- •Contents
- •Chapter 1. School Education.
- •School education in the uk
- •1. Complete the chart with the words below. Some words may be used more than once.
- •2. Listen again . What do the terms mean? Are they the same in Britain and the usa?
- •3. Use the table to speak about the school system in England and the usa. Then make a similar story about the school system in your country.
- •1. Read the story of a girl’s first school day. Complete the gaps with the missing verbs. My First Day of School
- •2. How does the writer of the song feel about his schooldays? Were they a completely happy time? What words / lines tell you this? Compare your opinions in a group.
- •Chapter 2. School Memories and Experiences.
- •Remember the Days of the Old Schoolyard
- •1. Read the text about school days’ memories.
- •2.Look at the words in bold in the above text and try to explain them.
- •3. Fill in the sentences with the correct words from the list below:
- •4. Complete the phrases with the correct word(s) from the list below.
- •5. Fill in the phrases with the correct preposition from the box. Then choose any five items and make sentences.
- •6. Problem verbs corner
- •1. Translate the sentences from the text:
- •2. Choose the right verb:
- •1. Match the word(s) in a with their English equivalents in b and their Russian equivalents in c.
- •2. Fill in the gaps with the word(s) from the list:
- •3. Consider the situation and answer the questions.
- •1. You will hear Tim Moores, who went to Harrow, one of the most famous public schools in Britain, in the 1950s. He was sent there at the age of twelve and ran away four years later.
- •2. Listen to the text once and discuss the following:
- •3. Use the words in the list below (taken from the text) to complete the following summary.
- •4. Writing task.
- •Chapter 3. Leaving School.
- •1. Read the text about education in Russia.
- •2. Fill in the gaps with the synonyms from the text:
- •3.Answer the questions:
- •4. Discussion. Discuss these questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the rest of the class.
- •5. What do you remember about the system of school education in Great Britain? How does it differ from Russia?
- •1.Answer the questions.
- •2. Match the words with their definitions:
- •3. Find in the text the equivalent to the following Russian word(s):
- •4. Use some of the above words to complete the sentences:
- •1. Read the text and compare your list with what you can find in the text. Unified State Examination in Russian Federation
- •2. Read the statements and decide if they are true or false.
- •3. Find the English equivalents in the text:
- •4. Match the words in bold type in the text with their synonyms.
- •6. Do Russian and British systems of testing the school leavers’ knowledge have anything in common? What are the differences?
- •High School Crisis in the United States
- •1. Match the word(s) or expression(s):
- •Exams: a Survival Plan
- •1. Find the English equivalents for the following expression:
- •2. Fill in the phrases with the correct word(s) from the box.
- •3. Fill in the gaps with the right preposition(s) from the box.
- •5. Discussion. Discuss these questions with a partner.
- •2. Try to guess if the following statements are True or False:
- •3. Read the text and check your predictions.
- •4. Discussion. Discuss the following in groups:
- •Chapter 4. University Education.
- •1. You can normally do these subjects at university but not always at school:
- •2. Read the statements spoken by university students. What is each person studying?
- •1. Match the verbs on the left to the nouns on the right. Some verbs can be used more than once. Translate the phrases into your language.
- •2. Replace the underlined word with its synonym(s) from the previous exercise.
- •3. Answer the questions:
- •Studying at a British university.
- •1. Answer the questions:
- •2. Compare the system of higher education in the uk to your country. Answer these questions:
- •1. Match the words in a to their definitions in b:
- •2. Complete the sentences using the vocabulary from the previous exercise.
- •3. Read the text and decide if the statements below are true or false. What’s a university education worth?
- •4. Discuss the questions with your partner:
- •1. Discuss these questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the rest of the class.
- •2. Match the words in a to their definitions in b:
- •3. Now listen to the programme and answer the questions:
- •4. Read the statement and decide if they are true or false. Correct the false ones.
- •1. Answer these questions with a partner.
- •2. Read the information about universities in the usa and say which university:
- •3. Now read the text again and fill in the table with the information about the universities:
- •4. Prepare a report about a world famous university. Include the following information:
- •Chapter 5. Starting University Life.
- •1. Read the article which gives advice to students embarking on their university career. Match the headings 1-10 below to the paragraphs a-h.
- •Freshmen Survival Advice for Life
- •2. Vocabulary work. Find the English equivalents in the text for the following words and phrases.
- •3. Match the words in a and b to make phrases and use them in the sentences below.
- •4. Fill in the gaps with the right preposition and give the Russian equivalent.
- •5. Fill in the missing parts of speech. Some of the answers come from the text.
- •6. Discuss the advice in the article in small groups or pairs. Consider the following:
- •1. Discuss these questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the rest of the class.
- •2. Use the words and phrases in the box to complete the sentences below.
- •3. Listen to the students. Put the experiences and tips about student money in the order you hear them.
- •4. Discuss the tips you heard.
- •1. Read the text and answer the questions below. Who Needs a Degree? No number of letters after your name can teach you about life.
- •2. Read the statement and decide if they are true or false. Correct the false ones.
- •3. Match the words from the text with their definitions.
- •4. Find the English equivalents for the following Russian words and phrases.
- •5. Discussion. Discuss in the questions groups.
- •6. Writing. Choose one of the quotations you feel you are most capable to write on.
- •References:
1. Read the text and answer the questions below. Who Needs a Degree? No number of letters after your name can teach you about life.
KATE SAUNDERS takes a roll call of people who, like her, have succeeded without going to university.
1. In the tightly-knit literary circles of the metropolis, people don’t ask you which university you went to. They want to know how they could have possibly missed you at Oxford or Cambridge. Like 93% of the adult population, I did not go to any university at all, and this has become faintly embarrassing since I accepted the honour of helping to judge this year’s Booker Prize. Certain colleagues look down their noses when they discover I have no dreaming spires in my CV. The sorry truth is that while my contemporaries were frolicking in the groves of Academe, I was playing a nurse in a TV soap, and toting a spear at the National Theatre.
2. However, I am in excellent company. My fellow graduates of the University of Life include not only entrepreneurial wizards such as Alan Sugar of Amstrad, but also politicians such as John Major and James Callaghan. In the literary field, P. D. James, the thinking person’s crime novelist, best-selling romancer Jilly Cooper, and playwright Tom Stoppard have achieved eminence without university degrees.
3. The fact is, although universities are wonderful places, putting yourself through one of them is no guarantee of brilliance. And many people who have engineered their own education actually believe that they would have been less successful if they had gone to university.
4. The novelist Lisa de Teran was too busy roaming the world and picking up three foreign languages in her youth to fit in going to Cambridge, as she had originally planned. ‘I probably learned more, living the life I did,’ she says.
5. Instead of swotting for exams, de Teran was managing a sugar plantation on a remote hacienda in the Venezuelan Andes. ‘When I was younger I did regret not going to university,’ she admits. It seemed such an easy way to spend three years. But I was 25 when I returned from Venezuela, and I couldn’t really see myself sitting there with a lot of eighteen-year-olds.’
6. Exotic experiences are far more useful to a novelist than a degree. However, the graduate-dominated world of the media is another matter. So it’s refreshing to learn that Michael Grade, head of Channel 4, never went to university. Neither did Anne Wintour, head of features at BBC Radio. ‘I remember feeling self-conscious about it at first,’ she says, ‘but I stopped worrying about it years ago. Graduates get on by conforming and I think people without degrees tend to be more original.’
7. ‘It all comes back to experience of life,’ declares Ann Winterton, Conservative MP for Congleton. Like Winston Churchill before her, she has no degree, having entered politics ‘straight from the kitchen sink’ in 1983. ‘No number of letters after your name can teach you about life. I used to be rather in awe of people with qualifications. But, being self-taught allows you to do things in your own way. I think a lot of people go to university to put off the evil hour of getting stuck into a real job - it can be a soft option.’
8. I must confess, it’s this soft option element which makes me wish sometimes that I had gone to university - it does sound such fun, discussing the meaning of life over midnight coffee. And there’s a lot to be said for the classic liberal education which broadens the mind by filling it with a lot of delightful and rather useless knowledge. By the time you leave you may not be able to type, but you sure as hell know about Cosimo de Medici.
9. Picking up culture without a degree is rather like doing Venice without guide book. You may not have anyone to advise you where to look for the highlights so you are forced to find them for yourself. And you will be freer to form an original opinion, uncoloured those who wore down the stones before you.
What is the point the author of the article is trying to make?
Are educational qualifications really relevant to people’s careers?
Can you find the reasons supporting the idea?
Do you agree with the author’s opinion?
Can you think of any argument against the three reasons she gives for not going to university?