Study the meaning of the following synonyms or near synonyms. Make up your own sentences or short situations to show how you understand the difference in their meaning.1. a cost, a price a cost стоимость, цена a price цена NB Both ‘cost’ and ‘price’ mean the amount of money needed to pay for something but ‘cost’ is also used to refer to the price of services and processes, such as ‘the cost of living’ and ‘production costs’. Their prices are high because production costs are great. 2. a share, a part a share доля, часть a part часть NB ‘A part’ is one of the pieces, aspects, etc. that something consists of. ‘A share’ is a part of the total that is divided between several people or things. Maggie has done her share of the work. Part of the work was done by Martin. 3. a fee, a charge a fee плата, гонорар, взнос a charge плата, налог, сбор NB ‘A charge’ is an amount of money you have to pay when you visit a place or when somebody does something for you. ‘A fee’ is money you pay to a professional person or institution. It is also an amount of money you pay to be allowed to do something such as join an organization. 4. coaching, training, tuition coaching репетиторство, натаскивание к экзамену training обучение, профессиональная подготовка tuition обучение NB ‘Tuition’ is the work that a teacher does. ‘Training’ is the process of preparation for a professional activity. ‘Coaching’ is teaching somebody a specific skill or teaching somebody a school subject to help them prepare for an exam. 5. a curriculum, a program, a syllabus a curriculum программа, курс обучения (в школе, университете) a program программа (действий) a syllabus программа (курса лекций), конспект 6. to avoid, to escape to avoid избегать, сторониться, уклоняться to escape избежать (опасности, наказания), спастись
Reading for Information 13. Read the following article quickly and find answers to the following questions. Try to concentrate on those passages that provide the information you need. To find the necessary information look for key words.
1. What kind of school is Eton College? 2. Does Eton’s curriculum differ from that of state schools? If so, how does it differ? 3. What is the attitude of self-made influential people to Eton? 4. What is the attitude of state-school headmasters to Eton? 5. Who can be admitted to Eton? 6. What is the annual tuition fee at Eton? 7. What facts prove that private education plays a vital role in Britain?
The Most Famous Name in Schools
Twenty or so boys dressed in white tie and tails are being taught by Liam Maxwell today at Eton College, the exclusive boys’ school 35 km west of London. For centuries Eton – founded in 1440 – has been synonymous with privilege, the place where British elite is given its polish and an air of entitlement. But this class doesn’t feel like a hothouse for languid aristocrats. The boys are not learning Latin but staring into computer screens, trying to master the database program Microsoft Access. Though a student once told Maxwell that typing was something he could leave to his daddy’s secretary, the school insists that all first-year students learn to type, so that they can use their mandatory laptops on the network that links every classroom and bedroom to teaching resources and the Internet. The project the boys are working on would probably not be the first choice at one of Britain’s state schools – their databases are portfolios of fictional shares they manage during the term to see who can make the most money. But Maxwell, who arrived two years ago after running the IT department of a large recruiting firm, has no patience for the self-pleased. “I tell them that 30% of them are going to work for a Chinese or Indian company,” he says. “They are going to be judged by what they can do, not where they come from.” For years, many of modern Britain’s proud meritocrats have thought of Eton as a four-letter word, a generator of snobs who didn’t deserve yet another benefit from a nation that had long awarded life’s glittering prizes to those who were lucky enough to have been born to land, money, privilege or all three. But Eton is having a makeover. It’s trying to marry its five-century experience of educating adolescent boys to the spirit of less hierarchical, more competitive, more globalized Britain, and its effort is bearing fruit. If it plays its cards right – especially if it can open its doors not just to the very bright sons of the wealthy but to the brightest boys there are, anywhere – Eton has a decent shot at becoming the nursery for a 21st century (male) elite. All in all, it’s a good time for Eton. But is what’s good for Eton good for Britain? For all its recent economic and cultural success, Britain has not left all the wounds of class division behind it. Contrary to popular belief, social mobility in the country has stalled. The absolute number of white-collar jobs is rising, but research shows that the chance of getting from the bottom 10% of society to the top 10% is dropping. Reports released by the Sutton Trust show that the privately educated retain a powerful, indeed growing, hold on many influential jobs. Even though they educate only 7% of secondary school children, private schools are responsible for 68% of barristers, 42% of top politicians and 54% of leading journalists. Eton has only a handful of true competitors at the top of the private-school heap, plenty of money and applicants, and it has honed its procedure to identify the smartest boys. A school this old knows a few things about adapting to the times – so Eton is embarking on a campaign to offer more financial aid. Already 13% of boys receive help because their parents can’t afford to pay $44,000 a year in fees (Harvard costs nearly the same). Outside the school, the best test of its success comes from fair-minded observers. “If Eton were a business, it would have opened 20 more and be expanding the brand everywhere,” says Geoff Mulgan, previously head of Blair’s Policy Unit. Other schools are doing just that. But Eton’s leaders do not aspire to build an empire. Their goal is to preserve quality, reform slowly, and set an example that others will want to follow. Eton’s principal says that his friends who are state-school headmasters “tend to be rather pleased that places like Eton exist. They are a point of reference for what you can do if you have the money.” He has a point; it is unlikely that Britain would be hurt if all schools aspired to teach and treat their students with the same respect as Eton displays. Those who graduate from Eton will always have a good start in life. But they need not be snobs. And, as the school has a big chance to prove, they need not all be privileged when they show up. (From ‘Time’ June 26, 2006, abridged)
V Now read the article carefully, find the following words and learn their meaning. Make it a particular point to use these words in the further overall discussion of the problem. To master smth (a program), to deserve smth, to award a prize to smb, all in all, contrary to smth, to abolish smth, an applicant, financial aid, to set an example, to have a point (He has a point.), to treat smb with respect
Reading and Speaking 2
14. Read and discuss Article 1. While reading find the following words and word combinations in the text and learn their meaning. Make it a particular point to use these words in the further discussion of the problem. To go online, to surf the Web, misinformation, guidance on smth, to be inaccessible, profound(ly), to encounter smth, credible, to scrutinize smth, to enroll smb in a school, to interact with smb, to be at the forefront of smth, cutting-edge technology Article 1 LOG ON AND LEARN No more teachers? No more books? For today’s kids the Internet has all the answers. Increasingly, the Internet is a cyberteacher inside, as well as outside, the classroom. In the United States, for example, more than 78 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 go online, according to a study by Pew Internet & American Life Project. A lot of them are just surfing the Web and instant-messaging their friends. But 94 percent of those online said they also used it for schoolwork. Some of what they find surely expands their minds. But there is also tremendous misinformation out there – and at times, remarkably little guidance from teachers. “Computers and the Internet by themselves hold little educational value,” says John Bailey, director of educational technology at the US Department of Education. But when used well, technology lets kids tap into a vast store of knowledge that was once almost inaccessible. Perhaps more than anything else, the Internet search engine Google has profoundly altered homework habits across the globe. When Noako Koyasu, a high-school senior in Tokyo, recently got a biology assignment to write a report on the brain, she just plugged the word “cerebrum” into Google. In the old days, before her mother got a computer, she had to go to the school library and get a stack of textbooks. “I have been able to access stuff, written by experts, which I would have never encountered if not for the Internet,” Koyasu says. But like many students, Koyasu received no guidance on how to surf through Web sources to determine the credible ones. “The Internet is so big and so undocumented, it’s like getting a really fast car and no map. You just get lost,” says Robert Schrag, a professor of communication at North Carolina State University who studies the Web. He teaches his own students to scrutinize Web sources and to limit them to four out of the 14 sources he requires for research papers. Several schools have gone so far as to put a whole curriculum online. After seeing how much “dead time” her daughter, Heather, endured in Denver public school, Nancy Romberg enrolled her in one of about a dozen “virtual high schools” that have opened in the United States in the last five years. Heather began working from home via computer, choosing when she did what. Romberg thinks her daughter got more attention interacting with instructors online. Critics say that virtually schooled kids will be socially disadvantaged because they won’t develop the skills to relate to their peers. But Barbara Frey, the principal of Denver’s cyber school, argues that her students interact online with a much broader range of people than they would otherwise. That’s especially true for kids in remote, rural areas. The state of California is at the forefront of educational innovation. Two public schools – High Tech High and New Tech High in Napa – are using technology to completely revamp schooling. Partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, they merge cutting-edge technology with traditional learning. A typical assignment at New Tech High, for example, is a project like “The President’s Dilemma,” a simulation of the 1970s US oil crisis. Students pretend to be the president’s economic advisors and collaborate on what action to take. They meet in online chat rooms for virtual study groups. Everything the students need for the course is kept in a project briefcase online. Students are free to contact the two teachers by e-mail at any time. This model of education may soon go international. Australia and Britain each plan to open a school based on High Tech High. (From ‘Newsweek’, abridged)
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