2000

Gaelic games are the national indigenous sports of Ireland. Gaelic football and hurling are the most popular sports while camogie, handball and rounders also come under the auspices of the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association).

American sports are a world apart from European sports. We take a look at what they're all about, from high-school heroes to stadium spectators.

Worldwide interest in sport is always high during an Olympic year. No one can deny that Europeans and Latin Americans are crazy about football, Scandinavians love winter sports, and people of every nationality follow the successes of their favorite tennis stars, volleyball teams, runners, boxers, ski jumpers, racing drivers, etc. But, as in many other fields, in this respect the United States is in a class by itself.

This is a grab bag of various slang words and expressions used by Americans in literature song and daily conversation.

AIR BAGS: the lungs. Fill your air bags well when we go for a walk in the woods. He is the best runner in the class but the his air bags are larger than most.

BETTER HALF: usually refers to one's wife, sometimes one's husband. This is my better half, Sally. I'd like to go with our group but my better half won't let me out of the house.

I'd like to comment on the article "Congratulations 'Maturzyści'. I am a graduate of NKJO from Tczew (branch office of University of Gdańsk). I fully agree that studying there helped me a lot in improving my English, but what next? Many graduates want to go further and get an M.A. but there are very few universities that offer a two-year course after which one can obtain such a diploma. The Ministry of Education urged universities to set up such three-year studies and you can find them in almost every city in Poland which has a university.

When listening to native speakers they do not seem to say one hundred or one kilometre properly. The 'one' sounds more like an 'er' sound. Can you please explain to me why this is and if I should try to do it too?
Malgorzata J., Warszawa.

In the Scottish county of Fife an old university town of saints and scholars mixes history and tradition with sport and tourism.

Many people know that Oxford and Cambridge Universities (which people sometimes call "Oxbridge") are the two oldest in Britain, but the third oldest can be found far, far away up north in the small town of St Andrews situated on the wild east coast of Scotland. Records show that the first degrees were awarded in 1415.

The year 2001 is just around the corner, but how close will life be then to how it was portrayed by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke in the epic film of the same name? The film showed a massive orbiting space station, communities on the moon, computers that can think and evidence of extraterrestrial life. It doesn't seem likely that we will reach such levels of technology in a matter of months, but can we ever expect people to live on other planets or encounter life elsewhere in the universe?

Paper 1: Use of English

This paper consists of five parts, each very different, but all with the aim of testing your knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary and word formation.

Part 1

This is a multiple choice gap-fill exercise which involves knowing not only the meaning of words but also collocations and grammatical patterns. The extract below is the first paragraph of a typical part 1 text.

The London Tea Trade

With his latest album, Brand New Day, released last year, Sting returned with another set of distinctively melancholic yet danceable songs. An icon of popular music for the last two decades, he has managed to convey his music to people of all generations and nationalities, an achievement most artists can only dream of.