2. Using word-combinations from the list of topical vocabulary (Section 3, task 8) at your own choice and some of the links above, write a paragraph to disclose the following topic sentence:

John Lennon once said that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

3. Prove the opposite in the form of a written statement.

1. There is no and has never been any controversy on the issue of ambition.

2. An ambitious individual is not a good match in marriage.

3. Ambition is the worst answer to the question about the point of life.

4. Ambition is purely imaginary.

5. The essence of ambition is nothing else but a passion.

4. Develop arguments to prove the following points and make written statements.

1. Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

2. I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me; the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. Jerome Klapka Jerome

3. Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. Samuel Johnson

5. Write a composition on one of the following topics:

1. Why do many people fail in satisfying their ambitions?

2. What should one know about ambition?

3. What are the pitfalls of ambition?

4. Can ambition be acquired?

5. What makes one ambitious?

Lesson VI Topic: On the meaning of Life

H. L. Mencken

Section 1

Target Patterns

1. Study the following target patterns.

1) Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism – in fact, it is almost impossible.

- Бездействие, за исключением необходимой меры для восстановления сил между периодами бурной деятельности, болезненно и опасно для здорового организма и, по сути, почти невозможно.

2) Only the dying can be really idle.

- Только умирающие могут ничего не делать.

3) a) What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand.

- Я просто делаю то, что мне легче всего дается.

b) What I got in Sunday-school … was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and the Christian God preposterous.

- То, что я усвоил, посещая воскресную школу, было ни чем иным как твердое убеждение в полной абсурдности христианской веры и Бога.

с) What the meaning of human life may be I don’t know: I incline to suspect that it has none.

- В чем может заключаться смысл человеческой жизни, я не знаю: но склонен думать, что ни в чем.

4) It happens also that I was born with an intense and insatiable interest in ideas, and thus to play with them.

- Дело в том, что я с детства испытывал острый неутолимый интерес к фантазиям, а потому отношусь к ним легкомысленно.

5) Never in my adult life have I experienced anything that could be plausibly called a religious impulse.

- Никогда, будучи взрослым, не испытывал ничего такого, что можно было бы назвать религиозным порывом.

6) On the contrary, it seems to me, that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most stupid, cruel and villainous fellow.

- Наоборот, мне кажется, что исходя из действий, совершаемых Им каждодневно, Он должен считаться самым глупым и безжалостным подлецом.

7) But I can’t help thinking of his barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity.

- Но не могу не думать о том, насколько он жесток к остальной бóльшей части человечества. (У меня есть все основания считать, что он жесток к остальной большей части человечества)

8) No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.

- По- видимому, ни одно представление, каким бы хорошим оно не было, не может оставаться таковым вечно.