1. Read the text "Going Underground" and match its parts (1-5) with the descriptions (a-e).

Going Underground

1. The Moscow underground is the largest in terms of passenger numbers, with more than a billion passenger journeys a year. Some underground stations are very beautiful and include sculptures, mosaic pictures on the ceilings and beautiful decorations. The first line was opened in the 1930s. It ran through the city centre and had just ten stations.

2. The New York underground is the largest in terms of kilometres covered. It is often called the "Subway" and is one of the world's cheapest, with a single journey to and from any station costing just $$2. It is characterized by the fact that its lines are named by numbers and letters (like 1, 3 and A, D).

3. The Paris Metro was built at the beginning of the 20th century1 and has 368 stations across 15 lines and transporting around six million people daily. Some stations are designed in a very artistic way characterized by flower and leaf motifs. The architect Hector Guimard decorated this mass transit system in tune with the city.

4. London was the first city to get the underground. The London Underground (The Metropolitan Railway) was opened in 1863 and Londoners at once began speaking about it as a fashionable way to travel. The Metropolitan Railway grew and began to be called the Tube because of the narrow tunnels that characterize the older parts of the system. Today the London Underground covers most of Greater London with 11 different lines and there are 97 million passenger journeys every year.

5. The Tokyo subway became infamous (печально известным) in 1995 when the Aum Shinri Kyo cult (культ) used Sarin gas on a train, killing 12 people. However, it is one of the safest underground systems and generally people characterize it as the world's best in terms of ease of use and comfort.

Descriptions:

• a) the oldest of them
• b) the most comfortable
• c) the one which carries the biggest number of passengers
• d) the one which shows the style of decoration matching the capital
• e) the one which has the longest lines

Matching:

1. c

2. e

3. d

4. a

5. b