(C2 writing) The Life of

Albert-Einstein

By Jan Reiche

P1

German icon

Albert Einstein

brilliant physicist
invented famous formulas 
E = mc²
made groundbreaking discoveries in quantum mechanics
born in Ulm
part of the German Empire
14th March 1879

Can you turn all this information into one sentence?




___ German icon Albert Einstein, a brilliant physicist ____ invented famous formulas ___ as E = mc² ___ made groundbreaking discoveries in quantum mechanics, ___ born in Ulm, ____ part of the German Empire, ___ the 14th March 1879. 





only child
moved to Munich 
one year old
catholic elementary school
switched to Luitpold Gymnasium
now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium
eight years old

Turn this into one sentence.




_____ was an only child and moved with his parents to Munich when he was one year old. ____ he briefly attended catholic elementary school before switching to the Luitpold Gymnasium (now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium) ____ he was eight.

P2

GET THE CLAUSES AND SENTENCES INTO THE RIGHT ORDER.

Einstein first proved his brilliance at twelve... 

A) After working through a geometrical textbook, 
B) when he taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer 
C) and discovered his own proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. 
D) By the age of fourteen 
E) given to him by a teacher, 
F) he decided to step up to higher mathematics. 
G) he had mastered integral and differential calculus. 

Einstein first proved his brilliance at twelve
when he taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer 
and discovered his own proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. 
After working through a geometrical textbook, 
given to him by a teacher, 
he decided to step up to higher mathematics. 
By the age of fourteen 
he had mastered integral and differential calculus. 

P3

What's the difference between the information in bold and the other information?

Einstein's father Hermann was the founder of an electrical equipment company, which he was forced to sell when Einstein was fifteen. In need of employment Hermann and Einstein's mother Pauline left Germany and moved to Pavia in Italy. Einstein stayed on in Munich to finish his education, but soon surpassed his classmates and joined his family in Pavia.

P4

At sixteen Albert tried to enrol / enrolling in a Swiss university in Zürich but failed to reach / reaching  the required grades in the general part of the enrolment test. However, he passed physics and mathematics with such outstanding grades that the principal of that school advised him to join  / joining another gymnasium in Switzerland to finish / finishing his secondary schooling. In 1896, the seventeen-year-old Einstein, with his father’s approval, renounced his citizenship of the German Kingdom of Württemberg, in order to avoid / avoiding military service and focus on his education. He joined a four-year mathematics and physics diploma program at the university in Zürich he had been rejected from two years earlier.

Ingvar Kamprad

By Jennifer

Prepositions

Ingvar Kamprad was born on 30^th of March 1926 ____ Älmtaryd, the family farm next to the village Agunnaryd, Sweden. Ingvar began his career ____the age of five ___ selling individual matches ___ a low price to neighbors; he later expanded his business ___ selling fish, ballpoint pens and more everyday items.

___ his late teens Kamprad started selling replicas ___ his uncle’s kitchen table ____ the name IKEA (Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd). It started ____ as a mail-order business and Ingvar later added more furniture ____ his portfolio. The first catalog came ____ in 1951 and two years later Ingvar bought an old carpentry-factory and converted it _____ an exhibition hall.

IKEA’s iconic flat packages ____ furniture that you assemble yourself came ___ 1955 and soon became  a common sight ___ Swedish homes. After that, the company took ___ and the first emporium opened 1965 ___ Kungens kurva (The Kings Curve) just ____ Stockholm.

Ingvar Kamprad is probably Sweden’s most famous entrepreneur of the Twentieth Century. Nevertheless, his innovative methods were boycotted by suppliers and furniture fairs and he was forced to reach beyond Sweden. It was this that laid the groundwork for the company’s successful, low-price yet stylish global brand. The first emporium outside his homeland opened 1963 in Oslo, Norway. From 1988 and on Ingvar no longer had an operative role in IKEA but continued on as an advisor to the company.

IKEA is now the biggest international home decoration company in the world.

Henri Guisan

Born in 1874 in Mézières (the French-speaking part of Switzerland), Henri Guisan was one of the rare Generals of the Swiss Armed Forced. He is widely believed to be -  even if it cannot be yet completely proven - the one who saved Switzerland from a possible German invasion during World War II.

The rank of General in the Swiss army is only given in time of war or during a national emergency and, as of now, it has only been given four times. A month after the cenomcmenemt of the WWII in 1939, the Swiss parliament called the United Federal Assembly of Switzerland to elect Henri Guisan as General. The power to sguarafed the independence of the country was now esivuelxcly in his hands and no longer in the government’s.

Before that, Henri Guisan was a simple farmer who had studied agricultural medicine. He went to the compulsory military service, like every Swiss man, and eventually got promoted up the ranks, reaching the rank of Corps Commander in 1932.

In July 1940, Switzerland was cledencir by the Third Reich and its allies: Austria to the east, Germany to the north, Occupied France to the west and Mussolini’s Italy to the south. Guisan decided to gather the whole Officer Corps on the Grütli hill, known to be the place where the pact of alliance between the three first Swiss Cantons was signed, and gave an historic speech. At the same time, he presented his defence strategy: the National Redoubt.

The National Redoubt was essentially a plan to build several bunkers up in the Alps. In case of an invasion, the Swiss army and some selected civilians would retreat to these bunkers and defend themselves. Every strategic junction and passage in the country was also obboy-aptrped with dynamite. This strategy was chosen by Guisan because he knew that the Germans would not have the skills and the appropriate equipment to fight in the mountains and that Hitler couldn’t have had the railways cut because they were strategic trade and supply passage with Italy. It is now believed that this particular strategy kept Switzerland safe during WWII.

At the end of the WWII in 1945, Guisan left his command considering that he had not anything more to do for the country. He retired in Pully, next to Geneva Lake and peacefully spent the rest of his life here. He became a national hero and when he died in April 1960, aged 85, more than 300,000 people atepicipartd in his funeral march.

Today, Henri Guisan is still an important figure in Switzerland with several streets and places named after him. However, with the icadessifticlaon of some secret documents, Guisan's image has been a bit tarhenisd. It appears the General had a secret admiration for Mussolini and Pétain (leader of the Occupied “Vichy” France) and even secretly met a high-ranking SS officer during the war. 

Although this clouds matters somewhat, it is certain that Guisan's actions spared Switzerland an invasion and preserved much of the country's independence and heritage during a rioped or war and strife.

The Maestro of Tennis

Roger Federer is currently number two in professional tennis for men in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Holding several different world records related not only to tennis, but also to sports in general, he is considered the most talented tennis player who has ever lived by fans and other tennis professionals.

Born on the 8th of August 1981, the second child of Robert and Lynette Federer, Federer grew up in Basel, Switzerland together with his older sister Diana. During his childhood, he tried out a lot of different sports including basketball, badminton and football. Eventually he ended up playing tennis and in 1998 he won his first junior Grand Slam tournament and in 1999 he entered the list of the top 100 tennis players of the world.

His international breakthrough however came only in 2001, during the Wimbledon tournament, where he beat Pete Sampras, the reigning number 1 at the time.  A year later Roger finally made it into the top ten players of the world, achieving this by reaching and winning the finals of the Munich Masters tournament. At the age of 23 he won his first Grand Slam title in Wimbledon, advancing to the number two spot in the world ranking. He has dominated the tennis world tournaments ever since, taking little breaks in between to recover from injuries or to have time with his wife and four children.

Roger Federer met his wife, Mirka Vavrincová, during the Olympic Games in 2000 in Sydney. They both competed, but neither were very successful on that occasion. Mirka stopped playing two years later, due to a foot injury. However, she still supported her husband-to-be by organizing his conferences etc, and she still does today. They married in 2009 in Basel and have since had two sets of identical twins, one pair of girls in 2009 and a pair of boys in 2014.

Earning millions through advertisement contracts, Federer decided to found a charity organization, the Roger Federer Foundation. The goal of this foundation is to help children, mostly in Africa, to get an education. With the support not only of his wife, but also of his parents, Federer managed to build up a large network of schools in the south of Africa. But this is not the only thing that Roger Federer does to help others. In 2010 and 2014 he organized tennis matches against Rafael Nadal to raise money for Africa, and in 2010, 2011 and 2017 he participated in several matches to collect money for victims of natural disasters.

His endurance and kindness was rewarded; Federer was voted Sportsman of the year 2008 and 2018 and ATP player of the year four times. In addition, he was elected the most stylish man alive in 2016 and he holds the records for: most Grand Slam titles (20), most number of weeks as number 1 by ATP (308), most Wimbledon titles (8), oldest number one by ATP (Age 36) and numerous others. So it is only fair that he’s called the greatest tennis player in history and a living legend.