Imagine that you are preparing a project with your friend. You have found some interesting material for the presentation and you want to read this text to your friend. You have 1.5 minutes to read the text silently, then be ready to read it out aloud. You will not have more than 1.5 minutes to read it.
The school system in the UK may seem rather confusing for people from other countries. There are two types of schools in the UK. Most of schools are state schools where education is free. But there are also private schools where you have to pay. Such schools are often very expensive. It may seem strange, but private schools at Britain are called public. A long time ago when education was a privilege of the rich, the only schools where poor people could go got the money from charity organizations. As it was public money, the schools for the poor were called public schools. Some of these public schools were very successful and later they became expensive private schools for rich people. But the conservative British continued to call them public schools. The first thing you need to have is money as studying at some public schools costs up to 20 000 pounds a year. There are some grants for bright pupils from poor families but the places are few and the competition is very strong. It’s not surprising that only six percent of the people in the UK can study at public schools.