Read and dramatize the dialogue

Jack. Tell me, Brian, what is it like to be a university student in the US? Your university system is known to be unique, isn’t it?

Brian Schulz. I think it is, and our secondary education system too, which is quite unlike yours.

J. And what’s unique about it?

B.S. At the age of 6 or 7 children go to elementary school, which includes grades I to 5, then at the age of 12 — to middle school — grades 6, 7 and 8 and finally to high school — grades 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Harry Clarke. And many young people finish their education at high school. The thing is, it provides not only academic but vocational subjects as well. I’ve chosen to work after finishing school.

Cecily. Oh, have you? To tell the truth, I am at the point of doing that myself. But my parents won’t be happy about it, I am afraid. They insist on my staying at school and going to college.

Bert. All the same I’m convinced that it’s better to spend one’s youth studying.

A. I’m with you there. But when I come to think of the long anxiety-filled process of applying to university I can’t help feeling distressed.

B.S. You definitely shouldn’t. You never know what you can do till you try. True, applying to college is one of the most distressing times in the life of high school seniors but you must face it if you want to compete successfully in the working world.

H. Ask Brian, he knows all about it. He was enrolled to Georgetown University last year and is a freshman now, aren’t you, Brian?

B.S. It all began at the end of my third year of high school with the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT.

A. Is it the same kind of thing as the examinations for General Certificate

of Secondary Education in Britain?

B. Not exactly. This is a multiple choice test given on the same day across the nation. It is 3 hours long and has several sections that test math, verbal and reasoning skills.

Frank. So you work hard to get good scores, the higher the better?

B.S. Yes. SAT scores range from 400 to 1600, with scores over 1000 considered good. Most colleges require a good score for entry.

J. Well, What if a college rejects you?

B.S. You can apply to as many colleges at a time as you like. In fact it’s much easier to enroll at University than to study there.

Rona. Do you mean that there is no competition for admission at all?

B.S. For some prestigious and private colleges it is intense. But some public universities accept almost all applicants. It is in the course of study that nearly 50 per cent of the students drop out.

R. Did you have to pass examinations?

B.S. I had to complete the application forms. They are several pages long and ask a lot: what types of classes I took in high school, my hobbies and extracurricular activities, my family background and why I want to attend this college.

Irene. What else did you have to do?

B.S. Then I had to write the dreaded essay, some 200-1000 words in response to two questions, something like: If you could change one fact of human development what would it be and why?

U. You had to present recommendation letters instead, didn’t you?

B.S. Oh, quite a few of them, telling what kind of person I had been in class and outside of school.

Gloria. Quite a lot of requirements, isn’t it? I hope those were the last.

B. Not in the least. Some colleges also require a personal interview. They like to hear you speak, to see how you act under pressure, and how you present yourself as a person.

G. When did you find out whether you had been accepted by the college?

B.S. In April. Admission committees review all the papers and pick the best candidates for their school by February or March. Then they send notification letters to the applicants.

I. Did you get many of them?

B.S. I’ve heard from all the universities I had applied to. I had been accepted to eight, rejected by one, and put on the waiting list for one.

A. Good for you. That sounds encouraging. Perhaps I should try to apply to some professional college in the US.

Dialogue 2.

Read the following dialogue and learn it by heart

Education in England

Ann: In Britain all children have to go to school from the age of five to sixteen. It’s the law.

Bill: Yes. I believe the school-leaving age has been raised to sixteen, hasn’t it?

Ann: Yes, it has.

Bill: Do all parents send their children to State schools?

Ann: Nearly all of them do, yes. But we have independent schools where the fees are high and not many parents can afford them. Many private schools are boarding schools, though they usually cater both for boarders and day pupils.

Bill: Did you go to a State primary school?

Ann: Yes, I did. I went to a nursery school first, at the age of four. There was a good kindergarten in our neighbourhood so my parents decided to send me there for a year.

Bill: Can you still remember it?

Ann: Yes, I have faint but very pleasant memories of it. It was a delightful place, full of fun and games. As in most nursery schools, work – if you can call it that — consisted of story-telling, drawing, singing and dancing.

Bill: And you went to the Infants’ School at the age of five, didn’t you?

Ann: Yes, but you know, right up to the age of seven school life was very pleasant. It was only later in the Junior School that we began to have more formal lessons and even worry about exams.

Bill: Really? Did you have to do exams at that age?

Ann: Yes, we used to then. We had to take an exam at the age of eleven called the “Eleven Plus” to see what kind of secondary school we would get into. But this exam is slowly disappearing nowadays.

 

Dialogue 3.

Render the contents of the dialogues in indirect speech

Mary: You look happy today!

Fred: I am happy. I have just passed my Literature exam.

Mary: Congratulations! I am glad somebody’s happy.

Fred: Why? What’s the matter?

Mary: Oh, I’m just worried, I guess. I have to take a history exam next week.

Fred: Oh, come, you are always worried about your exams, but you get only fives, as far as I know. You’ve passed some exams already haven’t you?

Mary: Yes, I’ve passed my French exam.

Fred: Oh, I give up. 1 simply can’t learn French.

Mary: Why do you say that? I think you are making a lot of progress.

Fred: No, I’m not. I try and try and 1 still can’t speak it very well.

Mary: Learning any language takes a lot of effort. But don’t give up. Why don’t we practise those dialogues together?

Fred: Good idea. That just might help.

Dialogue 4.

 

Bob: Excuse me, Tom is this seat taken?

Tom: No, it isn’t.

Bob: Would you mind moving over one, so my friend and I can sit together?

Tom: Not at all.

Bob: Thanks a lot. Do you always attend Professor Brown’s lectures? -

Tom: As a rule I do. I find them very interesting and instructive, besides he is a brilliant speaker.

Bob: Yes, 1 quite agree with you.

Tom: What do you think of Professor Green’s course?

Bob: Not much.

Tom: Why, what’s wrong with it?

Bob: Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that he... Well, because he overloads it with detail. That course he gave on town planning last year. It was just the same — just a load of detail which you could have got from a book

anyway and more and more technical terms. There was no……

Tom: No general overview you mean.

Bob: Yes. I suppose you could call it that. I couldn’t see the town for the buildings.

Tom: But you’ve got to have detail in this kind of subject, Bob, and anyway I think he’s good. You take his first lecture for instance I thought that was very interesting, and not at all over-detailed.

Bob: But that’s just it, Tom. That’s just what I’m getting at. He starts off all right and engages your interest so that you sit back and think “I’m going to enjoy this. I’m going to get a general idea of the important points in “this topic”. When bang! Before you know it you’re up to your neck in minute details and he’s bombarding you with technical terminology.

Tom: Oh rubbish! Now you’re exaggerating.

Dialogue 5.

Complete the open dialogue using the vocabulary of the unit. Dramatize it. Work in pair

A: – Excuse me, lady. Can I ask you some questions?

B: – Sure.

A: – Can you tell me about higher education in GB?

B: – Well, ___________

A: – In Russia our academic year lasts two terms. What about the Universities?

B:__________________

A: – Yes, I’ve heard only about two English Universities: Oxford and Cambridge. Are all English Universities as old as Oxford and Cambridge?

B:__________________

A: – What does it mean “Redbrick University”?

B:__________________

A: – I see. And which Universities do you call “Concrete and glass”?

B:__________________

A: – Do you have any Polytechnics in GB?

B: __________________

A: – Some pupils in Russia leave schools at 16. What about your country?

B: __________________

A: – Thank you very much.

EXERCISES