Билет 41. The fat of the lands (the economist, February 21, 2002, Boston)

1) idioms and the effect they produce

2) the system of higher education in the USA

Students who have completed a first degree are eligible to undertake a postgraduate degree, which includes:

• Master's degree (typically taken in one year)

• Doctorate degree (typically taken in three years)

Postgraduate education is not automatically financed by the State, and so admission is in practice highly competitive.

Post-secondary education in the United States is known as college or university and commonly consists of four years of study at an institution of higher learning. Like high school, the four undergraduate grades are commonly called freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior yearsю Students traditionally apply to receive admission into college, with varying difficulties of entrance. Schools differ in their competitiveness and reputation; generally, the most prestigious schools are private, rather than public. Admissions criteria involve the rigor and grades earned in high school courses taken, the students' GPA, class ranking, and standardized test scores (Such as the SAT or the ACT tests). Most colleges also consider more subjective factors such as a commitment to extracurricular activities, a personal essay, and an interview. While numerical factors rarely ever are absolute required values, each college usually has a rough threshold below which admission is unlikely.

Once admitted, students engage in undergraduate study, which consists of satisfying university and class requirements to achieve a bachelor's degree in a field of concentration known as a major. (Some students enroll in double majors or " minor" in another field of study.) The most common method consists of four years of study leading to a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), or sometimes another bachelor's degree such as Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.), Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.W.), Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng., ) or Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.) Five-Year Professional Architecture programs offer the Bachelor of Architecture Degree (B.Arch.)

Unlike in the British model, degrees in law and medicine are not offered at the undergraduate level and are completed as graduate study after earning a bachelor's degree. Neither field specifies or prefers any undergraduate major, though medicine has set prerequisite courses that must be taken before enrollment.

Some students choose to attend a community college for two years prior to further study at another college or university. In most states, community colleges are operated either by a division of the state university or by local special districts subject to guidance from a state agency. Community colleges may award Associate of Arts (AA) or Associate of Science (AS) degree after two years. Those seeking to continue their education may transfer to a four-year college or university (after applying through a similar admissions process as those applying directly to the four-year institution). Some community colleges have automatic enrollment agreements with a local four-year college, where the community college provides the first two years of study and the university provides the remaining years of study, sometimes all on one campus.

Entrance into graduate programs usually depends upon a student's undergraduate academic performance or professional experience as well as their score on a standardized entrance exam like the Graduate Record Examination (GRE-graduate schools in general), the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), or the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Many graduate and law schools do not require experience after earning a bachelor's degree to enter their programs; however, business school candidates are usually required to gain a few years of professional work experience before applying.

The vast majority of students (up to 70 percent) lack the financial resources to pay tuition up front and must rely on student loans and scholarships from their university, the federal government, or a private lender. All but a few charity institutions charge all students tuition, although scholarships (both merit-based and need-based) are widely available. Generally, private universities charge much higher tuition than their public counterparts, which rely on state funds to make up the difference. Because each state supports its own university system with state taxes, most public universities charge much higher rates for out-of-state students. Private universities are generally considered to be of higher quality than public universities, although there are many exceptions.

United States

American high school students apply to either four-year liberal arts colleges or universities, which include both undergraduate or graduate students. Others attend community colleges, who admit all students with high school diplomas, in preparation for transfer to a four year university. Non-traditional students are usually students over the age of 22 who pursue studies in higher education. Students may apply to many institutions using the Common Application. (The Common Application (informally known as the Common App) is an undergraduate college admission application that applicants may use to apply to any of 315 member colleges and universities in the United States. It's managed by the staff of a not-for-profit membership association (The Common Application, Inc.) and governed by a 13-member volunteer Board of Directors drawn from college admission deans and secondary school college guidance counselors. Its mission is to encourage college " access" by promoting holistic admission (the use of subjective criteria like essays and recommendations alongside objecttive criteria). It promotes holistic admission by limiting membership to institutions that have committed to using holistic admission for their entire undergraduate full-time applicant pool, and then streamlining the college application process for students choosing to apply to those colleges. The questions on the Common App include factors such as the home life of the student, academic achievements, standardized test scores and other information that colleges use to evaluate students for admission.

There is no limit to the number of colleges or universities to which a student may apply, though an application must be submitted for each. Fees are generally charged for each admissions application, but can be waived based on financial need.

Students apply to one or more colleges or universities by submitting an application which each college evaluates by its own criteria. The college then decides whether to extend an offer of admission (and possibly financial aid) to the student. The majority of colleges admit students to the college as a whole, and not to a particular academic major, although this may not be the case in some specialized programs such as engineering and architecture. The system is decentralized: each college has its own criteria for admission, even when using a common application form.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) offers high quality programmes of international education to a worldwide community of schools. There are more than 609, 000 IB students at 2, 293 schools in 127 countries.

The International Baccalaureate Organization's original intent was to provide schools with a curriculum which would be universally acceptable to all institutions of higher learning throughout the world. This idea led to the creation of the IB Diploma Programme in 1968 at the International School of Geneva. The Middle Years Programme and Primary Years Programme were created in 1994 and 1997, respectively, allowing the IBO to offer educational programmes from the age of three to the end of the secondary level.

The IBO functions on fees charged from schools who wish to implement one or more of the organization's educational programs. Traditionally, the schools offering the programmes were private international schools, but the number of state schools (public schools in the U.S.) is increasing. Today, over half of all Diploma Program students are from these schools and there are currently 1, 903 schools in 124 countries implementing the organization's programs to more than 500, 000 students aged 3 to 19 years.

Students will be permitted to enter the final examination only if they have ‘duly performed’, usually known as attaining a ‘DP’ (and sometimes even as attaining a ‘DP certificate’ although in practice there is no physical certificate issued).

In exam results there is a distinction, merit, pass. Я так понимаю, что это оценка успехов на экзамене, как удовлетворительно, хорошо, отлично. Но полной уверенности нет: ( Не могу нигде найти!

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