Higher education in the United States of America and the United Kingdom

11. The SAT and the ACT (which are composed … three parts: language proficiency, maths, and logic) are given … a certain day in December or January at a local college and take the whole day.

12. Campuses are often located … the outskirts of the city.

13. Student loans are loans offered … students to assist … payment … the costs of professional education.

14. A scholarship, which is an award of access … an institution, can be awarded … various criteria.

15. Discussions in the group are a good opportunity to develop skills … presentation and discussion.

Use either an adjective or an adverb

1. (Late/lately) there has been a rise in the tuition fees at most higher education establishments throughout the country.

2. If you want to find the University library, go (straight/straightly) down the street and you will see it on your left.

3. He (hard/hardly) ever studies, yet he always produces a (high/highly) standard of work.

4. It is not (wide/widely) known that students can get medication (free/freely).

5. When a child, she spent 6 years in Spain, no wonder she speaks (fluent/fluently) Spanish.

6. I (full/fully) understand your concern, Jack is not a (hard/hardly) learner he used to be, and he has missed half of the classes.

7. The examiner looked at me (suspicious/ suspiciously) as if he felt that I had cribbed that essay.

8. She is (high/highly) regarded at the University as people can get on with her (easy/easily).

9. I was (pretty/prettily) embarrassed when I realized I had failed the test.

10. She appeared (honest/honestly) but I knew she couldn't be trusted.

11. The test seemed (easy/easily), but she was not sure whether she had answered all the questions (correct/correctly).

12. Angela is (unbelievable/unbelievably) (good/well) with numbers.

13. Most rooms on the campus are (clever/cleverly) organized, so there is plenty of space for three students to live together.

14. I suppose I should be (nervous/nervously), but I've never felt so (calm/calmly) in my life.

15. Mary doesn't write very (legible/legibly): I often have trouble understanding her notes.

Complete the sentences using the adjective or the adverb given in brackets in the proper form

1. The teacher prevented any … discussion. (far)

2. French is the language he speaks … . (easily)

3. … I learn, … I forget, … I know. (much/much/little)

4. The service is not as … as it used to be. (good)

5. Our recent assignment was to read «The Great Gatsby» by Fitzgerald and «The Parasites» by du Maurier. Frankly speaking I didn't enjoy … . (late)

6. She earns twice as … as I do. (much)

7. Can you speak any … than that? Nobody can hear you. (loud)

8. Education is getting … these days. (expensive)

9. Of all the speakers he talked … . (persuasively)

10. England is … in spring. (beautiful).

Complete the sentences using the words in bold. Use two to five words

1. If we stay longer, we can spend more time sightseeing.

2. the The longer we stay the more time we spend sightseeing.

2. Last night I felt more tired than ever.

as I have …………… I did last night.

3. As he gets older, he becomes less tolerant.

the The ………………. tolerant he becomes.

4. Unfortunately we couldn't find a better solution in the time available.

best Unfortunately …….. we could find in the time available.

5. Sheila is not as talented as her sister.

less Sheila is …………… her sister.

6. This year our university has received the same number of applications as in the previous year.

many This year our university has received …… in the previous year.

7. The University was nearer than we thought.

far The University …….. we thought.

8. Helen had twice as much work as Janet.

half Janet had ………… Helen.

9. Tony finds history easier than geography.

more Geography …….. history for Tony.

10. She writes very creatively.

most She is ………….. writer.

4. Here are the beginnings and the ends of some traditional comparisons with as … as. Put them together correctly and explain the meaning. Use these expressions in the sentences of your own.

Table

as pretty	as hen's teeth
as red	as watching paint dry
as cold	as a church mouse
as happy	as two skeletons dancing on a tin roof
as exciting	as a picture
as welcome	as a beetroot
as dark	as an ex-wife's heart
as noisy	as a dog with two tails
as poor	as a wet shoe
as scarce	as the inside of a wolf

Listening

1. Work with a partner and complete the following tasks

a) Make up a list of qualities that make a good teacher

b) Compare your lists. Then agree on a class list of the four most important qualities.

2. Listen to John and Claire talking about teachers they remember from school. Complete the sentences with ML (Madam Lorenzo) or MT (Mr Tucker). Here are some of the words that may be unfamiliar to you

imbecilic - слабоумный, идиот; умственно отсталый

grin - усмешка

to giggle - хихикать

to twitch - подёргиваться

a) … taught French.

b) … never changed his/her jacket.

c) … was near to retirement.

d) … was popular with the boys.

e) … shouted a lot.

f) … probably did not go to university.

g) … said cruel things to the students.

h) … was married.

i) … talked about the past.

1. It was my last year at school and she took us … , which I was … .

2. She must have been … .

3. I can't remember the number of times she … .

4. The word «imbecile» was her … .

5. `You are like my Marcel - you will never … .'

6. His eye twitched really fast … .

7. `You'll learn when you've … and started a family'

8. `The army used to … into them.'

Focus on functions

1. Study the following language toolbox.

Table

Language toolbox
Agree	Disagree
So have I. Neither do I. So was I. Nor had I. Neither did I. Me too. Me neither.	I haven't. I do. I wasn't. I had. I did.



Listen to a conversation between two people and note down things they have in common

3. From your notes in 2 use the sentence frame below to make as many true sentences as you can about the man and the woman.

The man ……, and so ……. the woman.

and neither/nor

4. Work with a partner. Use the following sentence beginnings to write statements (preferably, describing your school or university life) which are true for you and which you believe are also true for your partner. Find at least two ways to finish each sentence beginning. You will need your sentences in 5. Do not speak to your partner yet.

For example: I attended judo class when at school. I attended lots of different courses when at school.

a) I attended … g) I can't …

b) I'm not keen on … h) I've never liked …

c) I'm … i) I'd like to …

d) I used to … j) I really like

e) I've got … k) I'll never …

f) I am irritated … l) I must …

5. Use the sentences you've written in 4 to play Bingo. Copy the Bingo card on a separate piece of paper. With a partner, take turns to read out one of your sentences in 4. If your partner can answer with one of the responses on the Bingo card, you can cross out one square. If your partner can't use one of the responses because what you say is not true for them, you must wait for your next go to try another sentence. The aim of the game is to be the first person to cross out all the squares on the card.



Table

So did I.	Nor am I.	So am I.
So must I.	So did I.	So am I.
Neither can I.	Neither have I.	So would I.
So do I.	Neither will I.	So have I.

Speaking

1. Compare the system of higher education in the USA and Great Britain with that of your country following the plan. Which system do you find more effective?

· The value of education

· Types of higher educational establishments

· Admission policy

· Tuition fees and opportunities to cover them

· Methods of instructions, the way studies are organized

2. Imagine that you have to choose a place to study. Put these factors in order of priority from 1 to 5 (1 = most relevant). Which one would influence you most in making a decision?

· the location

· the reputation

· the qualifications offered

· international contacts

· teaching methods

· residential accommodation

· tuition fees

· extracurricular activities

· other facilities (specify)

3. Work in groups of three. Discuss the list with other members of your group.

4. Many British colleges offer language studies for foreign students. Look through some college prospectuses. What information about the colleges and the courses they run do these provide you with? If you were to choose among these which one would you prefer to apply to? Explain your choice to the partner.

Table

Table



Table

5. Study the following questions. On the basis of these write an advertisement / make a poster about your dream university, which you should then present to the rest of the class in an advertisement/poster contest

1. Where is the college / university located?

2. What courses does it run?

3. What qualifications do courses lead to?

4. How much does the course cost?

5. How classes are taught and how many students are in class? Is teaching carried out in small groups (tutorials) or large groups (lectures)?

6. Are all subjects obligatory or do students have a chance to choose some subjects?

7. What kind of practical training does the university provide?

7. What can one do in the event of failing any part of the course? How many times can exams or credits be retaken?

8. What other facilities does the university offer?



Writing

1. Imagine you study at one of the colleges from activity 4 (Speaking). Write a letter to your friend and share your impressions about the place and the course you are on.

2. Read the letter below and underline the following

· the name of the person who wrote the letter.

· the address of the person who wrote the letter.

· the language used to start and end the letter.

· the expression used to introduce the subject.

Table

3. Write on one of the following:

· Write a letter to a university / college in England requesting information about their courses, qualifications, terms and conditions.

· Write a letter to an English Language school in England requesting information about their summer and exam courses.

2. Write an essay on one of the topics offered

· Is higher education a primary gateway to the privileged class?

· Are American methods of instruction really effective?

· Aims of university education.

· The problem of choosing a major.

· «Electives» - pros and cons.

· Academic freedom. Is it good for a university?

Supplementary reading/ Read about two of the most famous and prestigious universities in the world.

Oxbridge

Oxford and Cambridge are the oldest and most prestigious universities in Great Britain. They are often called collectively Oxbridge. Both universities are independent. Only the education elite go to Oxford or Cambridge. Most of their students are former public schools leavers. The normal length of degree course is three years. Some courses, such as languages or medicine, may be one or two years longer. The students may work for other degrees as well. The degrees are awarded at public degree ceremonies. Oxford and Cambridge cling to their traditions, such as the use of Latin at degree ceremonies. Full academic dress is worn at examinations.

Oxford and Cambridge Universities consist of a number of colleges. Each college is different, but in many ways they are alike. Each college has its name and its coat of arms. Each college is governed by a Master. The larger ones have more than 400 members, the smallest colleges have less than 30. Each college offers teaching in a wide range of subjects. Within the college one will normally find a chapel, a dining hall, a library, rooms for undergraduates, fellows and the Master, and also rooms for teaching purposes.

The first written record of the town of Oxford dates back to the year 912. Oxford University, the oldest and most famous university in Britain, was founded in the middle of the 12th century and by 1300 there were already 1,500 students. At that time Oxford was a wealthy town, but by the middle of the 14th century it was poorer, because of a decline in trade and because of the terrible plague, which killed many people in England. The relations between the students and the townspeople were very unfriendly and there was often fighting in the streets.

Nowadays there are about 12,000 students and over 1000 teachers in more than thirty colleges. Among the oldest colleges are University College, All Souls and Christ Church.

Outstanding scientists work in the numerous colleges of the University teaching and doing research work in physics, chemistry, mathematics, cybernetics, literature, modern and ancient languages, art and music, psychology. Oxford University has a reputation of a privileged school. Many prominent political figures of the past and present times got their education at Oxford.

Oxford University Press, the publishing house which produces the Oxford English Dictionary has a special department called the Oxford Word and Language Service. The Oxford English Dictionary is well-known to students of English everywhere. It contains approximately 5,000,000 entries, and there are thirteen volumes, including a supplement.

Cambridge University started during the 13th century and grew until today. Now there are more than thirty colleges. The oldest college is Peterhouse, which was founded in 1284, and the most recent is Robinson College, which was opened in 1977. The most famous is probably King's College because of its magnificent chapel, the largest and the most beautiful building in Cambridge and the most perfect example left of English fifteenth-century architecture. Its choir of boys and undergraduates is also very well known.

The University was only for men until 1871, when the first women's college was opened. In the 1970s, most colleges opened their doors to both men and women. Almost all colleges are now mixed. Many great men studied at Cambridge, among them Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch scholar, Roger Bacon, the philosopher, Milton, the poet, Oliver Cromwell", the soldier, Newton, the scientist, and Kapitza, the famous Russian physicist. The universities have over а hundred societies and clubs, enough for every interest one could imagine. Sport is part of students' life at Oxbridge. The most popular sports are rowing and punting.

Every year, in summer, one of the biggest festivals of folk music takes place in Cambridge. Thousands of people arrive in Cambridge for the Festival. Many of the fans put up their tents to stay overnight. The Cambridge Folk Festival is always very well organized and there is always good order. However, some people who live nearby do not like Festival. They say that there is too much noise, that too much rubbish is left on the ground, and that many of the fans take drugs. On the other hand, local shopkeepers are glad, because for them the Festival means a big increase in the number of customers.

Read the text and say which ideas mentioned in the text are worth implementing into your country's system of higher education.

Creating the university of the future

We finish high-school and know more about math than we do of ourselves. Yet knowing ourselves is more important than algebra. Current education does not create free, creative and wise individuals, but workers for the requirements of the market. Most universities give you an education that will supply you with a career - not a good life. If we were to create a University of the Future for today what would it look like? Here's where we believe the emphasis should be on:

Development of skills instead of the memorizing of information. For example, teaching you how to think, not what to think. Pieces of information become outdated more easily than an array of skills.

Renaissance style Curriculum: Excessive specialization would be discouraged in favor of a more well-rounded approach. Philosophy, Music, Arts and Sciences as well as physical activities will make an essential part of one's development as well as real life skills usually neglected at mainstream educational institutions, like:

· The Art of Love and Understanding

· Knowing yourself

· The art of Listening

· Understanding Women (a 30-year course)

· Understanding men (30-minute course)

Project Based learning - You'd learn by doing not by regurgitating what other people have done. Your projects would be aimed to be as «real world» as possible, legitimate enough so that they can become part of your future CV. By the time you're out of school you already have a «track-record».

Entrepreneurship: The approach: «I get an education *then* find a job» is outdated. Every week you will be encouraged to create your own company with the assistance of mentors giving you cutting edge advice on how to build and grow your idea into a business, whether profit or not profit. By the time you're done with your degree you wouldn't need to find a job because you would already have one.

Directed at All Ages: Learning is a life-long process. It's not something you do when you were young and then are done with it. Older people need to have a way of re-educating themselves without leaving their current job & responsibilities. Multi-age classes sometimes make for a much richer learning experience for all.

Based on Alternative Business Models: Education should be accessible to all for free while at the same time being economically self-sustainable. Alternative business models are essential for achieving this vision. For example, students could pledge that a certain percentage of the profits (1%-5%) that would come from their future activities will be donated back to the University that enabled them to pursue them.



Predictions for the university of the future

1. There will be more of an emphasis on distance learning

2. Students will take a mix of online classes and on-campus courses

3. Focus will be on career-applicable skills and experiential learning

4. Open communication between students and teachers

5. Libraries will continue to become more tech-focused

6. More green majors

7. Learning resources will shift online

8. There will be an increase in the variety of educational resources and materials

9. More independent student body

10. Universities will have a more global perspective

3. Read the text and say

· What have you learned about admission to the US Universities?

· Are the admissions terms equal for all students?

· What is ironic about Britain's intention to try out a version of America's SAT?

· What are 3 reasons for mounting an attack against the SAT?

Natural selection of an intellectual aristocrasy

British universities are considering trying out a version of America's standardized admissions test - the SAT. Supporters of the idea hope that the SATs focus on basic reasoning skills in maths and English, rather than knowledge of specific subjects, will unearth some rough diamonds who have not I benefited from coddling at exclusive schools. Britain's interest is ironic, considering that this half-century-old multiple-choice exam is under assault in the US for being exclusive. The charge is true in the sense that the IQ-based test is one of the keys to admission at colleges for which there is fierce competition for places. Every year thousands of 18-year-olds must face the fact that they cannot attend Princeton or Harvard because they have failed to score. Anxious parents routinely pay many hundreds of dollars to private tutors in an attempt to boost their offsprings' SAT scores.

The latest blow against the exam has been struck by Richard Atkinson, president of the giant University of California system. Mr Atkinson says the test discriminates against minorities and converts the admissions process into the "educational equivalent of a nuclear arms race". Other colleges are also talking of dropping the SAT exam in favor of more malleable educational criteria.

This is a classic case of slaying the messenger. The SAT is not perfect. But compared to the other things on offer, it emerges as a veritable gold standard of objective testing. What, after all, can be wrong with a test that monitors abilities to read reason and calculate? Over the decades the SAT has served as a great democratizing force.

Consider the SAT's record. Back in the 1930s, America's Ivy League colleges really were discriminatory. Middling Wasp pupils at Groton or other prep schools assumed entrance to Harvard was birthright. Meanwhile, Brooklyn immigrants of higher intelligence contented themselves with four years all New York's City College. Blacks stood almost no chance of scaling the Ivy League towers. Then James Bryant Conant, Harvard's president, mounted a revolution. He introduced an admissions test that examined intelligence rather than preparation. As the author Nicholas Lemann recalls in a history of the SAT, his inspiration was Thomas Jefferson who had written that merit must be allowed to flourish: "There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. There is also an artificial aristocracy based on wealth and birth." Harvard implemented a forerunner of today's SAT and others soon followed.

The doors opened. For the first time poor Italians, Jews, Irish and other minorities won admission in large numbers at top colleges. Women, long shut out of the Ivy League, performed so successfully on the SAT that they came to make up about 50 per cent of the students. Many blacks and Hispanics also gained entrance because of their high scores. The shift demonstrated it was possible to pursue the Jeffersonian democratic ideal of education for all. The trouble was that the results of this pursuit were not always politically palatable. While individual blacks and Hispanics scored highly, these groups in aggregate scored less well than other groups. Universities decided to downplay the SAT in evaluating these black or Hispanic candidates, instituting the controversial quota system known as affirmative action. The SAT still found itself under attack, both for the score disparity among groups and other pretexts. The fact that striving families scraped together cash for SAT cramming courses also fuelled the campaign against the test. This was despite the fact that the effect of cramming was limited by the IQ-test-like nature of the SAT; no matter how much you prepare for an IQ test you cannot boost your score to the degree you could for a test on a matter of knowledge such as geography or history. California offers the most gratuitous example to date of blaming the SAT messenger. Mr Atkinson has said that the test is bad for minorities. But the real reason there is hostility to the SAT in California is not that minorities have done poorly. It is that one minority - Asian immigrants - have done too well.

The SAT is said to have hindered Hispanics, who have not won places proportionate to their share of the population. But it is easier for officials to attack the SAT than to admit that their own old policy of bilingual education, which forced children to spend years learning in Spanish virtually guaranteed mediocre performance on the English portion of the SAT. Blacks also seem to falling short in the California college contest' but then so are whites. None of this deters Sat reformers, who continue to insist the test is «anti-minority» or «too stressful» - as if educational competition can ever be unstressful. The escalating crusade against the SAT raises the question whether the test can have a future in the US or the UK. Britain is just as preoccupied with equality of outcome as the US. Ant to the equity-obsessed, a measure that acknowledges some are more able than others is intolerable.

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