Subject Olympiads In Russia, we have a number of subject olympiads for pupils. They proceed through four stages. Firstly, we compete among other pupils from our school. Then, students who showed the best results compete among students from other schools of the town, then among the students from the different towns of the region, and finaly, the best of the best compete in the all-Russian Olympiade. I myself took part in literature, Russian language and English language Olympiads. I am proud that I managed to score an amount of points required for the next stage of the Olympiade on every subject. The second stage of literature Olympiade have already taken place, the two others are coming soon.

Extreme Sports I think extreme sports are becoming more and more popular nowadays due to changes in people's minds: today emotions and feelings are considered to be more valuable than wealth. In the end, memories are the only thing that will stay with you forever, and extreme sports can give you a wonderful experience, though they also can be very dangerous. I have already tried one extreme sport myself. It was tandem skydiving. I had never thought I will take up such a sport before September 2014, when a friend of mine, Katya, told me that she had done her first jump. She was really impressed, so I decided to give it a try, too, but it wasn't untill the summer of 2016 that I actually did it. As you can imagine, when I told my mum I was going to go skydiving, she wasn't happy at all, but I also told her about Katya's experience on that (by this time she has already gotten 3rd sport category in this sport). My dad encouraged me, and eventually I got my permission. I remember people were asking me all the time if I was scared, but actually, I wasn't, not before I got into the plane, not after that, and I don't know why. I can't call myself a very brave person. The skydiving is the most incredible thing that have ever happend to me. I would like to do it again, but unfortunatelly, it is quite expensive.

Interesting discoveries Last week, our French teacher gave us a task of doing a project on the history of our families. She said that we would be amazed by how interesting our discoveries would be, and she was right. I asked my mum if she could tell me something about my ascendants. One of the things that surprised me the most was the fact that my great-great-grandfather was actually polish. Another interesting thing for me was that a number of wooden buildings in my town were built by my great-grandfather. I have seen one of those buildings before I even knew that it was him who built it.

Should people read only historical books? One of the Agree or Disagree TOEFL topics proposes a statement, which says that people should read only those books that are about real events, real people, and established facts. I definitely disagree. My literature teacher has always told me that a good fiction helps you to build your personality, and it teaches you very important things about life. I think that’s true. The historical texts have to be impartial, and the fiction books are more emotional, so you can associate yourself with the main character, live his or her life, gain the same life experience with less losses and then avoid mistakes that he or she has made. Maybe you can associate yourself with famous people like Julius Caesar or Napoleon, too, but since the history books won’t tell you about how they interacted with other people, you unlikely to learn something useful in life from their biographies. History books can be really interesting, but you will hardly need to use the knowledge of how to rule the Roman Republic, and a good fiction book always teaches you a life lesson, even if you don’t notice that. In the end, it is such a pleasure to read a fiction book and not just learn about bare facts. Why should anybody deny yourself this pleasure in the first place?

Country I would like to visit If I had the opportunity to visit a foreign country, it would probably be an English-speaking country, as I want to improve my English, and being immersed in the environment could help me a lot. Also, we have a country studying classes at school where we learn about the culture of English-speaking countries. It would be great to see some of the attractions that we have learnt about with my own eyes. It is hard to choose just one country, as English-speaking world is so diverse. I think that countries like UK and USA have a really interesting history, and New Zealand is probably one of the most beautiful countries in the world. In addition, I heard that the movie ‘Lord of the Rings’ was filmed in in New Zealand. I can’t say I am a big fan of this movie, but I like it and it would be interesting to see places where it was filmed. Australia is another wonderful English-speaking country. It is situated in Southern Hemisphere, that’s why in Australia summer is from December to March and winter is from June to September. This is so unusual! I think that every English-speaking country has its own history and original culture and I would be glad to visit any of them.