Устная часть - Чтение текста

Task 1. 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.

Mars is our neighbour, the fourth planet outward from the Sun. Its rusty-red surface has earned Mars the nickname “The Red Planet”. Mars is a little smaller than Earth, with a day that’s very similar in length to ours. It is just a bit longer, at 24 hours and 37 minutes. However, a year on Mars is much longer, lasting for almost two Earth years, or 687 Earth days.

At around half the size of Earth, Mars is a rocky world with a thin atmosphere. This means the days are very hot, but the nights are freezing cold. Exploration missions have found evidence of ancient water on Mars, in the form of dried-up riverbeds and vast canyons. This suggests that Mars may have once been a much wetter and warmer place. Today, rovers like the Curiosity rover, search for signs of past or even present life on Mars, making it a key target in our quest to understand if we are alone in the universe.