning on the horn.

A party on an empty train.

We never did hear the Manhattan sound wave. Maybe the firecrackers

drowned it out, or maybe the glass buildings that have grown up in the

Financial district blocked it, or maybe we weren’t paying enough attention.

Yet my father is still certain that he heard Manhattan more than

once. ≪I was overwhelmed by the miraculous phenomenon of that sound

coming from so far away, from such a distance,≫ he said to me on New

Year’s morning. ≪We felt it was a sound of joy, sort of.≫

(Source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/

backissues/2013/12/new-years-at-the-new-yorker.html)

True False

The lights of the Empire State Building were

Turned off for a time.

The tone of this text is critical.

Fireworks experts set off the majority of the

Firecrackers that could be seen and heard.

4 The phrase ≪drowned it out≫ could be replaced

with ≪covered it up≫.

The sounds of police cars, ambulances and fire

Engines were not the result of emergencies.

An M-80 is most likely a type of candle.

7 The ≪Manhattan sound wave≫ is most likely

Composed of wailing and shrieking.

The narrator describes seeing an actual populated

Party taking place on a train.

The narrator’s father hesitantly describes the

Sound coming from Manhattan as that of joy.

The narrator’s attitude toward the events is

better described as ≪amused≫ than as ≪apathetic≫.

Www.e-ranok.com.ua

Variant 25

2 Complete the text with the words from the table.

Schools (1) the country are rethinking ≪zero tolerance≫ discipline

Policies under which children have been suspended, even (2),

For minor offences (3) cursing, getting into shoving matches and

Other garden-variety misbehaviour that in years past would have been

Resolved with detention or meetings with a child’s parents.

These reappraisals are long overdue. Studies have shown that suspensions

And expulsions do nothing to improve the school (4), while

Increasing the risk that children will experience long-term social and

(5) problems. Federal data also indicates that minority students are

Disproportionately singled out for harsh disciplinary measures.

These policies date (6) to 1994, when Congress required states

Receiving federal education money to expel students for bringing guns

Onto school property. States and local (7) broadened and distorted

This mandate to expel children for minor infractions. At the same

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