6. Listen to a story by j. G. Gozzens. Discuss it in groups of 3-4 until you are ready to sum up its message and guess its title.

7. Below there are two stories about getting on in life. Working in pairs, get prepared to explain how their contents are related to Joseph Epstein’s ideas on ambition. Picking up from both stories, enlarge the list of your topical vocabulary, paying special attention to the phrasal verbs.

Two people, Peter and Jane are describing how they came to choose their careers.

Peter

At the moment I have a very good, well-paid job that I enjoy doing, but it hasn't always been like this.

Several years ago I used to work as a salesman for a small company that specialized in making motor components for the car industry. It was the sort of job where you had to be committed to your product, you had to believe in it and do everything possible to sell it. But times were hard, and a lot of companies were going out of business, so our company started to cut back on the number of people it employed in order to save money- fortunately, I wasn't one of them - but in the end it had to close down, and I found myself out of work for the first time in my life.

I applied for several jobs in similar companies, but I wasn't successful - every one of them turned me down.

Then one day I was looking through the paper and I came across an advertisement for courses that specialized in journalism I filled in an application form, sent it off, was accepted onto the course, studied hard, passed al1 my exams, and became a qualified journalist. I then wrote to a small magazine for the car industry, attended an interview along with dozens of other applicants and, to my surprise, they took me on. The magazine grew in size and popularity. I moved from writing articles to being sub-editor, and this year I became the editor, so I suppose I've been lucky really.

Jane

When I was young my father always told me how important it was to get on in life and be a success. “You must make something of your life”, he used to say. I think he wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer or something like that. And I can remember how disappointed he was when I left school early and started work as a secretary.

It was a small, badly-run company, and when I went there they told me the job wasn't difficult and I would soon pick it up. At the beginning I liked the job, but as time passed the work started to take up more of my time and I found I was working late in the evenings and even at weekends. And in addition to this I had to put up with poor working conditions and a low salary - I earned just enough to get by - and there were no promotion prospects at all. All this really got me down. And then I started to wonder if I was really cut out for this kind of work - it didn't really suit me or my particular abilities.

Then one day - I remember I’d been working very hard that month and had put in a lot of extra hours - I went to see my boss to ask for some time off work. I needed to visit my mother, who wasn't well at the time. I have to say that I didn't get on with my boss very well. Anyway, he refused point-blank. He said it was out of the question and he didn't want to hear another word. I tried explaining but I just couldn't get through to him. He wouldn't listen. So I walked out of the office, and as far as I was concerned, that was it, that was the last straw. The next day I handed in my resignation, and I said to myself I would never put myself in that kind of position again. I decided to return to studying and go in for law. I graduated from London University and now I’m starting to make my way in the world. As my father used to say, “The world is my oyster”.

So was my father right? Is it important to get on in the world? Well, in some ways it is, but it depends on how you measure success and what you want to get out of life. After all, there are other things in life besides work.

8. Think over and suggest a suitable plot for a story which title is “An Alternative Cinderella”. Discuss the suggested plots in groups of 4. Choose the best one. Compare the choices in the form of a competition between groups. Choose 1 plot, which is the best and compare it with the key version.

9. Talk on the following, making good use of topical vocabulary:

1. Ambition is fruitless without setting and hitting targets.

2. Ambition is like a powerful engine, driving one forward.

3. Ambition is something that allows one to reveal a great deal of oneself.

4. The life shorn of ambition is doomed to be a total waste.

5. Ambition is meaningless without the love of the world.

10. Contradict or support the following statement in the form of debates:

It is ambition that helps people to get a great deal out of life.

Section 5

Writing

1. Insert the links from the box below to fill in the blanks in the following essay. Determine their functions.

quite likely, evidently, strongly, apparently, definitely, naturally, publicly, surely, literally, certainly, presumably, unfairly, eventually

_____, when one is possessed by ambition of some kind and _____feels its stirrings and promptings, s/he can hardly drive it under counter just because the rest of the world is distrustful of ambition as a healthy impulse and tends to look with admiration only at those people who prove to be ambitious for the public good only.

_____, the truly ambitious people, will have to give up on ambition as an ideal, ____trying to refrain from appearing ambitious, to say nothing of ____professing it.

____, any public defenders, supporters or promoters of ambition will then be regarded as ____ obtuse, while attacks on ambition will most ____ be held praiseworthy. ____, I don’t think it’s easy to handle ambition, when you are ____ imbued with it even for the sake of common courtesy and sense.

____ ambition (except blind ambition, of course) is harmless and so any public attacks on it only ____ restrict people’s freedom of choice. ____ the rewards of ambition should be taken seriously and by all means defended for the good of all society.