Dictation 3

Susan works in a big public library as an assistant. The library opens at nine o’clock in the morning. A lot of people come to the library on Saturdays. On these days Susan is up to her eyes in work. The hours of loan service are from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

They’ve got a good choice of books there. A reader may borrow not more than five books at a time, and he/she may keep them for up to ten days. If he/she wishes to keep them longer he/she has to return them for renewal.

Susan stands behind the library desk. She takes books from the people who come in, and gives them their tickets.

When there is a lot of people in the library, Mrs Brown, the head librarian helps the assistants. She takes books from the desk and puts them on the trolley. Then she pushes it down the library and puts the books back on the right shelves.

Susan works quickly. In every book there is a little pocket. In this pocket there is a piece of paper with the name and number of the book on it. Susan takes this piece of paper out of the pock­et in the book. She puts the date on the piece of paper and on the right page in the person’s ticket, which is like a little envelope. Then, at the end of the day, the assistants put the tickets in the right order in the drawers of their desks.

Susan likes to read different books, serious and entertaining. Her friends call her a book-worm because she is very fond of reading. She knows every book in the library. She is said to be Mrs Brown’s right-hand. She likes her work, as much as one can like any job that imprisons one from nine till five. Susan can recommend readers a book that has been a great success lately. She helps people to find books on the subject they are interested in.

Susan finds her work very interesting and useful. She knows much about the most popular authors. She can tell you about the reading habits of the people who come to the library. Susan is a sociable person, and she likes to have a talk to different people about the books they are interested in.

Text from charles dickens

by K. Peer

1. Read the text. Note all unfamiliar words. Look them up in a dictionary.

2. Spot the key words which denote the scheme of the passage. Make an outline using the key words.

3. Pick out 8-10 sentences which convey the basic information in the passage. Link them smoothly. Use transitional words and phrases.

4. Make up a written summary of the passage. Avoid minute details and direct speech.

After breakfast Charles’s mother sat down with him for lessons. This was a happy hour! He had long since learned his alphabet, and was able with help to read simple texts: Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Ridinghood, Robin Hood. When lessons were done he simply took one of the thin books and went on struggling with it, word by word, line by line.

“He’s a terrible boy to read,” said one of the servants.

“He is really ready for school”, said his mother, and her husband agreed.

He went to a dame school, a small class of young children taught by an elderly lady in her home.

He wanted to learn. He loved anything in books. The more he learned at school the bigger and thicker were the books he could read at home.

School did not last all day. In the afternoon he and his companions could run to a nearby field, play and invent games. There Charles came into his own.

When Charles, was eight, he felt quite grown-up because of the books he could read.

“Look what a reader my boy is, and see how beautifully he writes,” boasted Mr. Dickens.

When the family moved from their old house Charles left his dame school behind, and he was soon enrolled in a regular academy in the Baptist Chapel next door. Mr. William Giles kept the

school. He was young, fresh from college. He loved books and teaching and children. He and young Charles quickly became good friends. For nearly two years Charles worked hard with Mr. Giles on his Latin, English grammar, arithmetic, history and geography.

When the end of the term came around Charles and his parents left for London. Charles’s father was sent to the debtors’ prison. The worst news of all was that the boy could not go to school. But fate took a hand and the boy went back to school. His new teacher was quite different from Mr. Giles. He went up and down the row hitting his students with a ruler.

But Charles was in school to learn, and no ruler could discourage him. He hadn’t forgotten too much since his last school days. He remembered his Latin, his English grammar, and his arithmetic, and he rose rapidly to the top of the class. He remembered his love of all kinds of fiction, too.

Charles began to write stories of his own. He wrote so well that the boys formed a reading club to keep his tales going from one boy to another.

The two years between sixteen and eighteen flew by. Charles was going to apply for a post as a Parliamentary reporter on one of the city’s newspapers.

He read every book he could find in the second-hand bookshops. He knew where there were thousands of books waiting for him. They were in the National Library, a part of the British Museum.

At the age of 18 he was admitted. From then on, whenever he had a spare hour, he hurried to the British Museum, to sit at one of the tables with a lot of books before him, to read, and read, and read.

He decided, he was going to study everything and learn everything and read everything, so that he could be someone. He was going to climb up and up. He wanted to rise in life.