English

5. Scientists have announced that the layer of ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk to an all-time low record. What's more, they say the ice can disappear altogether in future summers. The area of ice recorded on August 26 covered just over four million square kilometers, which is 70000 square kilometers less than the previous low in 2007. Experts said that record was a one-off and would not be repeated. However, conditions have changed quickly. The USA's National Snow and Ice Data Center said: "The ice cover is now just so thin and weak in the springtime that large parts of it can't survive the melt season.

6. I arrived over an hour late at the office and everyone was working. Actually, they had been working for over two hours on the new project and I felt really guilty.

7. Don't you hate it when people say things like "Let's be careful, shall we? It always seems to me as if two of us are going to do something together, but in fact the other person won't be doing anything. I would prefer it if they just said." "You should be careful", because that's what they really mean.

8. When I was ten I went to stay with my grandparents for a few weeks. At that time they were living in the country. I was able to climb trees and run around with their dog. I wasn't allowed to go near the lake by myself, but my grandfather sometimes took me fishing there.

9. Tommy, you had better slow down and wait for the rest of us. I'm sure we have lots of time, so we don't need to run.

10. Today, bicycles are so common that it's hard to believe they haven't always been around. But two hundred years ago bicycles didn't even exist, and the first bicycle invented in Germany in 1818, was nothing like our bicycles today. It was made of wood and didn't even have pedals. Since then, however, numerous innovations and immprovements in design have made the bicycle one of the most popular means of transportation around the world.