School Ginta Latina Lyceum Grade 12-th ___ form Name ____________________

Item 1: Read the text attentively.

A memory
It was Mrs. Watts's task, when I was a boy of about nine and attending a school in southwestern England, to instruct me in lessons about nature, and also about scripture. She would take me and my fellows on walks, in an especially lovely part of my beautiful country of birth, and teach us to tell the different birds, trees, and plants from one another. It was fascinating. At later lessons we would be given a printed slip of paper entitled "Search the Scriptures," The slip would contain a single verse from the Old or New Testament, and the assignment was to look up the verse and then to tell the teacher what the story and the moral was. I used to love this exercise, and even to excel at it so that I frequently passed "top" in scripture class. However, there came a day when poor, dear Mrs. Watts overreached herself. Seeking ambitiously to fuse her two roles as nature instructor and Bible teacher, she said, "So you see, children, how powerful and generous God is. He has made all the trees and grass to be green, which is exactly the color that is most restful to our eyes. Imagine if instead, the vegetation was all purple, or orange, how awful that would be." I really liked Mrs. Watt. However, I was frankly appalled by what she said. My little ankle strap sandals curled with embarrassment for her. At the age of nine I had not even a conception of the argument from design, or of Darwinian evolution as its rival, or of the relationship between photosynthesis and chlorophyll. I had not then visited scenes of nature where almost everything was hideously indifferent or hostile to human life, if not life itself. I simply knew, almost as if I had privileged access to a higher authority, that my teacher had managed to get everything wrong in just two sentences. The eyes were adjusted to nature, and not the other way about
Item 2: Choose the correct answer: 1. It was Mrs. Watts task to: a) Instruct in lessons about nature b) Hand out the printed slips of paper c) Bore everyone. 2. The printed slips of paper with verses were handed out in order to: a) Be memorized by heart b) Be interpreted by the pupils c) Be played with

Christopher Hitchens

Item 3: Shortly describe a memory from your primary school classes:

Item 4: Do you think that believing in something (supranatural) is detrimental to having a happy life? Express your opinion.

Item 5: Grammar. Read very attentively and choose the correct variant and/or put in the right form of the verb: 1. By the time her son grows up, she (get) __________ old and wrinkly. 2. Asians are clearly the most advanced race, as they can see (in/with) widescreen. 3. He was charged (with/for) murder, forgery, sexual assault and drunk driving - but proven innocent and released! 4. Could you tell me what (be) _____ time _____? 5. Why (someone/does someone) (believes/believe) you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet? 6. In Heaven, all the interesting people are (miss) __________ . 7. Claudius was the only one out of the first 15 roman emperors (to not/not to) take men or boys as lovers. 8. We are all atheists about most gods that humanity (believe) __________ ever __________ in, some of us just go one god further. 9. You are more likely to die on your way to buy lottery tickets (than/then) to win the lottery. 10. Had you known about this, what would (do, you) __________________ differently?

Item 6: Creativity. Teaching religions to kids: right or wrong?

What do you think of religious schools and teaching religion to kids? Support your ideas with arguments.