English Language Competition
ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMPETITION
‘Around Great Britain 2010’
ORANISER: mgr Angelina Rusinek
DATE: 29 March 2010
NAME: …………………………………………………
TIME: 45 minutes
SCORES: …………….. / 70
I. Look at the maps below. These are parts of Great Britain. Identify them and the places marked with numbers. Choose from the places given in the box.
Ben Nevis the Pennines Belfast Scotland Cardiff Loch Ness EnglandNorthern Ireland Snowdon Wales
II. Write T for true and F for false.
1. ____ The Cornish Heights are the highest mountains in Britain.
2. ____ Manx cats are cats without whiskers.
3. ____ The Celts arrived on the Islands some 2500-3000 years ago.
4. ____ England became part of the Roman Empire in 43 AD.
5. ____ The names of towns in Britain which end with –chester, -caster, -cestre are of
Celtic origin.
6. ____ Queen Elizabeth I never married but had a son with a noble man whom she
loved but couldn’t marry.
7. ____ King Henry VII had six wives.
8. ____ King James I started the Stuart dynasty in England.
9. ____ The Act of Union in 1808 united Scotland with England.
10. ____ George Milton’s masterpiece is ‘Paradise Lost’.
11. ____ William Wordsworth and Lord George Gordon Byron are great English poets
of the romantic period.
12. ____ A Victorian English novelist Charles Dickens is the author of ‘Gulliver’s
Travels’.
13. ____ ‘Beowulf’ is the oldest literature text of the Anglo-Saxon period.
14. ____ The Constitution of the UK is unwritten.
15. ____ Haggis is a popular alcoholic drink in Ireland.
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III. Choose the correct answer. If you believe that none of the answers given in points a), b), c), d) is right, give your own in the space provided in point e).
1. The Church of England was separated from the Roman Catholic Church by:
a) King Arthur
b) King Henry V
c) King Henry VI
d) King Richard the Lionheart
e) ………………………………………
2. Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s sons’ names are:
a) William and Andrew
b) Andrew and Harry
c) Harry and Phillip
d) William and Harry
e) ………………………………………
3. William the Conqueror, who invaded British Isles in the 11th century, had:
a) French blood
b) Spanish blood
c) Roman blood
d) Scandinavian blood
e) ………………………………………
4. Each country has a national sign. The Scottish emblem is:
a) a red rose
b) a shamrock
c) a daisy
d) a leek
e) ………………………………………
5. Sean Connery, famous for playing the character of James Bond (a secret agent working for the British Government) is of:
a) Irish origin
b) Scottish origin
c) Welsh origin
d) English origin
e) ………………………………………
6. The patron of Ireland is:
a) St. George
b) St. Andrew
c) St. David
d) St. John
e) ………………………………………
7. Once a person buys his friends a drink in a pub, they all, one by one, do it. This custom is called:
a) a round
b) a quid
c) a beer well
d) a beer pool
e) ………………………………………
8. Cockney is:
a) a lake in Scotland
b) a famous Welsh pop star
c) London working-class slang
d) a river in England
e) ………………………………………
9. In the 19th century two political parties became strong and recognized. These are:
a) The Wigs and the Lancasters
b) The Lancasters and the Roses
c) The Roses and the Tories
d) The Tories and the Wigs
e) ………………………………………
10. The oldest British newspaper is:
a) ‘The Daily Express’
b) ‘The Times’
c) ‘The Guardian’
d) ‘The Daily Mirror’
e) ………………………………………
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IV. Match the names of the writers with the literary periods they lived in. Put the correct abbreviation in the gaps.
VA = the Victorian Age
ROM = Romanticism
REN = the Renaissance
_____ William Shakespeare
_____ Charles Dickens
_____ William Blake
_____ Emily Brontë
_____ Percy Bysshe Shelly ..…………./5
V. LITERATURE. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate name, title, etc.
1. ………………….………..……………. wrote ‘The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’, which is a ballad about a mariner who shoots an albatross, which becomes a curse for the whole ship.
2. Joseph Conrad, whose real Polish surname is…………………………….., wrote ‘The Heart of Darkness’ and ‘Lord Jim’.
3. The founder of the English historical novel is ………………………………….., the author of ‘Ivanhoe’, who based his novels on folk ballads and medieval romances.
4. Samuel Beckett, a Nobel Prize winner in 1969, studies the human character and behaviour. His most important work is entitled ‘…………………………………’.
5. One of the best known writers of the decadence period at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is ……………………………………….. – the author of a great drama ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, famous for his homosexual relationships.
…………./5
VI. EDUCATION. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate term.
1. Universities which were founded in the 19th century and which provide technological training are called……………………………….
2. School starts at …………….o’clock a.m.
3. One example of the newest universities opened after 1960 is ……………………………
4. University courses usually last ………………years.
5. Pupils start primary schools at the age of ………………
…………../5
VII. PLACES. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate name.
1. …………………………..is the birthplace of The Beatles.
2. Oxford and Cambridge are called together …………………………………….
3. The largest city in Scotland is ………………………………..
4. The remains of several Roman baths are situated in ……………………..
5. The Crown Jewels are kept in …………..…………………….
6. The Royal Observatory is located in ……………………………., London.
7. The official home of the British Prime Minister is ………………….………………..
8. …………………………..is a fashionable London department store, one of the largest in Europe, where you can buy anything you want.
9. Because of its big number of museum and galleries, …………………………is called the Athens of the North.
10. ………………………………….is the capital city of Northern Ireland.
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VIII. PEOPLE. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate name.
1. ………………………………..is considered to have been a romantic figure in the history of Scotland due to her unhappy love relationships. She got captured by her cousin and spent most of her lifetime in prison. Her son, James VI of Scotland became the king of England.
2. ……………………………………invented the steam engine in 1769.
3. ……………………………….. was Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s daughter. Although her father longed for a son, due to a fate irony it was her who came to the throne and became one of the most powerful English rulers. She is known for saying: ‘I know I have the body of a week and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King.’
4. ………………………………….. – during her reign Britain’s colonial expansion reached its peak, although Canada and Australia were given independence.
5. ………………………………………..is the current Prince of Wales.
6. Although ……………………………..was a poor farmer’s daughter and eight years older than Will Shakespeare, the son of a rich mayor of Stratford, the poet fell in love with her and married her.
7. ……………………………………was a Roman Catholic conspirator who tried to assassinate King James I in 1605 by exploding barrels of gunpowder in the Houses of Parliament. He was imprisoned and hanged.
8. ………………………………..is the name of a family doctor.
9. ………………………………….is a British writer of popular detective books and plays, many of which have been made into films. Her most famous works are ‘The Mousetrap’, ‘Sleeping Murder’, etc.
10. ………………………………….never became a queen, but was believed to be the Queen of People’s Hearts. She died in a car accident in Paris in 1997.
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