The last drop overflows the bowl.

 

Вам могут задать несколько вопросов, не имеющих отношения к тексту или предложенной теме. В частности, вопрос может коснуться вашей предыдущей учебы, работы, мотивов поступления на факультет по данной специальности. Эти вопросы задаются не столько с целью проверки знаний по английскому языку, сколько из чисто человеческого интереса и для того, чтобы лучше определить ваш общий кругозор, уровень культуры, то, насколько оправдан сделанный вами выбор.

Иногда, особенно если экзаменаторы сомневаются в том, какую оценку вам нужно поставить, ответ на подобный вопрос может оказаться решающим фактором, дозволяющим склонить чащу весов в ту или иную сторону. Если из ваших ответов чувствуется, что вы обладаете достаточно высокой культурой, серьезно готовились, пришли к своей будущей профессии не случайно, способны к большой и напряженной работе, обладаете творческим отношением к делу, то решение экзаменаторов для вас может оказаться более благоприятным. Ведь они видят в поступающих будущих студентов, с которыми им придется работать. Поэтому, кроме формальной стороны экзамена и точности ответов, определенную роль играет и человеческий фактор.

Иногда, быть может, при выставлении окончательной оценки экзаменаторы не станут принимать в расчет несколько мелких неточностей и ошибок, которые вы случайно или неслучайно допустили, если у них сложится картина о вас как о будущем студенте, действительно способном в дальнейшем преодолеть все трудности и достигнуть высоких результатов. При прочих равных условиях, когда нужно делать выбор из нескольких кандидатов или просто выбор «да» или «нет», решающую роль играет не только правильность ответа по билету, но и мнение, что вы на эту специальность подойдете. Сделать такое суждение и помогают несколько неформальных вопросов.

Ничего особенного в самих вопросах нет. Их будет немного, если они будут вообще. Они возникают обычно, когда есть какой-то интерес или сомнение. Но в любом случае вы должны быть готовы, что к вам могут проявить интересуй задать какой-то вопрос, позволяющий судить о вас не только в рамках учебного материала, но и как о личности. Ответы должны быть краткими и точными, не зазубренными, но достаточно глубоко продуманными. Отвечайте просто и искренне, без казенных оборотов и стандартных фраз.

 

Дать конкретные рецепты ответов на такие вопросы невозможно. Каждый человек неповторим, и каждый должен сказать что-то свое. Порекомендовать можно лишь следующее. Ответить на такие вопросы, с одной стороны, легче всего, так как вещи, касающиеся самого человека, для него являются самыми близкими и понятными. Но, с другой стороны, в этой близости заключается и своя трудность. На эти вещи как бы не обращают внимания, они кажутся вполне естественными и само собой разумеющимися. И поэтому при ответе неожиданно могут возникнуть затруднения в формулировке самой идеи ответа.

Поэтому предлагаем заранее поразмыслить над этим. Размышления предлагается сделать в письменном виде. Напишите три небольших сочинения (хотя бы в самых простых и доступных выражениях), пользуясь, где надо, словарем, на темы:

1. Моя жизнь.

Это не формальная автобиография или заготовка по теме билета: «родился, не состоял, не участвовал... и т. д.», а именно краткая (а у кого получится – и развернутая) картина и оценка вашей жизни.

2. Моя будущая профессия.

Напишите о том, как и почему у вас возник к ней интерес, кто посоветовал вам поступать в это учебное заведение, как вы готовились к экзаменам, знакомы ли вы со студентами или выпускниками этого факультета, как вы представляете себе будущую работу, что в этой области вас интересует больше всего.

3. Мой культурный уровень.

Напишите о своих интересах в музыке, живописи и литературе. Особое внимание в данном случае обратите на английскую литературу. Каких английских и американских писателей вы знаете, какие вам больше всего нравятся? Что вы успели прочитать на английском языке? Попробуйте передать ваши впечатления от прочитанного, избегая общих фраз.

Вот на эти темы с вами, скорее всего, и будут беседовать, если возникнут какие-то дополнительные вопросы. Если заранее написать в свободной и непринужденной форме такие сочинения, то ваши ответы на вопросы, касающиеся лично вас, наверняка не будут натянутыми и скучными, а создадут впечатление глубоко продуманных, рекомендуя вас с лучшей стороны.

Providence helps those who help themselves.

ЖЕЛАЕМ УСПЕХА!

ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ

 

All is well that ends well.

КРАТКИЙ СЛОВАРЬ АБИТУРИЕНТА

 

В словарь входят слова и выражения, которые относятся не к вопросам, содержащимся в билете, а к предметам и понятиям, связанным с ходом самих экзаменов. Здесь приводится необходимый запас слов.

 

 

ТЕКСТЫ ДЛЯ САМОСТОЯТЕЛЬНОЙ РАБОТЫ

Newspapers in Britain

The British people are great readers of newspapers. There are few homes to which at least one paper is not delivered every morning. Many households have two, or even three newspapers every day.

As in other countries, newspapers in Great Britain differ greatly in their ways of presenting the news. There are serious papers for those who want to know about important happenings everywhere. There are popular newspapers for those who prefer entertainment to information. There are newspapers whose pages are largely filled with news of sport and with stories of film stars, or accounts of crime and of law court trials.

The London newspapers that is best known outside Britain is probably The Times. It began in 1785.

The correspondence columns of The Times are interesting and often amusing. Most of the letters are on serious objects, but from time to time there will be a long correspondence on a subject that is not at all serious, perhaps on a new fashion of dress, or the bad manners of the younger generation compared with the manners of thirty years ago.

The Times, of course, does not publish the strip cartoons that are so common in the cheaper and popular papers. It does, however, publish a cross-word puzzle every day, with clues that are both clever and amusing.

The Sunday papers are not Sunday editions of the daily papers, even if as is sometimes the case, the owners are the same. Two of them, The Observer and The Sunday Times, have a high standing. The Sunday Times has no connection with the daily paper called The Times. The Observer, started in 1791, is the oldest Sunday paper in Britain.

These papers provide, in addition to the news, interesting articles on music, drama, the cinema, newly published books, and gardening. Many of the best critics write for these two papers.

 

(From Oxford Progressive English for Adult Learners by Hornby)

Parliamentary chambers

 

People outside Great Britain believe, that if a man is elected to sit.in Parliament, he ought to have a seat. Indeed, most Parliaments provide each member not only with seat, but with a reserved seat, often a desk, in which papers can be kept.

Why, then, when the opportunity came after the war to rebuild the bombed House of Commons did its members decide that their own Chamber should, like the pre-war Chamber, be too small to provide seats for all of them?

The new House of Commons has many improvements, including air-conditioning and provision of microphones. It has, however, seats for about two-thirds of its members. No change has been made in its shape. It is still oblong, with seats for the Government supporters on the Speaker's right and seats for the Opposition on his left. There are, facing the Speaker, cross benches for Independent members, those who do not belong to either of the two great political parties.

If we examine the kind of Chamber favoured in other countries we find that it is in some cases semi-circular. In most semi-circular Chambers a member who is called upon to speak leaves his seat and goes to a reading-desk (a tribune or rostrum) placed below the raised seat of the President. Instead of facing and addressing the chairman, as in the House of Commons, he faces and addresses the whole House.

When a member ends his speech in the House of Commons, other members stand up and face the Speaker. They try to catch his eye, for the order of speakers is not arranged in advance. The speaker decides who is to speak next. The member who is named remains standing, and speaks from the place where he has been sitting. He must address the Speaker, not the House as a whole. The only members who speak from the Clerk's table are the Government and Opposition Leaders.

Voting is a simple matter when every member has a reserved seat. In the House of Commons members have to leave their benches and walk into two corridors (called Lobbies). As they pass out they are counted by four persons – two for each side – and it may take ten or fifteen minutes before the figures are announced.

 

(From Oxford Progressive English for Adult Learners by Hornby)

Political parties

Turn from the Two Main Parties

 

The British electoral system has lost the one virtue its admirers claimed for it's – the ability to provide a stable Parliamentary majority, albeit one supported by only a minority of the voters. Despite all the pressures to encapsulate political opinion around the two main parties, their combined total of the poll, 76 per cent, was lower than at any General Election since 1929. Nevertheless between them they captured 94 per cent of the seats.

The turn away from the two big parties manifested itself in 1973 at by-elections and the elections for the new Country and District Councils, with the Liberals making gains, largely at Tory expense. At its 33rd Congress in November 1973, the Communist Party warned, «Loss of Tory support has not meant an automatic increase in Labour support. There is a certain disenchantment with both major parties and the rigid two-party system, with the Liberals gaining, at least temporarily, on the local councils and in Parliament.»

The decline of support for the two big parties during the life-time of the Heath government was accompanied by the loss of confidence in the democratic institutions and in their ability to exercise effective control over the enormous power of the industrial and commercial giants operating against the general social interest.

Meanwhile the British economy was plunging into its most serious crisis for many years. The trendy, get-rich-quick merchant bankers and businessmen who leapt straight from the City boardrooms to the Cabinet room in 1970 had revealed themselves to be remarkably inept in governing the country. Accustomed to their boardroom decisions being carried out immediately by a hierarchy of flunkies, they behaved as though the electorate were theirs to command.

 

(The Book of Britain 1977, by Reuben Falber)

Windsor

 

Windsor and the surrounding district is a delightful residential locality. Apart from the existence of the Castle itself and the pomp and ceremonial with which it is at times concerned, its attractions are many. An excellent service of trains enables London to be reached in about forty-five minutes; the Great Park and Forest stretching for miles are free to those who care to walk or ride; the Thames provides boating for the Summer months; opportunities for the younger generations of bothsexes abound; a large portion of the Home Park is set aside for the public recreation; several first-class golf courses are close at hand.

There are two Windsors – Old Windsor and New Windsor. The former is a village about two miles away from the town, and undoubtedly had an existence long before William the Conqueror built his stronghold on the present site of the Castle. It had been pretty well established that the Saxon Kings had a Palace at Old Windsor, which then bore the name of Wyndleshore. A township of some extent existed there prior to the Conquest, and in the Conqueror's reign it contained a hundred houses.

New Windsor grew up with the Castle. The first Charter of Incorporation was granted to the Royal Borough by Edward I, in 1276. When first incorporated it was the Country Town of Birkshire, but as its situation at an extreme end of the County was found to be inconvenient, the distinction was transferred to Reading in 1314.

From the days of Edward I until Parliamentary Representation Act of 1918 Windsor was also a Parliamentary Borough. Its right to send two representatives to the House of Commons was exercised until the Reform Act of 1867 deprived it of one of its members, and, in order that its population might be sufficiently large to allow of its retaining one representative, portions of the Village of Clewer and the Town of Eton were added to its Parliamentary area. The Act of 1918 referred to deprived Windsor of its remaining Member of Parliament, but its name is given to the Eastern Division of Birkshire.

The Town is well paved, excellently lighted and drained, and has also a capital water supply, the Waterworks being the property of the Corporation. Some of the oldest streets are rather narrow, but the main thoroughfares are for the most part fairly wide and are all well kept, while many of the buildings are of historical and architectural interest. The business portion is that nearest the Castle, while the principal residential parts are those bordering the Great Park and stretching out towards Clewer and Winkfield.

 

(From Official Guide to Windsor Castle, the Town and Neighbourhood of Windsor)