Examination Card 5

One of your favorite leisure activities is reading books. Talk about books.

• What kinds of books do you like to read? Why?
• What is your favorite book? Include the information about its title, author, and the type of the book.
• What are your feelings and your recommendations after reading this book?

I am fond of reading and I have read a lot of interesting books. They include novels and thrillers, historical fiction and science fiction, detective stories and crime stories. My favorite book, however, is The Lost World written by a well-known British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. I like this book because it’s both exciting and informative.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1859. His father was an artist. His mother was an educated person and when Arthur was a child, she encouraged his interest in reading.

When Conan Doyle finished school, he became a doctor and opened his own practice. While he was waiting for the patients to come, he was writing stories. Later, when he saw that readers liked his works, he dedicated all his time to writing.

The Lost World is a real thriller and it grabs your attention right from the start. The main character of the book is Professor James Kearns who lives in the 21^st century and most of the book is the story of his travel back in time and of his breathtaking adventures there.

The first place he finds himself in is a pre-historic land where he is nearly killed by a pteranadon. In Ancient Egypt he meets Anthony and Cleopatra who decide to feed him to the crocodiles. When Eric the Red discovers him on his ship, he orders his men to throw him overboard into the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. His last adventure in the past is his experience of the 17^th century London where the English king orders his guards to chop off his head because he thinks that James caused the Fire of London.

Although the professor’s travel back in time and his adventures are all fictional, the historic events and people describes in the book are authentic and it makes the book really informative. From this book I have learnt a number of facts I didn’t know before. For instance, I have always thought that dinosaurs were huge and heavy animals but it turns out that some of them were quite small and light.  One example is a Compthognathus which was only 60 centimeters tall. Another example is a Velociraptor which only weighed 45 kilos. Some new names I’ve learned are Eric the Red, a famous Viking explorer who discovered Greenland in the 10^th century and Sir Christopher Wren, an outstanding English architect who rebuilt most of the churches in in the British capital after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

To sum up, I am fascinated by The Lost World because it is a real page-turner. Once you start reading it you won’t be able to put it down as it makes you always want to know what’s going to happen next.