Write a formal definition of common law

A Crown Court is presided over by a judge, but the verdict is reached by a jury of twelve citizens, randomly selected from the local electoral rolls. The judge must make sure that the trial is properly conducted, that the ‘counsels’ (barristers) for the prosecution and defense comply with the rules regarding the evidence that they produce and the examination of witnesses, and that the jury are helped to reach their decision by the judge’s summary of the evidence in a way which indicates on which they must decide in order to reach a verdict. Underlying the whole process lies the assumption that the person charged with an offence is presumed to be innocent unless the prosecution can prove guilt “beyond all reasonable doubt”.
1. Write a formal definition of a judge and a naming definition of a jury.
2. Write in suitable words.

3. Read these notes taken while reading the paragraph. Find the false statement and correct it.
a) A Crown Court is presided over by a judge who makes sure that the trial is properly conducted.
b) A jury is composed of twelve barristers, solicitors and senior judges.
c) Underlying the British trial lies an assumption that the person charged with an offence is presumed to be innocent unless the prosecution can prove guilt “beyond all reasonable doubt”.

A person convicted in a magistrates’ court may appeal against its decision to the Crown Court. An appeal against a decision of the Crown Court may be taken to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), but it is seldom successful. The Court of Criminal Appeal dislikes overturning a Crown Court decision unless the evidence is overwhelming or there has been some error of legal procedure. The highest court in the land is the House of Lords, which will consider a case referred from the Court of Appeal where a point of general public importance seems to be at stake. In practice the Lords are represented by five or more of the nine Law Lords.
1. Write in suitable words and expressions.
appeal
appeal
appeal
2. List the conditions on which the Court of Criminal Appeal overturns a decision of a Crown Court.
3. Write a definition of the House of Lords answering the question: How does it function as a court?

Many small businesses fail to survive, mainly as a result of poor management, but also because, compared with almost every other European Community member, Britain offers the least encouraging conditions. But such small businesses are important not only because large businesses grow from small ones, but also because over half the new jobs in Britain are created by firms employing fewer than 100 staff.
1. What sort of relationship is the paragraph concerned with? Prove your point of view: underline the markers of this relationship in the paragraph.
2. List the reasons why small businesses in Britain are not highly successful.
3. List the reasons why small businesses in Britain are important.

The British population is already one of the oldest in Europe, and it is slowly getting older. In 1990 the median age in Britain was thirty-six but it will rise to forty-one by 2020. At the end of the 1990s the number of pensioners will begin to rise rapidly, and the workforce will shrink. One result will be that by 2020 there will be twice as many people aged eighty-five or over as in 1990. A disproportionate number of the old, incidentally, choose to retire to the south coast and east Anglia, creating regional imbalances.
1. What sort of report does the paragraph come form?
2. Fill in the table with the data form the paragraph.

3. Write out an example of comparison / contrast and underline the marker of comparison / contrast.

The nuclear family is usually pictured as a married couple, with two children, ideally a girl and a boy, and perhaps their grandmother, or ‘granny’, in the background. As a picture of the way most British live, this become increasingly unrealistic each year. If the picture includes the traditional idea of the man going out to work while the wife stays at home, it is probably true of less than 10 per cent of the country. Even without such a limited definition, only 42 per cent of the population live in nuclear family households, and even within this group a considerable proportion of parents are in their second marriage with children from a previous marriage.
1. Complete the spidergraph.

2. Fill in the blanks with words from the paragraph.
a) The traditional picture of a _____ British family becomes increasingly unrealistic every year.
b) A lot of British parents are in their second ________ .
c) The traditional idea of a family includes the man going out to work while his ______ keeps the house.
3. Find and correct the false statement.
a) A traditional nuclear family can be rarely seen nowadays.
b) The ideal picture of a nuclear family includes five people: a married couple and their three children.
c) A considerable proportion of people are not in their first marriage with children from a previous marriage.

Since the days of Shakespeare, the English of south east England has been considered the ‘standard’, for no better reason than that the south east is the region of economic and political power. The emergence of an upper and upper-middle-class mode of speech, ‘received pronunciation’ (RP), was systematically established through the public (in fact private) school system attended by the boys of wealthier families. RP persists as the accepted dialect of the national йlite.
1. What type of relationship do the underlined words express?
2. Write a naming definition of RP.
3. Find and correct the false statement.
a) It is prestigious to speak RP.
b) RP appeared on the base of the south-eastern accent.
c) The south-eastern dialect is considered the standard because it is the closest to the language of Shakespeare.

One of the most striking aspects of popular mainstream culture in Britain is the love of the countryside. Many people, whether they live in a suburban house or in a flat in a high-rise block, would say their dream home was a country cottage with roses growing over the door.
As a nation, the British have made a mental retreat from the urban environment. They have a deep nostalgia for an idealised world of neat hedgerows, cottages and great country houses, surrounded by parkland, that clever eighteenth-century style of gardening that looked ‘natural’. The nostalgia stems partly from a sense of loss which has lingered since the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago, and from a romantic love of nature which has been such a powerful theme in English literature.
1. What sort of report does the paragraph come from?
2. Note-taking. List the reasons for the British nostalgia for rural life.
3. Which of the following is the part of “the English dream”?
Roses, sky-scrapers, stately homes, big cars, computers, cottages, palm-trees, parks.

A basic reason so many town dwellers wish to live in the suburbs is to have a garden in which to grow flowers. Indeed, many suburban houses imitate a cottage style. Even in the heart of London, its great parks, such as St. James, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, are informal, recreating rural ideal, and city-dwelling children often know the names of wild flowers and birds.
1. Note-taking. Find the examples which prove that British town dwellers have a nostalgia for rural life.
2. Find the synonyms of the following words in the paragraph.
a. resident
b. country (adj.)
c. сentre
3. Put the parts of a sentence in the correct order.
of the countryside (A)
aspect of popular mainstream (B)
culture in Britain (C)
one of the most striking (D)
is the love (E)

Over a century ago, the novelist Anthony Trollop listed the sports “essentially dear to the English nature”. These included hunting, shooting, rowing and horse racing. He was, of course, referring to the ‘gentleman class’, which through the public school system established football, rugby and cricket as national games. But hunting, rowing and horse racing, because of the expense involved, have remained primarily upper-class pastimes. Attendance at Henley Regatta, the high point of the rowing season, and Royal Ascot, for horse racing, remain the pinnacles of the upper class summer season.
1. Write out an example of cause / effect relationship and underline the marker of cause / effect.
2. Fill in the table with the data from the paragraph.

3. Note-taking.
a. List the most popular sports in Britain in the XIX century.
b. List the sports (included in 3a) which are still popular among the upper-class.

Theatre is a powerful instrument … education as well as art and culture. Another significant feature of British theatre is the way … which actors have taken drama … young people, even into primary schools. This has broken … some of the traditional barriers … formal stage drama and the community.
1. Fill in the gaps in the paragraph with suitable prepositions.
2. Note-taking. List the significant features of modern British theatre.
3.Put the parts of a sentence in the correct order.
that some of the most painful (A)
the way we live (B)
questions can be asked about (C)
and as a community (D)
it is on the stage (E)
both as individuals (F)

A Canadian touring Britain in 1989 discovered, in his own words, “There’s no such thing as the British, only English, Irish, Welsh and Scots”. There is considerable truth in his remark. The sense of difference from the English is more than a thousand years old. It dates from the time when Anglo-Saxon invaders from the European continent drove the Celtic people out of what we call England today and into what we now call Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In fact, almost one in five of today’s British is not English.
1. Complete the diagram.

2. Fill in the blanks with suitable words from the paragraph.
a. Nowhere has the sense of conflict with the English been stronger than in Northern ___________ .
b. The sense of _________ from the English is still strong in Scotland and Wales.
c. Famous ________ festivals of literature and music are called eisteddfods.
3. Find and correct the false statement.
a. the Scots, Welsh and Irish have a Celtic origin.
b. The Anglo-Saxon invasion took place more than a thousand years ago.
c. The Scots, Welsh and Irish like being called English.

Schooling is compulsory for twelve years, for all children aged five to sixteen. There are two voluntary years of schooling thereafter. Children may attend either state-funded or fee-paying independent schools. In England and Wales the primary cycle lasts from five to eleven. Generally speaking, children enter infant school, moving on to junior school at the age eleven. Roughly 90 per cent of children receive their secondary education at ‘comprehensive’ schools. Secondary school lasts either until the end of the compulsory attendance cycle, or includes the two final years of secondary education, generally known in Britain (for historical reasons) as the ‘sixth form’.
1. Fill in the table with the data from the paragraph.

2. Find the antonyms of the following words in the paragraph.
a. voluntary
b. secondary
c. to leave school
3. Find and correct the false statement.
a. Independent schools are fee-paying.
b. Children go to the sixth form after they have finished infant school and junior school.
c. Comprehensive is the most widely spread sort of school in England and Wales.

Nevertheless, there are approximately 130 daily and Sunday papers, 1,800 weekly papers and over 7,000 periodical publications. More newspapers, proportionately, are sold in Britain than almost any other country. On average, two out of three persons over the age of fifteen read a national morning newspaper. Three out of four read a Sunday paper. The national newspapers, both on weekdays and on Sundays, fall into two broad categories: the ‘popular’ and ‘quality’ press.
1. What type of paragraph is it: definition, description, classification, argumentation?
2. Make a tree diagram to illustrate the classification of the British national newspapers.
3. What do the following numbers refer to? Answer in full sentences.
a. ѕ
b. 130
c. 15

In 1936 the government established the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to provide a public service in radio. Since then the BBC has been most affected by the invention of television, which changed the entertainment habits of the nation, and the establishment of independent and commercial radio and television, which removed the BBC’s broadcasting monopoly.
1. What sort of relationship do the underlined words express?
The government established the BBC to provide a public service in radio.
2. Note-taking. List the events which have had the greatest influence on the BBC since it was established.