ЕГЭ по английскому языку (аудирование №13: детальное понимание текста)

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Ball room dancing is now so popular — in school, on TV, touring festivals, master classes in town etc. It was almost inevitable that they would do a competition at our college. The only shock is that James and I have made it to the final. There are three couples in the final dance-off, we have all finished our last two dances and now are waiting for the judges.

Given that we finalists had to choose any one Latin dance plus any traditional ball room dance (out of hundreds available), it was an amazing co-incidence that all three couples independently chose the exact same versions of the same two dances. I suppose in a sense this will result in more objective scoring from the judges.

The two dances chosen were a Salsa and a Waltz. But all of us went for a very fast Salsa that was close to a Mamba. Salsas vary in speed between 150 and 250 beats per minute. A ‘250’ is quite rare but incredibly we all chose (mercifully different) dance tracks of more than 240 beats per minute. And we also all chose the same relatively unusual waltz. It’s called a Hesitation Waltz where there is a halt on the standing foot during the full waltz measure.

It is amazing that six of us, all friends, rehearsed the same relatively rare dances for the whole week and yet nobody said a thing. We were all being secretive and tactical I suppose. But the co-incidences did not stop there. We three girls chose similar dresses for each dance and we are all similar in size, shape and hair colour. For the salsa we picked versions of what we have now nicknamed ‘Mango Sparklers’. Short, peachy, rhinestone covered, zigzag skirts with matching long zigzag sleeves! At least the three boys managed to appear in different colours. And for the waltz we all had dark pink full skirts in lightweight satin with layers of frothy organza mesh. Not identical but incredibly similar.

We’ll have the final result in the next few minutes. But at least we can be sure that the judges’ marking will not have been swayed by the trimmings of the performance. They are actually supposed to score on ‘presentation’, ‘body alignment’ and ‘shape’. Well — I doubt in this case they’ll be able to tell the three couples apart. They’ll have to judge on the essence of each dance — on poise, hold of frame, musicality, expression and timing rather than what we look like.

‘Come on Katie, it’s time to go back on the floor. The results are out’ James is still out of breath from the last salsa but has a huge smile on his face. He thinks we will win.