Задание
“That last, crucial respect” in the last paragraph refers to the way kids in DellwoodПрочтите текст и вопросы к нему. Для каждого вопроса выберите верный
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This is an extract adapted from a book about an American teenage girl.
We used to live in New
York City, in this great old building on the Upper West Side, but last year my
mother moved us to a ranch house in the quiet sleepy suburb of Dellwood, New Jersey.
I have a positive nature
and believe in making the best of any situation. So, the upside of moving to Dellwood was that it gave me a chance to re-create myself a
little. Back in the city at least half the kids I went to school with were kids
I’d gone to school with most of my life. Dellwood,
however, was an empty stage as far as I was concerned. I could choose whatever
role I wanted. A legend was about to be born.
I think it’s safe to say
that no one at Dellwood High School had ever seen
anyone quite like me. And this, of course, was to my advantage. They didn’t
know what to expect. My first few weeks were devoted to showing them what to
expect: the unexpected, the unusual, the unique. One
week I’d dress only in black: the next my colors would be vibrant and bright.
One week I’d be quiet and remote: the next I’d be gregarious and funny. It was
a demanding part, but it took my mind off other things. Like how difficult it
was to be a beacon in the subterranean wind-swept abyss that is Dellwood.
I’d pretty much thought
that all I had to do was appear on campus like an incredible sunset after a
grey, dreary day, and the starving young souls of Dellwood
would immediately abandon their videos and glossy magazines, and flock to me,
begging for shelter from the storm of meaningless trivia that made up their
lives. But I was wrong. The youth of Dellwood
probably wouldn’t have noticed a huge storm, never mind a messenger of hope
from the greater world. In my first year in the clean air and safe streets of Dellwood (two of my mother’s reasons for moving), I’ve met
only one truly kindred spirit. That’s my best friend, Ella.
There was nothing about
Ella to suggest that here was my spiritual kin the first time I saw her. She
looked like most of the other girls – expensively if dully clothed, well-fed, perfectly groomed, their teeth gleaming and their hair
bouncing because they use the right toothpaste and shampoo. The girls in Dellwood get their fashion ideas from teenage magazines and
television. They don’t wear clothes as a statement of their inner selves, as I
do: they wear labels.
If New York is a kettle
of soup, where tons of different spices and vegetables swim around together,
all part of the whole but all different at the same time, then Dellwood is more like a glass of homogenized milk. Ella was
wearing a nondescript pink A-line dress and white-and-pink sneakers. Although
Ella shops in the same stores as most of her classmates, she always goes for
what her mother calls “the classic look”, which means that everyone else
dresses like the dedicated followers of fashion that they are, and Ella dresses
like her mum.
Anyway, Ella sat near me
in my first class. The kids in Dellwood not only
dress the same and talk the same: when they think, they pretty much think the
same, too. But I sensed almost immediately that even though she looked like
them, Ella was different in that last, crucial respect.
dress
think
talk
look