How to Discuss a Story. Бунеева И.М - 9 стр.

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   2.   When Miss Leslie came up to Maxwell’s desk, he hadn’t opened his mail.
   3.   Maxwell fired Miss Leslie and wanted a new stenographer.
   4.   Maxwell proposed to Miss Leslie during the lunch break.
   5.   Miss Leslie refused to marry him because she was already married to another
        man.

        b. Explain the words and expressions given in part I and reproduce the
           situations in which they were used

   III.    SPEAKING

        a. Retell the story as close to the text as you can

        b. Talking points
   1.   What can you say about the tempo of the broker’s work?
   2.   Why does the author compare the clerks in the office to the sailors during a
        storm?
   3.   Why, do you think, O’Henry uses such phenomena as “hurricanes and
        snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes” to describe the situation at the
        exchange?
   4.   Do you agree with the statement that in the world of finance there’s “no place
        for the human world or the world of nature”? Give your reasons.
   5.   Why did the broker forget about his own wedding? Is it possible in real life?
        Can it be an exaggeration, a device used by the author to show the readers
        how busy the man was and how hard he worked?
   6.   Did Miss Leslie understand at once what was going on when the broker asked
        her to marry him?
   7.   Did she know what it was that made him forget everything else?

        c. Choose one of the talking points and sum up the discussion in pairs
           (see Append. 1-4)

      d. ►Improve your listening / pronunciation skills
          Listen to the following passage from the story; fill in the blanks;
          intone the passage; learn it by heart.
The young lady had been Maxwell’s stenographer for a 1)_______ . She was
beautiful and very 2)_______ . She wore no 3)_______. Her dress was gray and
simple, but it 4)_______ her figure very well. She wore a 5)_______ black turban
6)_______ with a gold-green wing. On this morning she was softly and 7)_______
radiant. Her eyes were 8)_______ bright, her cheeks 9)_______, her expression a
10)_______ one.