Writing Comprehension Test for 8th Form Students 2015

Writing Comprehension Test for 8^th Form Students

The minutes before midnight, the coloured lights on the Empire State Building winked off. There was a nattering sound at our backs, from 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. But the amateurs dominated the evening. We heard firecrackers going off in streets 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 had grown up in the financial district blocked it, or maybe we were not 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.”

Every country has a number of national holidays. Sometimes the new holidays replace the old ones. You are to write an essay about a national holiday. The following questions can help guide your thought.

You have been called upon to create a new national holiday for Ukraine.

-         What person or event do you choose to honor, and why?

-         When would you have the holiday, and how would this affect the celebration?

-         What traditions will be associated with this holiday?

-         Why will this holiday appeal to citizens around the country?