Home / Lesson 31 - Crime and punishment

Lesson 31 - Crime and punishment

Result
Congratulations on completing the test, you need to try harder to master English.
You answered correctly : 13 / 34 câu.

Completion time : 03 minutes 28 senconds.

You receive 13 point of 34 questions (38%).

1. Complete the texts with the past simple active or passive form of the verbs in the box.


1. A girl in North Carolina ______ for theft.
You answered: arrested
Answer correct: was arrested


2. During her trial, she ______ to go home and get her favorite possession.
You answered: was told
Answer correct: was told


3. She ______ back with her iPod. The judge threw it onto the floor and broke it. 'Now you know how it feels to lose your
favorite possession,' he said. 'Don't do it to anybody else.'
You answered: came
Answer correct: came


4. William Brown, aged nineteen, ______ stealing a TV from a house.
You answered: was caught
Answer correct: was caught


5. Brown said the TV was for his little brother, who ______ a broken leg and was bored in bed. The judge sentenced
Brown to no TV- watching for a year.
You answered: was had
Answer correct: had


6. Amazingly, the victim of the crime ______, 'It's OK. I have two TVs. He can borrow one while his brother gets better.'
You answered: said
Answer correct: said


7. Lucas Stepanovich drove through town playing Joud music with his windows down. At his trial he ______ a choice:
pay a $100 fine or listen to loud classical music for six hours.
You answered:
Answer correct: was given


8. He ______ the music.
You answered: was choosen
Answer correct: chose
2. Find the suitable word to fill in the blanks


1. The police ---------- him an hour ago.
You answered: speeding
Answer correct: arrested


2. He's a dangerous ----------. Stay away from him.
You answered: run away
Answer correct: criminal


3. Does he deserve such heavy ----------?
You answered: burglaries
Answer correct: punishment


4. If he commits a crime again, he'll go to ----------.
You answered: criminal
Answer correct: prison


5. He was fined for ----------. He's always been a reckless driver.
You answered: witnesses
Answer correct: speeding


6. A few ---------- saw him drive through a red light.
You answered: prison
Answer correct: witnesses


7. One man tried to ---------- from the police after he had been caught drink-driving.
You answered: arrested
Answer correct: run away


8. There were a few ---------- in our neighborhood last month.
You answered: accused
Answer correct: burglaries


9. The police decide to reopen the ---------- after some new evidence had emerged.
You answered: investigation
Answer correct: investigation


10. The man was ---------- of speeding and given a ninety-day prison sentence.
You answered: punishment
Answer correct: accused

3. READING - THREE FAMOUS CRIMES

Every day in the newspapers you can read about crimes and criminals. However, some crimes are more famous than
others. In this activity you will read about three very famous crimes that happened in the UK. 

The Great Train Robbery

One of the most famous robberies in British history happened at 3 am on the morning of 8th August 1963. A gang of 15
men stopped a Travelling Post Office Train which was travelling to London from Glasgow in Scotland. They stopped the
train by changing the signal to red, and stole letters containing £2.6 million in cash (this would be £46 million today). The
robbers drove away to a farmhouse near the railway line where they shared out the money between them.

Unfortunately for them a neighbour told the police about the men hiding in the farmhouse. When the police went there they
found post office bags and fingerprints, and all the robbers except four were caught and sent to prison. Most of the money
was never found.

The most famous of the robbers was called Ronnie Biggs. He was sent to prison for 30 years but in June 1965, after only 15
months in prison, he escaped in a furniture van and ran away to Brazil. He lived there until May 2001, when he decided to
return to the UK and he was sent back to prison.

An unusual burglary

In the early morning of 9th July 1982, the Queen was asleep in her bedroom at Buckingham Palace in London. Suddenly
she woke up when she heard the curtains move. There, at the foot of her bed was Michael Fagan, a 31 year old
unemployed decorator.

Fagan had climbed up the walls of the palace and then climbed up a drainpipe to the Queen’s private rooms. According
to the newspapers, he stole a bottle of wine and then spent 10 minutes sitting on her bed chatting to her. When he asked
for a cigarette she called one of her staff who held Fagan until the police arrived.  The court decided that he was mentally
ill, so he was sent to a mental hospital and not to prison.

After this incident there was a lot of discussion about security in the Royal Palaces. Now the security system has been
improved so the Queen has had no more strange night time visitors!

The doctor who murdered his patients

Harold Shipman looked like a kind, friendly family doctor, but in 2000, when he was 54, he was sent to prison for life.  He
killed 218 of his patients between 1975 and 1998 and the police believe he probably killed many more than this, perhaps as
many as 355.

Most of the people he killed were elderly women. At that time only one doctor needed to sign a death certificate and
nobody thought this nice family doctor could be a murderer. He usually killed the women in their own homes, by giving
them injections of a drug called diamorphine. He was caught in 1999 when he changed the will of an elderly patient to
leave £386,000 to him.

Nobody knows why Shipman killed all these people. He was sent to prison for life but he committed suicide in prison in
January 2004.


1. The train was travelling from London to Glasgow.
You answered: TRUE
Answer correct: FALSE


2. The train robbers stole 46 million pounds.
You answered: FALSE
Answer correct: FALSE


3. The police caught all the train robbers.
You answered: TRUE
Answer correct: FALSE


4. Fagan didn't have a job at the time when he broke into Buckingham Palace.
You answered: FALSE
Answer correct: TRUE


5. Fagan got into Buckingham Palace through a back door.
You answered: TRUE
Answer correct: FALSE
 
6. The Queen gave Fagan a cigarette.
You answered: FALSE
Answer correct: FALSE


7. Shipman killed his patients for more than 20 years.
You answered: TRUE
Answer correct: TRUE


8. Shipman killed most of the patients in his surgery.
You answered: FALSE
Answer correct: FALSE


9. Shipman tried to get some money from one of the patients he killed.
You answered: TRUE
Answer correct: TRUE

4. Listen and choose the correct option to complete the sentences.

0:00 / 2:28


1. Sophie______
You answered: is a teacher
Answer correct: is a schoolgirl


2. Sophie thinks people concentrate better _____
You answered: without technology
Answer correct: without technology


3. Luis doesn't like _____
You answered: newspapers and food in the tube
Answer correct: newspapers and food in the tube


4. Luis suggests a punishment: _____
You answered: paying some money
Answer correct: cleaning the streets


5. Pamela loves ______
You answered: her older friends
Answer correct: technology


6. Pamela suggests a punishment: ______
You answered: reading emails from her
Answer correct: reading millions of spam messages for six months

5. WRITING: Write an essay at least 150 words.


1. Prison is the common way in most countries to solve the problem of crime. However, a more effective solution is to
provide people a better education. Do you agree or disagree?
You answered:
There are many different opinions on the best way to reduce crime. The traditional solution is to punish There are many
different opinions on the best way to reduce crime. The traditional solution is to punish the criminals by putting them in
 prison. Some hold the view that education and job training are the long term solutions to cut crime. In my opinion,
prison is the only answer in a few situations, but in most cases education, vocational training and rehabilitation are
better.
Prison is the only answer in case of criminals who are a risk to the society, such as murderers. They cannot be made to
mix with society. Some people also say that people would not be afraid of doing crime if fear of imprisonment is not
there. But I still feel that in majority of cases, we can do without prisons.
In traditional prisons, people learn a lot about crime and so when they leave prison they will commit even more crime.
In other words prisons act as universities of crime. So petty offenders like shop-lifters and pick-pockets should be given
some vocational training and education. It is a well known fact that the basic causes of crime are poverty, illiteracy and
unemployment. So, if we provide education and job training then we would be removing the causes of crime. If
criminals are rehabilitated by some form of employment then they would certainly not re-offend.
Furthermore, the prisons are expensive to maintain. The government can spend that money on other important matters
such as education and healthcare. This would ease some burden from the government’s shoulders. The petty and minor
criminals can also be employed in some community service projects after providing education and vocational training.
Summing up, we should hate the crime and not the criminal. To fight crime we should focus on the causes of crime.
Education and job training help to rehabilitate the criminals. So, people who commit less serious crimes should not be
sent to prison. Focus should be on reforming them.
Answer correct: Some people hold a strong belief that the prominent approach to address the crime issues in the world
would be imprisoning crime-committing individuals, others opine that further education is a better way to consider.
While I disagree with the former viewpoint , I completely side with the latter point of view for some reasons as a matter
of fact.

On the one hand, it is undoubtedly true that not every crime should end up in jail. If the government puts the offenders
a specific number of months or even years in prison just because of their petty crimes, the rising debates may arise
among the community. This is mostly because people might have difficulty reintegrating back to society and living on in
their later lives. For example, some teenagers who have committed juvenile crimes are likely to be harshly judged by
others when stepping outside the jail as people hardly put their trust inthose having criminal records. As a result, this
may have negative effects on their perspective careers in which most parents are of much concern.

On the other hand, there are several reasons why education is one of the most optimized ways. It is obvious that
prevention is better treatment than cure. The likelihood of breaking the laws may be effectively mitigated if sufficient
education is provided in time, especially with children who have insufficient knowledge about illegal acts. For example,
a great number of young students in their adolescence are vulnerable to expose to bad behaviors due to the
mentioned lack of background knowledge and it is ,therefore, of pivotal importance to educate this age group from the
dawn. In addition, some unwanted consequences,namely the loss of lives and properties could be reduced in a huge
number of cases.

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