Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Christmas
Christmas in Skipadalen is usually white, at least at Sjusete Skisenter... But this year we can neither skate nor go skiing so I'm bored. I've spent the last week in the kitchen either preparing food or washing up. Finally, today we went for a hike to "Hunden" - the intention was of course to go all the way to the top of "Torefjell" but a snowstorm stopped us - hurray! Back home we had a sauna and a swim in the fjord, so now I feel much better.
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What to Remember at the English Exam
What to Remember at the Written Exam. Most important: save your work every 5 minutes!
1) Read the page written in Norwegian carefully at least twice
2) Read all the tasks closely at least three times
3) Use your dictionary and look up difficult words
4) Start writing the task you find easiest – leave the problematic one till later. Remember to vary your language, use the synonyms in Word.
5) If you are asked to write an article or a report, remember to keep the language formal (steer clear of contractions such as I’m, he’s) and to avoid using the first person point of view. On the other hand, if you are asked to write a speech or a Letter to the Editor you can be more informal.
6) Try to get the technical points correct:
! remember to capitalize all words except articles, prepositions and conjunctions in titles e.g. “When I Went to the USA”
! put titles of books, films, magazines, newspapers and periodicals in Italics
! write titles of poems, songs and short stories in “quotation marks”
! Whenever you write about a poem use / to mark when a line starts, and when it ends/.
! Three dots … are used to indicate the omission of parts of a quotation: “When I left… nobody saw him.”
When you have answered all the tasks, take a long break – go outside, eat something. Finally, when you come back in read your answers closely looking for language errors. Use your dictionaries frequently – they give answers to many problems.
Good Luck :)
GroL
Timeglaset...
Political Parties in the UK
Parties represent coalitions of different groups in society. They give you and me a chance to pin our colours, or to participate in politics indirectly.
The Conservative Party (the Norwegian party most similar to this is “Høgre”)
Today the party has 198 MPs, and their leader is David Cameron who spent seven years in business as a communications director for Carlton. Change, Optimism and Hope are their slogans this autumn. (read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ )
The party is reckoned to be a “centre-right party” which puts the individual in the centre. Freedom to choose, low public spending, low taxes, privatisation, freely operating market forces will all help the individual to achieve a good life.
Mrs Margaret Thatcher is their most famous PM – she was in office from 1979-1990 and sold out the “family silver,” meaning she privatised a lot of state run companies. (see handout called “Thatcherism”)
The Labour Party (Norwegian equivalent = Arbeidarpartiet)
This is the largest party in the UK today with 356 MPs. Thus, they also have the PM who is Tony Blair , and who has been in that position the last nine years – he was elected the first time in 1997 when Labour won an overwhelming majority of the seats in the House of Commons. More specifically, he has won three elections in a row (’97, 2001,2005)
The Labour party is described as a “left-of-centre party,” which likes to claim that the “welfare stat” is what they are preoccupied with. Their enemies are poverty, unemployment, disease, ignorance, and squalor. Consequently they have support to the “have-nots” on their agenda. However, Blair has been called MrsThatcher’s son because he adopted quite a few of her ideas before and after he came into office. In fact, so much of Labour’s old program was deleted that people started calling the party “New Labour.” Blair’s idea was that Labour now should choose a new way to
follow, in order to have more people support them. He talked about the “third way:
The Third Way = The New Way
Not the first way, ie the old socialist way
Not the second way, ie the hard-hearted capitalist way”
The Liberal Democrats (maybe the Norwegian party “Venstre” is most similar to the LibDems) The party is quite young, as it was founded in 1988 when the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party merged into one party.
Menzies Campbell is the leader of the party, which is represented by 62 MPs in the House of Commons.
The party policy puts the individual in the centre – just like the Conservatives. However, there is one big difference; the Lib Dems are sceptical to big business. In addition, they have always supported full membership in the EU and devolution for Scotland and Wales.
Finally, there are 30 other MPs representing different smaller political parties.
Read more at this address http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/
