Task 2 (Letters 1-5)

1. Read the text and find in it the words and word combinations from this list, supply them with Russian equivalents.

Word List 2

queer

to take an interest in smb (smth)

insulting (to insult)

to do smth by bells

to feel like a fire horse

contagious

to look smth up in the encyclopedia

bright

to improve

to make smth up

to show an unusual amount of originality

to hurt smb’s feelings

charitable

to be brought up

to turn one’s back on smb

to pepper smb with letters

2. Remember the context in which they were used.

3. What could have happened between the time when the door in Mrs Lippett’s room closed behind Jerusha and her first letter to the kind Trustee was written?

4. Answer the following questions:

1) What kind of talk did Jerusha have with Mrs Lippett before leaving?

2) How did Jerusha feel having realized her lot?

3) How did Jerusha get to college?

4) What was Jerusha’s impression of the college? Was she happy there?

5) Why did she decide to call the Trustee “Dear Daddy-Long-Legs”?

6) Why did Judy feel “like a fire horse” all of the time at college?

7) Why did Jerusha write about the ‘advantage’ of being a foundling? What was it in her opinion?

8) Where was Jerusha’s room, how was it furnished?

9) Who were Jerusha’s classmates?

10) Do you think the girls could become friends?

11) What mistake did Jerusha make in English Literature the first day?

12) What was the trouble with college in her opinion?

13) What subjects did Jerusha learn in her first year?

14) Why did Jerusha decide to change her name? Who had given it to her?

15) What did Judy tell Sallie about her parents and her previous life? Why?

16) Why did Judy think she had a chance to make the Freshmen basketball team?

5. Find sentences in the text to prove that:

– Mrs Lippett neither liked Jerusha nor sympathized with her;

– Judy liked college;

– Judy had an inventive mind and a lot of imagination;

– Judy liked Sallie McBride and didn’t like Julia Rutledge Pendleton;

– Judy was a quick learner;

– Judy didn’t have any warm feelings for the home of her youth.

6. Develop these ideas from Jerusha’s letters.

1) How can one be very respectful to a person who wished to be called John Smith?

2) It seems as though I belonged to somebody now and it’s a very comfortable sensation.

3) I never heard of anybody being asylum-sick, did you?

4) Julia and I were born to be enemies.

5) Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by my family.

6) The aim of the John Grier Home is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.

7) A foundling asylum isn’t a young ladies’ finishing school.

8) It isn’t the work that is going to be in college. It’s the play.

9) I am a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand the language.

10) I hated everyone of them – the charitable ones most of all.

11) You see what a mean disposition I have. (Julia Pendleton didn’t get in the team. Hooray!)

7. Which of these statements would Judy disagree with?

1) It’s very strange to have help, sympathy and support from somebody one doesn’t know.

2) Sallie is the most entertaining person in the world.

3) It is very simple to write letters to someone you don’t know.

4) It is fun to shop and pay with a real 5-dollar bill and get some change when you’ve never had more than a nickel in your life.

5) Alcohol does dreadful things to one’s liver.

6) Work in college is going to be hard.

7) If you are a Pendleton, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination.

8. Comment on the following:

1. It seems queer to be writing letters to somebody you don’t know.

2. Being rich is such a very external quality.

9. Imagine you are Judy and describe:

1. your room

2. Sallie McBride

3. Julia Pendleton

4. your basketball activities

5. your first Literature class

6. your first experience in writing essays

10. Speak about Judy on the part of:

– Sallie McBride;

– Julia Pendleton;

– Daddy-Long-Legs.

11. Write an essay on one of the topics from Ex. 8.

6.