Вариант 11

You are going to read a text on the life of a famous person. For questions 1-15, read the text below and decide which answer (А, В, or С) best fits each gap.

Orwell was a British journalist and author, who wrote two of the most famous novels of the 20th century ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.

Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903 in eastern India, the son of a British colonial civil servant. He was educated in England and, after he left Eton, joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, then a British colony. He (1) in 1927 and decided to become a writer. In 1928, he moved to Paris where lack of success as a writer forced him into a series of menial jobs. He described his experiences in his first book, ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’, published in 1933. He took the name George Orwell, (2) before its publication. This was followed by his first novel, ‘Burmese Days’, in 1934.

An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider himself a socialist. In 1936, he (3) to write an account of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted in ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937). Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco’s Nationalists. He was forced to flee (4) fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. The experience turned him into a (5) anti-Stalinist.

Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked (6) propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became (7) editor of the Tribune, a (8) left-wing magazine. By now he was a (9) journalist, writing articles, reviews and books.

In 1945, Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ was published. A political fable (10) in a farmyard but based on Stalin’s betrayal of the Russian Revolution, it made Orwell’s name and (11) he was financially comfortable for the first time in his life. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was published four years later. Portraying an (12) totalitarian future, the book (13) a deep impression, with its title and many phrases – such as ‘Big Brother (14) you’, ‘newspeak’ and ‘doublethink’ – (15) popular use. By now Orwell’s health was deteriorating and he died of tuberculosis on 21 January 1950.