Descriptive text:

My Cat Gregory Gregory is my beautiful gray Persian cat. He walks with pride and grace, performing a dance of disdain as he slowly lifts and lowers each paw with the delicacy of a ballet dancer. His pride, however, does not extend to his appearance, for he spends most of his time indoors watching television and growing fat. He enjoys TV commercials, especially those for Meow Mix and 9 Lives. His familiarity with cat food commercials has led him to reject generic brands of cat food in favor of only the most expensive brands. Gregory is as finicky about visitors as he is about what he eats, befriending some and repelling others. He may snuggle up against your ankle, begging to be petted, or he may imitate a skunk and stain your favorite trousers. Gregory does not do this to establish his territory, as many cat experts think, but to humiliate me because he is jealous of my friends. After my guests have fled, I look at the old fleabag snoozing and smiling to himself in front of the television set, and I have to forgive him for his obnoxious, but endearing, habits.

Visit to the Dentist's Office

I push the door open. The bell tinkles, with a soft but shrill ring. A wave of rubber gloves and disinfectant masked with cheap air freshener washes over me. Chairs are cluttered in the waiting room of the dentists. Clusters of magazines lie on the scratched wood of the coffee tables, shiny bright plastic screaming out logos and slogans. A little way forward from where I stand is a desk. A smiling receptionist sits there. She seems to have been expecting me somehow, as she indicates to the couches and chairs. A few nervous patients are already there. They try to avert their eyes from the closed, threatening doors leading to the dental surgery rooms, where an ominous high pitched whirring sound is coming from. Occasionally, I hear a muffled thud, or yell. One by one, the receptionist calls out the patients name; Baker, John! or, Higgins, Samantha! Plastered on the walls are dramatic Before/After photos. They show yellow teeth, set crookedly in red raw gums becoming brilliantly white and straight. The walls are painted a stark, clinical white, however photographs of people with toothy grins beam down at me, from newspaper clippings over the years. It must be my imagination, but already I can taste the slightly stale, bubblegum flavoured gloves, the cool hard metal of the examining probe, and the chink clink it makes when it sometimes collides with my teeth. I can feel the vinyl of the reclining chairs, which are covered in plastic, and also which clammy legs have a habit to stick to. In my mind I see the perfect teeth of my dentist, an ideal advertisement for his clinic. A sudden tapping of high heeled shoes from the corridor awakens me from my day dreaming. I look up. My pulse quickens, and my hands sweat. I swallow the lump in my throat that has accumulated somehow. Blood is pounding through my head, but even that cannot block out the dreaded words that I hear next; Barron, Cissie, Doctor Lush will see you now.

Mountain Resort
For those who like winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, we have just the perfect placethe remote yet very popular mountain resort called Balea Lake. It is situated at an altitude of 2,034m, being the highest mountain resort of Romania. The cliffs are covered with snow from November till late July, sometimes still persisting till the new one arrives. First, you have to reach Balea Waterfall, and only afterwards try to get to the lake. Late spring is the best time to come- you take the main road and youre disappointed cause you see no sign of snow and you think you have come such a long way for nothing. But you keep driving, hoping to find that wonderful place where you can ski or snowboard in T-shirt only, without worrying youll catch another cold and hoping to meet some of the friends you havent seen for the past month or more. The road makes a big turn and suddenly you see what youve been waiting for: the big mountains are still covered with snow. So everyone is happy and anxious to finally arrive up there. The area is fantastic for the best skiers and boarders and it offers excellent routes for freeride. The resort has only two chalets, each one situated on one side of the lake. There are many tow-days contests taking place here. The participants are from many different countries and they come here to have fun and do what they like and know best: extreme ski and snowboard. Snowboard is relatively a new extreme sport in Romania, but there already are many kids who practice it. Parties where everyone is having a good time and creating a friendly atmosphere, one would say specific to this place follow the contests. The party lasts till late in the night, when a peaceful silence covers the mountains. But the calm doesnt last too long. Tired, but woken by the lukewarm rays of sun, the riders begin the new day with some tricks and jumps on the quarterpipe taking advantage of the snow as much as possible. This is the place where my friends and I spend a great deal of our leisure time. The atmosphere is very cozy-going and friendly. The calm and splendor of the mountains helps me relax and offers me the chance of escaping the everyday routine and problems by doing what I like best: snowboarding.

Explanatory text:

Why is snow the color white?

Water in the pure form is colorless. If there are any impurities present, the color of the water changes. Snow also can take the color of other objects. For example, in the case of glaciers deep inside the ice block it appears blue in color. But, snow is slightly different from the ice. Snow is the collection of ice crystals that are tiny and attached to one another. The ice crystal is also clear and colorless while the accumulated crystals combine to form snowflakes. The snow is visible to us due to the presence of light. Snow falls from the above in the atmosphere and reaches the ground. The ice crystals will enable the light falling on them to get reflected on their surface. There are multiple faces for the crystals and hence the light also gets scattered. Visible light has various wavelengths of light that are visualized by us. When light falls on any object some part of the light will be absorbed and the other part will get reflected. The reflected part of light reaches our eyes and makes us to recognize the colors. The light fallen on the ice crystals also do not pass through the crystals for long distance but tend to change directions. The light also gets reflected at an angle in the interior of the ice. As snow exists as collection of several snowflakes on the ground, the light that falls on them will not have a particular wavelength that is reflected with some regularity. So, most of the light that falls on the snow will almost completely gets reflected back. The light that gets reflected by the snow will remain white most of the time as the total light and not any one wavelength of it is reflected back. Hence, snow is white in color.

What causes food poisoning?

Food poisoning is a disorder of the stomach and intestines caused by bacteria or chemicals in foods. The classic form of food poisoning is caused by staphylococci (bacteria commonly known as staph). The staph germs enter the food during preparation. As a result of the food not properly refrigerated the bacteria multiply hourly, contaminating the food with toxin (poison). As staph germs and their toxins are odorless and tasteless the contaminated food smells and tastes normal. Eating contaminated food causes vomiting, abdominal cramps and diarrhea within one to six hours. Thus, food poisoning is frequently caused by staphylococci, which contaminate food during preparation and enter the stomach and intestines during eating. So, be careful with non-hygienic food.

Argumentative text:

The advantages and disadvantages of air travel

The first obvious advantage of air travel is that it is quick. You can fly from Europe to America in a few hours, and with the introduction of supersonic planes, travelling time between continents is getting shorter. It is very easy and comfortable to travel by plane; someone looks after your luggage and all you have to do is to get on, sit down, relax and enjoy a meal or a film. Your comfortable seat is reserved and there is excellent waitress service. Another point in favour of air travel is that it is relatively cheap, especially for long-distance travel. On the other hand (However), travelling by air has some disadvantages. Perhaps the most important is that (For example) you fly directly to your destination and you have no feeling of travelling from one country to another. Another point (disadvantage) is that because (as) air travel is so quick, people going long distances non-stop often suffer from tiredness; so they save time travelling, but waste time recovering. It also happens that passengers are often delayed by fog and other weather conditions. Anyway, I think that the advantages of travelling by plane outweigh the disadvantages, mainly when you have to travel long distances and want to save time.

Advantages Quick Easy and comfortable Relatively cheap

Disadvantages No feeling of travelling Dont see the countries/ enjoy landscapes on the journey tiring/ Weather delays

Cell Phones for Children Most adults have a cell phone and even children as young as 8 years of age own one. Cell phones can be used for a lot more than talking. Cell phones can be used in the classroom to help students with their academics. Young adults can use the calendars to record due dates for homework and tests. As Americans we have grown accustomed on relying on our cells for our communication needs. Also, students need cell phones in case of an emergency. Remember the massacre that happened at Columbine School? For these reasons, I think cell phones should be allowed in schools. First of all, cell phones can be very helpful in the classrooms. Students could use their camera on cell phones to take pictures of school experiments being done by the teacher. This would help students remember information for an upcoming test. Also, students could perform phone interviews during class time. Most cell phones have calendars on them, so students can put the due date of a test that is coming up. In addition, students could record their teacher giving a lecture. Also, parents and students rely on their cell phones to get in contact with each other. Parents may need to get in contact with their children because of a family emergency such as, a death in the family or an accident that has happened. If parents are able to call or text their children at school, then it would be less likely chance that a mix-up would occur relaying messages. Also, it would save the office staff time because they would not have to be running around the school all day delivering messages. In addition, if there was an emergency student may need to reach their parents. If a gunman came into a school then students could call 911 and give them information on his whereabouts, what he looks like, and a description of his clothes. For these reasons, cell phones can become lifesavers in an emergency. If a student happened to pass out in a classroom, it would be faster to call on a cell phone versus taking 5 minutes to run down to the office and make the call. Ultimately, this could save a student's life. In essence, cell phones are imperative in our lives. In an emergency cell phone could save a person's life by being able to get in contact with the police. Cells can also help parents know where their children are after school. Today, cell phones are more like a small hand-held computer. That could become very useful in schools that don't have a lot of extra computers for the children to use.

The Negative Effects of Television Essay

You can simply turn the TV on and everything is done: kids are quiet, your wife is not complaining and you feel absolutely happy. It is so simple that it has become an integral part of the culture of every family. It is the only time, when a person can forget about all the family troubles and the failures of the day. The sofa opposite the TV set has become the place of reconciliation and spiritual unity of the family. And instead of playing together and having emotional talk people prefer to watch an episode from a thriller. It is senseless to deny the all-embracing negative effect the existence of television has brought to our lives. But to make our point of view ultimately convincing we will introduce to your attention certain facts that people do not want to accept and often try to justify. The base of the tomorrow s society are children today. And on the way they develop depends how are world is going to look like tomorrow. The television negative effect facts are well known to every single parent, but are ignored by them in order to put the responsibility for bringing up kids and showing them examples through interaction on the shoulders of somebody else. Contemporary parents work a lot, but when they come back home they are not eager to spend time with their child, the consequences of this fact are the following: kids are given to themselves and watch everything they want or TV plays a role of a babysitter. Therefore children learn moral principles from the television, where by the age of 16 they observe 100,000 violent acts and 33,000 murders.