Summarize the text in three paragraphs.

 

& Reading 3

1. College and university admission/entrance requirements: 1) application including personal information. 2) high school report including class rank, a transcript with the list of all the courses taken and all grades received in high school with courses failed or repeated, test results, SAT, Achievement Test and ACT scores and a general assessment of the applicant’s character such as academic motivation, creativity, self-discipline, leadership, self-confidence, warmth of personality, sense of humor, etc. 3) one or more recommendations by school teachers. 4) personal commentary such as major extra-curricular activities, hobbies, special awards or prizes, work or travel experiences, educational and/or career goals and the reasons for the choice of this particular university. 5) personal interview.

2. Administration and organization: The head of the university is usually called President, sometimes Chancellor. His principal assistants are Vice-presidents, directors, deans and business managers. Each university consists of a number of units called either College or School. There is always a College of Arts and Sciences and several professional schools, e.g. one unit of a university may be called College of Medicine, whereas another one of the same university may be called Law School, i. e. the units of a university providing professional education may be called either colleges or schools, without any difference in meaning.

3. Faculty members: The teaching staff of an American university is called the faculty. Full-time faculty consists of professors and instructors. The rank of associate professors, assistant professors corresponds to the British rank of readers or senior lecturers.

4. To audit a course -to take up an extra course for personal interest without earning credits; it must be paid for on an hourly basis.

5. Career development and job placement -an academic advising service, which provides up-to-date information on career areas and individual career counseling and planning. Job placement is not guaranteed in universities of the USA.

6. Counselor -a person on a university staff who provides counseling and consultation service to help in decisions regarding courses, majors, vocational plans, career opportunities and personal matters. Services are free to all students.

7. Tenure - signifies that a faculty member has become a full and permanent member of the academic body of the university and provides the faculty member with the right of continued employment without discriminatory reduction in salary unless there be grave reasons for dismissal. Normally tenure is attached to the ranks of Associate Professor and Professor who have demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and service.

8. Degrees: the Associates’ degree-the Associate of Arts (AA), the Associate of Science (AS) - is usually awarded at a community or junior college upon completion of 2 years of study-it represents the same level as completion of the first two years of a 4-year college or university and students with AA or AS may transfer to 4-year institutions.

The Bachelor’s degree - normally requires 4 years of academic study beyond the high school diploma: the Bachelor of Arts (BA), the Bachelor of Science (BS); the Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.); the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), etc.

The Master’s degree - programs leading to the degree usually require 1 or 2 years of advanced study in graduate-level courses and seminars. Frequently a thesis is required or a final oral or written examination. (MA-the Master of Arts, etc.)

The Doctor’s degree - usually the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) (equal to the Soviet candidate of Science, Philology, etc.) - the highest academic degree; it requires a minimum of 2 years of course work beyond the Master’s degree level, success in a qualifying examination, proficiency in 1 or 2 foreign languages and/or in a research tool (such as statistics) and completion of a doctoral dissertation.

9. SAT-the Scholastic Aptitude Test (in mathematics and verbal ability) used since 1947: 1600 scores-a good result; 400 scores-poor.

The SAT is taken in the 11th grade of high school! (About 1, 5 mln students take it yearly.)

Many educators point out that SAT scores are related to family income-the higher the income, the higher the SAT scores and certain minorities have not scored well because of low incomes and bad schools. SAT can be taken two or three times (in the 11 and 12th grades), generally preceded by PSAT (preparatory), a test to give students a warm-up exercise for the SAT and indicate their probable SAT scoring range.

ACT-the American College Testing program -is similar to SAT but scores social studies and the natural studies. The ACT is taken when required by certain colleges or universities. (About 200, 000 students take this test yearly.)

Both tests are widely used in the admission process of US colleges and universities. Their results are sent to the colleges or universities to which the students have applied. ACT is meant to be taken only once.

Achievement tests - special tests in a discipline required by some colleges for admission.

“TOEFL” stands for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. This test is used to measure your English language proficiency. If you are applying to a college or university, your TOEFL scores will help the admission staff to determine if your skills are adequate for enrollment into the program of study you have selected.

10. Academic Year is usually nine months duration, or two semesters of 4 and a half months each. Classes usually begin in September and end in July. There are summer classes for those who want to improve the grades or take up additional courses.

During one term or semester, a student will study, concurrently, four or five different subjects. The students’ progress is often assessed through quizzes (short oral or written tests), term papers and a final examination in each course. Each part of a student’s work in a course is given a mark, which helps to determine his final grade. A student’s record consists of his grade in each course.

College grades, determined by each instructor on the basis of class work and examinations, are usually on a five-point scale, with letters to indicate the levels of achievement. A - is the highest mark, indicating superior accomplishment, and the letters go through B, C, D, to E or F which denotes failure. Many schools assign points for each grade (A = 5, В = 4, etc.) so that GPA (grade point average) may be computed. Normally, a minimum grade-point average (3, 5 points) is required to continue in school and to graduate.

11. Student Financial Aid -sums of money for students who need financial aid to attend college.

When a family applies for aid, an analysis is made of the parents’ income; Financial Aid is normally awarded as part of a package: part grant (a grant needn’t be repaid, parts of which might come from several sources: federal, state, private scholarship, college scholarship); part loan (to be repaid after college); part work (colleges normally expect students on aid to earn some of the money they need by working summers on the campus).

12. Students Union. There are several national nongovernmental associations of students. The largest and most active has been the United States National Student Association, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. (USNSA). Each year USNSA conducts a student Congress, which brings together delegates of student governments for debates on a wide variety of student, national and international issues.

A great deal of the cultural and recreational life at a university is created and conducted by student groups. They sponsor or participate in concerts, plays, debates, forums and festivals. They have various clubs, film societies, jazz groups, newspapers, magazines, radio stations, athletic events. At many universities, the centre of these social and cultural out-of-class activities is the Students Union.

13. Student Life. Some community colleges or universities maintain major resident facilities, fraternity and sorority houses, and students unions.

There are also a large number of national fraternities and sororities with chapters (branches) at almost 500 colleges and universities. These organizations, Greek letter societies, are descendants of the 18th century library and social clubs which flourished in the early American colleges.

No society has more than one chapter in any one college. While those societies are secret in character there is seldom any overemphasis of ritual or mystery in their conduct. The Greek alphabet is generally used in naming the fraternity, sorority or a chapter. It has become quite the practice for students of a particular fraternity to reside together during their college course in their “chapter” house. Students who live outside the colleges or universities live in cooperatives (cooperative housing associations providing lodgings), rooming houses or apartment complexes.

 

4 Do the following exercises

1.Use the topical vocabulary in answering the following questions:

1.What steps do students have to take to enroll in a college/ university for admission? Speak about the exams they take — PSAT, SAT, ACT. 2. What financial assistance are applicants eligible for? What is college scholarship, grants, loan? Explain and bring out the essence of student financial aid. 3. Speak about academic calendar of a university. How does an academic year differ from the one in Russia? 4. How many credit hours does a student need to graduate? What type curricular courses and howmany does a student have to take to earn a degree? What is a GPA (grade point average)? 6. What is there to say about a college faculty? What is tenure? 7. What is the role of a student’s counselor? Specify the function of career development and job placement within a university. 8. Should there be an agelimit for university full-time students? What are your attitudes to mature students? 9. What are the sources of funding for universities and colleges (both public and private)? 10. What is an undergraduate student? A graduate student?

2.Give English equivalents of the following words and expressions:

Подавать заявление в вуз; быть зачисленным; записаться на курс; провалить курс; отсеяться; пересдавать экзамен; читать лекцию; иметь право на материальную помощь; присудить степень; проводить собеседование; специализироваться по какому-нибудь предмету; опрос; данные об успеваемости; вступительные требования; срок пребывания в должности; копия; закончить с отличием; плата за обучение; абитуриент; 10-ть абитуриентов на место; первокурсник; второкурсник; зам. декана; проректор; каникулы; заочник; ссуда; стипендия; необязательный предмет; диссертация; университетский женский клуб; студенческая мужская организация; студенческий совет.

3.Speak about Vitebsk State University, its administration and organization, facilities, faculty, admissions requirements, student body, etc. Use the topical vocabulary.

 

& Reading 4

Harvard University, today recognized as part of the top echelon of the world’s universities, came from very inauspicious and humble beginnings.

This oldest of American universities was founded in 1636, just sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Included in the Puritan emigrants to the Massachusetts colony during that period were more than 100 graduates of England’s prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities, and these university graduates in the New World were determined that their sons would have the same educational opportunities that they themselves had had. Because of this support in the colony for an institution of higher learning, the General Court of Massachusetts appropriated 400 pounds for a college in October of 1636 and early the following year decided on a parcel of land for the school; this land was in an area called Newetowne, which was later renamed Cambridge after its English cousin and is the site of the present-day university.

When a young minister named John Harvard, who came from the neighboring town of Charlestowne, died from tuberculosis in 1638, he willed half of his estate of 1, 700 pounds to the fledgling college. In spite of the fact that only half of the bequest was actually paid, the General Court named the college after the minister in appreciation for what he had done. The amount of the bequest may not have been large, particularly by today’s standards, but it was more than the General Court had found it necessary to appropriate in order to open the college.

Henry Dunster was appointed the first president of Harvard in 1640, and it should be noted that in addition to serving as president, he was also the entire faculty, with an entering freshman class of four students. Although the staff did expand somewhat, for the first century of its existence the entire teaching staff consisted of the president and three or four tutors.

 

1. The main idea of this passage is that

(A) Harvard is one of the world’s most prestigious universities

(B) what is today a great university started out small

(C) John Harvard was key to the development of a great university

(D) Harvard University developed under the auspices of the General Court of Massachusetts

2. The passage indicates that Harvard is

(A) one of the oldest universities in the world

(B) the oldest university in the world

(C) one of the oldest universities in America

(D) the oldest university in America

3. It can be inferred from the passage that the Puritans who travelled to the Massachusetts colony were

(A) rather well educated

(B) rather rich

(C) rather supportive of the English government

(D) rather undemocratic

4. The pronoun “they” in line 8 refers to

(A) Oxford and Cambridge universities

(B) university graduates

(C) sons

(D) educational opportunities

5. The “pounds” in line 10 are probably

(A) types of books

(B) college students

(C) units of money

(D) school campuses

6. The “English cousin” in line 13 refers to a

(A) city

(B) relative

(C) person

(D) court

7. Which of the following is NOT mentioned about John Harvard?

(A) What he died of

(B) Where he came from

(C) Where he was buried

(D) How much he bequeathed to Harvard

8. By which of the following could the word “fledgling” be replaced best of all?

(A) Newborn

(B) Flying

(C) Winged

(D) Established

9. The passage implies that

(A) Henry Dunster was an ineffective president

(B) someone else really served as president of Harvard before Henry Dunster

(C) Henry Dunster spent much of his time as president managing the Harvard faculty

(D) the position of president of Harvard was not merely an administrative position in the early years

10. The word “somewhat” could best be replaced by

(A) back and forth

(B) to and fro

(C) side by side

(D) more or less

& Reading 5

“Examinations exert a pernicious influence on education”

We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a person’s knowledge and ability remain as primitive as ever they were. It really is extraordinary that after all these years, educationists have still failed to devise anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the knack of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person’s true ability and aptitude.

As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them.They are the mark of success or failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t feeling very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that don’t count: the exam goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror, or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do. The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success and failure are clearly defined and measured. Can we wonder at the increasing number of “drop-outs”: young people who are written off as utter failures before they have even embarked on a career? Can we be surprised at thesuicide rate among students?

A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorize. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge, but induce cramming. They lower the standards of teaching, for theydeprive the teacher of all freedom. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are reduced to training their students in exam techniques which they despise. The most successful candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.

The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They get tired and hungry; they make mistakes. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight. After a judge’s decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner’s. There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person’s true abilities. Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate message recently scrawled on a wall: “I were a teenage drop-out and now I are a teenage millionaire.”

 

JK Role play

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