Section I

Text I

The Circles in the Corn

1) Circles in the corn have appeared all over the West of England every summer for the past ten years. Farmers have woken up in the morning to find strange, almost perfect circles in the middle of their cornfields. Now all sorts of people are trying to explain how the circles are formed. So far no one has given a satisfactory answer.

2) The circles vary from two metres to about forty metres in diameter. Experts from all over the world have come to England to examine the most recent circles. The Americans, the Canadians and the Japanese are becoming extremely interested because circles have appeared in their countries as well.

3) There have been many explanations for the circles. Some people have suggested that the circles are made by tractors (but there are never any marks of tractor wheels). Others think that they might be the result of helicopters hovering over the cornfields, or even that they could be the marks from alien spaceships. One witness reported that she heard buzzing sounds which sounded like helicopters and saw strange little lights which looked like 'lots of candles'. There has even been a suggestion that the marks come from lovesick hedgehogs running round in circles! On the other hand they may simply be a hoax.

4) However, scientists are sure that there must be a sensible explanation for the mysterious circles. The most recent theory is that they are the result of sudden whirlwinds caused by a fall in temperature on summer nights. So, as Dr. Meaden of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation says: 'The wind may be the answer but it could be another fifty years before we know exactly how. This means we will probably have another fifty years of spaceship theories to look forward to.' But whatever the scientists say, summer just wouldn't be the same without the circles in the cornfields [7, p. 77].

Reading Comprehension Test

1. The word “alien” in the third passage refers to

1. foreign;

2. strange;

3. large;

4. enormous.

2. According to the text, the latest theory is that the circles are made by

1. tractors;

2. helicopters;

3. hedgehogs;

4. whirlwinds.

3. How long have the circles in the cornfields appeared?

1. For 5 years.

2. For 3 years.

3. For 10 years.

4. For 20 years.

4. Tractors can not be considered as the reason of the circles because there are no their traces on the ground. This statement is

1. true.

2. false.

3. no such information in the text.

5. Choose the countries from the following list where such circles have appeared.

1. India;

2. England;

3. Canada;

4. Japan;

5. Russia.

6. For the first time the circles in a cornfield have appeared in

1. Japan;

2. England;

3. America.

7. What passage gives some information on the size of corn circles?

1. 1;

2. 2;

3. 3;

4. 4.

8. We can infer from the third passage that the word “a hoax” in the last line means

1. a special sign;

2. a trick which makes people believe something that isn’t true;

3. a hieroglyph of civilizations of the past.

Text II