English Oral Test

English Oral Test is a test for every student to stand in front of an audience and make a speech or maybe say anything that pops into your mind at that moment. But for our class, we usually remember a passage before we went for the test. The reason is because we are not use to standing in front of a crowd, even more, talking in front of them. Before we went for the test, we were given a period of a few weeks to get ready. We need to find a material and I went with what I would actually be interested in. I had written "Rome" as a title in the name list, so I went for the search for an essay. A few weeks ago, I had kept an article from the newspaper, they were introducing the places in Rome. What's special about it is, they were introducing places that were also the settings in the book written by Dan Brown, Angels and Demons. There was a small problem though, the article was in Chinese, it took me at least 3 hours to translate the summary of it, there were 6 places, but I only took 4 or else it would be too long. Below is the material I had for the oral test.

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Good morning everyone, my topic for today is masterpieces in Rome. Rome is one of the most interesting cities in the world due to the presence of historic monuments and ancient buildings. The origins of this Italian city date from more than 2,700 years ago. Rome contains some of the most interesting ancient buildings and monuments of the entire world.

One of them is the Pantheon, built by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome. However, the structure of the building today we see might belong to Trajan’s architect Apollodorus of Damascus as it was rebuilt after 100 years. The Pantheon has been in continuous use throughout its history. Since the 7th century, it has been used as a Roman Catholic Church dedicated to “St. Mary and the Martyrs”.

Santa Maria del Popolo is a notable Augustinian church. It stands between Piazza del Popolo and the ancient Porta Flaminia. This church has a vast collection of artworks. Arts from famous artist such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Bernini are found in this church. The detailed mosaic dome created by Raphael was for his friend, Agostino Chigi as a private chapel.

The Saint Peter’s Basilica is located within the Vatican City. St. Peter’s has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world, holding 60,000 people. This ancient building was built by Emperor Constantine, taking about 120 years to be completed. Many known architects had participated in this great construction.

Finally, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, a masterpiece by Bernini is located in the Piazza Navona. The Four Rivers represent the four great rivers, they are the Nile in Africa, Ganges in Asia, Danube in Europe and Rio de la Plata in America. Each carving on the fountain carries a certain number of allegories and metaphors. Even if it has been standing for 358 years, it still has not lost its soul and charm.
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After 2 weeks of remembering the script, I finally went for the test. I gotta say, this was the first time I didn't make a fool out of myself. This is because for every oral test from primary school to secondary school, I would make a very big mistake or forget what I was going to say.
(:P)