Laboratory Work: Higher Education in the USA

MP3 AUDIO 5.1

1. You’ll hear five speakers talking about problems they or their relatives face while studying. Fill in the chart with the information given in the recording. Be especially precise with the column “Your solution to the problem”; here, you’re supposed to give your personal advice to avoid or ease the problems mentioned by the speakers.

Speaker	Problem	Signs of the Problem	Your Solution to the Problem
1	examination	Whether you are a professional in your qualification or only think, that you are	Teachers are to motivate students to take knowledge, learning their subjects and doing different kinds of research work. If a teacher wants a particular student to answer questions on the exam, the teacher should ask himself, whether he has given all the materials which are important to be a professional.
2	Study for three A-levels, preparing for the informatics school	tired face, sleepless nights, works nights and weekends to prepare for her exams etc.	If you want to pass exams very well you have to work hard, but at the same time, you need time to have a rest, or you may overheat and don’t do your work
3	Entering to university	Lost weight, grey reams under his eyes, don’t sleep at all, only for 3 or 4 hours a day	There is the same situation as in the life of the 2nd speaker, but the difference is that it is a man, a boy is better to say. I will advise him not to be so concentrated on the life among books and ink, but to open his eyes for the rest world.
4	To be graduated	Unbelievable for the speaker, unexpected	As Dima Bilan songs in his famous song “I know exactly impossible is possible…” Every person should be confident in himself to overcome barriers in life.
5	Online or electronic exams	Old school papers don’t make work quicker, there is no ability to give results faster, though it is necessary for the students	It is really important question for today’s world. There is a tendency to do all the work in on-line form with the help of the Internet and informatics technology

2. Have you ever experienced problems while studying?  What were these problems like? How did you cope with them?

I experience problems while studying every day, because I have also lots things to do, apart from the institute. These problems were like lack of time to do homework or to cope with it on the good level; sometimes I am really exhausted, because I don’t sleep an appropriate amount of hours; besides, there will be situations when misunderstanding exist between students and teachers. My advice to you is not to think about your problem, you should save them whatever the weather. I try to find compromise between two fighting parts. Truly speaking I am a very difficult person with hard character.

3. What are other difficulties that contemporary university students face while studying? When do the problems usually occur? Are there special stresses that cause them? Do you agree that the quality learning is “the travel of hardships”? Give account of about 100 words on the questions mentioned.

Some times students have to choose student’s life or study itself. For instance, our faculty of the foreign languages doesn’t give permission to students to take parts in different performances. But sometimes heads of the faculty and teachers may help you, as for me, they has given me a hand to cope with the study, when I was a participant in the institute’s awards “Mr. of the Student’s Life”.

The problem usually occur when neither teacher nor student what to drive a nail to the head the problem.

I agree that quality learning is “the travel of hardship”. It is out of the question to take knowledge without hard work. Every person has talent, but you need something to develop your talent: for instance you have to burn the midnight oil or something like that, if you want to be a good specialist, if you want your future employer to take into service.

MP3 AUDIO 5.2

Listen to a talk given by a university advisor to a group of students and answer the following questions:

1.   What is the standard grading system in the USA?.

A B C D or F – most of the courses use this system of grade.

2.   What are the ‘special grades’ that the speaker mentions in the recording?

They are satisfactory E or F and unsatisfactory - U grades

3. Comment on the standard grading system in your country?

There are 4 grades in my country. You are a bachelor after the 4^th course and then you can go to the degree of the Magister.

4. Do schools and colleges practice non-standard grading systems? I don’t know whether Russia school goes out of the standard rules. Any innovation in our country is supposed as the worst thing. What are they?

5. Give examples of other grading systems throughout the world? Which of them do you think are efficient for the students’ academic assessment?

MP3 AUDIO 5.3

Listen to a talk by a student advisor on campus. Answer the following questions.

1. What are the rules for dropping a course in the talk provided? You can drop a course within three first weeks of a semester. If you want to drop a course you need a signature of the professor who leads this course or an official drop card. Then you should come to the speaker to get her signature.

2. What warnings does the student advisor give? You can’t officially drop a course three weeks later after beginning of the semester. It is impossible to do so, if you don’t do so within three first weeks. But if you drop a course without an appropriate permission you will receive a falling grade.

3. How can you avoid getting a failing grade, according to the recording? You must obey the rules.

4. What are the official drop procedures for the elective courses in your country? If you teach a certain subject in any state office you can drop your classes in these days when you are a teacher at  school, college or a technical colleague.

MP3 AUDIO 5.4

Listen to a talk given on a college campus.

1. What are the places of a college campus that the speaker mentions in the recording? They are library, administration place, student center, which includes a bookstore, a post office, a bank, a theater, a travel agency, a coffee shop.

2. Can you find the similar campus places in your college/university? Yes, we can, but there are no theater, post office and travel agency. What are other places that are worth mentioning? Canteen and dressing room.  Characterize them briefly. You need a place where you can not only have a snack, but to eat normal meal like your mother does.

3. Pick out the places from the previous task and make a similar tour around your college/university to inform the freshmen about the campus.

Dear freshmen, you are on the first floor now. The administration is located her, it takes the entire hall from the right of you. Besides, at the end of this hall there is a library, which works from 10 am up to 5 pm. There are two sections of the library, where you can take your book, are based in a vault.

The canteen is also in a vault. Moreover there are two gyms which are also there, like a dressing room.

There are two small cafes where you may have a snack on the third and the second floor. But there is a cafeteria in a new building of our institute, where you can go with the help of the transition on the second floor.

Your faculty lies on the 4^th floor, where the sun is hot and stars are closer. Good Luck! Be “to be ” with you!

ps
We had our first tour with Natalia Yakovlevna Evtiuhina when we were freshmen. There is no WC for men in the 4^th place, that’s why me and my male colleagues have to ladder to the 3^rd floor. Besides, the teacher showed us the canteen, the dressing room and the gum.