Now, add up the score and read the analysis

	a	b	c
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

 

14—21: You are a fashion victim. You worry continually about what you look like. Do you really think it's right to worry so much about your image? Can't you be just you?

6—13: You seem to have a balanced attitude to fashion. You like to look good, — because you like yourself, and you want to present an appearance to the world that matches your view of yourself.

1—5: You are at the other extreme from "fashion victim". You're a sort of "anti-fashion victim". You probably look terrible — and you don't care. Could it be because you don't care about yourself? — if so, think more of yourself.

Additional texts

 

ON SHOPPING

The greatest difficulty in turning myself into a true Britisher was the Art of Shopping. In my silly and primitive Continental way, I believed that the aim of shopping was to buy things you liked or needed.

Today I know that shopping is a social activity and its aim is to help the shopkeeper to get rid of all that junk. Few British people go shopping because they need something, still less because they can afford it.

Shopping is a social occasion — an opportunity for a chat, an opportunity to display your charm, to show the world that you are on Christian-name terms with the butcher and not just a casual who has dropped in from the street. When your turn comes, the butcher's full attention will be yours. No one exists but you. You are the centre of his universe. You may get a little impatient when having already waited twenty minutes in the queue — the lady with the large family starts explaining to the butcher who of her children loves liver and which prefers smoked meat, or when she asks if the butcher's younger daughter has already had her second baby. You should be patient. When your turn comes, the butcher will be yours and only yours. You can then discuss with him last night's rain, your digestion; your children's progress in mathematics, the topless lady's photo in today's "Sun" (but not politics).

In France they would interrupt you with some rude remark; in Italy they would start laughing. But you are in England, among tolerant and understanding Britons who are waiting patiently not so much for their meat as for their turn to chat with the butcher.

HIRE-PURCHASE

The system of buying goods became very common during the twentieth century. Today a large proportion of all the families in Great Britain buy furniture, household goods and cars by hire-purchase. In the USA, the proportion is much higher than in Great Britain, and people there spend over 10 per cent of their income on hire-purchase instalments.

The goods bought by hire-purchase are, in almost every case, goods that will last — radio and television sets, washing-machines, refrigerators, motor-cars and motor-cycles, and articles of furniture.

The price of an article bought in this way is always higher than the price that would be paid in cash. There is a charge for interest. The buyer pays a proportion, perhaps one-quarter or one-third, of the price when the goods are delivered to him. He then makes regular payments, weekly or monthly, until the full price has been paid. The legal ownership of the goods remains with the seller until the final payment has been made.

Hire-purchase has advantages and disadvantages. It helps newly-married couples with small incomes to furnish their homes. It increases the demand for goods, and in this way helps trade and employment. If families are paying each month instalments on such household goods as a washing-machine and a car, they can spend less money (or perhaps no money) in useless or perhaps harmful ways, for example, on too much alcoholic drink.

There is, however, the danger that when trade is bad, hire-purchase buying may end suddenly and make trade much worse, with, as a result, a great increase in unemployment. This is why, in some countries, the Government controls hire-purchase by fixing the proportion of the first payments and the instalments.

 

DRESSING IN FASHION

Fashions change so quickly that it’s difficult to follow them. What was “in ” yesterday, may be out of fashion tomorrow and not so popular even today! Even people who do not take much interest in clothes and fashion can’t but notice how radically people around change with each new swing of fashion. Let’s briefly describe the main changes in people’s appearance that took place in the 20^th century.

At the turn of the century clothes were rather conservative and fashions didn’t change too quickly. Men wore traditional dark suits with starched white or light-coloured shirts. Dinner jackets and tails with bow-ties were for formal wear. A lot of men gad moustaches and short hair-cuts. Women wore their hair long. A hat was a necessary accessory when a lady was going out. Dresses were long and under them women wore corsets-the tools of torturing! They were stiff and uncomfortable, but they made women’s waists narrower. And the fashion dictated this!

After the First World War the fashion changed greatly. Men started wearing the so-called Oxford bags-trousers with very wide legs. But it was women who really surprised the world by wearing short hair-cuts and short dresses allowing everybody to see their knees. No corsets any longer. No waist or bust indicated, a boy-like figure became the ideal of beauty.

The next two decades- 1930 and 1940s- brought more feminine styles. Skirts became longer and fuller. Shoulder length hair became popular. After the World War II, in the 1950s, the men got more interested in clothes, especially young men. The so-called teddy boys appeared who wore long jackets in bright colours-orange, yellow, pink (something nobody would have delivered ten or twenty years before!) and very tight trousers called “drain-pipes”. Shoes of both men and women had long pointed toes. Women’ shoes also had high stiletto heels. Most women wore wide skirts and jumpers. Short socks to accompany them were in fashion.

In the 1960s there was another revolution brought about by mini-skirts (conservative Britain was Motherland of the new fashion!) and high boots for women. Men began to wear their hair long following the hair-cut of the famous group, the Beatles. In the late 1960 and the first half of the 1970s hippy style was in. Jeans and brightly coloured shirts and T-shirts for men, long hair (often dirty) and beards. Women wore loose maxi-dresses. They also wore their hair loose and long.

In the 1980s punks appeared with their special hairstyle in red, purple, blue and green, and brightly coloured make up. The 1990s brought about unisex fashion as well as rockers and bikers with leather jackets, leather trousers, a lot of metal accessories and decorations.

What will the 22^nd century bring us?

 

SHOPPING

There are many kinds of shops catering for the needs of the population. Thus, if one wants to buy flour, tea, sugar, etc., it is necessary to go to the grocery. At the fruit counter one can buy apples, dried fruits, oranges, tangerines, pears, grapes, plums, raisins, etc.

I often help my mother to do shopping. It’s my duty to buy vegetables, bread and milk. When my lessons are over I buy cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, onions, beetroot, green peas and what not at the greengrocer’s. Then I go to a dairy shop and buy there bottled and loose milk. Sometimes I also buy sour milk, cream, sour cream, cheese, butter and other dairy products. At the bakery (baker’s) I buy loaves of brown or white bread, rusks, rolls and buns.

My father on his way home buys some fish at the fish-monger’s. Sometimes he buys smoked fish or herring or tinned fish or even caviar(e).

I am not good at choosing meat. My mother does it. At the meat shop (butcher’s) there is a wide choice of lean and fat meat, such as beef, mutton, pork, veal and poultry. Meat is also sold ready-weighed and packed in cellophane.

On Sundays I am a regular customer at the confectionery or sweet shop. There I can buy all sorts of sweets, such as candies, biscuits, chocolate bars, cakes, etc.

My father is also a regular customer at the tobacconist’s. There he buys cigarettes or cigars, lighters and other kinds of articles used by smokers.

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