Фонд оценочных средств ПРОМЕЖУТОЧНОЙ АТТЕСТАЦИИ ПО ДИСЦИПЛИНЕ

Задания к зачету

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Students at home and abroad

At 18, British school-leavers with A-levels can apply for a degree course at university. Most of these courses last for three years, and students must pay all of their own accommodation and living costs, and some of their tuition fees. Since 1990, the government has offered student loans to help the situation. The loans are between £3,000 and £5,000 per year depending on whether students live with their parents or away from home, and also whether or not they live in London.

Students have to pay back their loans when they leave university, but not until their income reaches £ 10,000 per year. The interest rates are low and there is no deadline for repayment.

However, most students find that the loans do not fully meet their needs, so many have to stay in the family home to avoid accommodation costs, or take part-time jobs while they are studying .

It is common these days for 18-year-old school leavers to take a ‘gap year'. Instead of going to university immediately after their A-levels, they go travelling for a year or do charity work abroad, often in exotic locations. Popular destinations for British gap year students are Australia , India and South Africa.

(1200 печатн.зн)

Answer the questions:

1. Who can apply for a degree course at university?

2. How long most of these courses last?

3. What must students pay?

4. What has the government offered since 1990?

5. What do the loans depend on?

6. Are the interest rates low?

7. What is a ‘gap year’?

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Text 1 Family

My dad is quite old, he’s 81. My mum’s about 15 years younger. I have two brothers. Nigel, who is seven years older than me, is a computer programmer, or he does something with computers. I’m not sure what exactly. His main interest is music, and he plays the guitar very well, and the piano. He’s married to Nikki, who is an artist. She’s half Swiss and paints pictures for a living. They live in London and have two children. My other brother, Chris, is a stockbroker, and he lives with his family in Hong Kong because the firm he works for sent him out there. They send him all over the world. He met his wife Leslie in South Africa, when he was working there. Leslie doesn’t work – she’s a housewife and she brings up the children. They’ve got four children. So I have six nieces and nephews, which means I have quite a lot of presents to buy at Christmas! I come from quite a big family. I worked it out once that I’ve got 25 cousins, because my dad’s dad married twice, so I would have had three set of grandparents if they all had been alive at the same time. However, I only remember one grandparent, my grandmother on my mother’s side, but she died when I was very young so I only have very vague memories of her. My mum has two brothers and sisters, and she has three half-sisters. And my dad has four brothers and sisters and two stepbrothers and sisters.

My two brothers are a lot older than me, so I didn’t see them much when I was little because they weren’t at home that much. There are seven years between each of us, so one brother is seven years older than me and the other is fourteen years older than me. However, my auntie Patty lived with us in the country for a while, and she has four children and the two girls, Catherine and Sarah, were around my age, so it was like having two sisters. This was nice, because we went to school together and we could play together, and it was nice having people of my age around.

Text 2 Personality

I’m five foot eight. I’m not sure what that is on the metric scale – I think it’s one metre seventy, or something like that. So I’m quite tall. I’m overweight I think, although people say I’m not. I don’t know how much I weigh, ‘cause I always find it too depressing to weigh myself. I don’t feel I take as much exercise as I should. I used to go to a gym, but I found it really boring. My main exercise is walking and swimming, which is fine for giving you good stamina and broad shoulders, and it’s good for your heart and lungs. I have very short hair. I had it cut recently, because if you go swimming every day, which I try to, then it’s much more convenient to have really short hair. It’s light brown. It’s much fairer in the summer, and in the winter it gets darker. I have blue eyes. I wear contact lenses.

I’m similar, I think, in personality to my mother. People always say that she’s really calm and easy-going. She’s always very friendly to guests and visitors, and if I take friends home to stay, she’s very nice and charming to them, although she can be quite critical of people. My mother has a very interesting outlook on life, and she’s very perceptive. She always points out little things that I don’t notice.

My dad is very placid, he’s very calm and very sweet. He’s a great big man, over six foot tall, but now he’d had a hip operation, he can hardly walk, which is sad because he had had such an active and sporty life. He’s still quite cheerful generally, but the pain makes him really grumpy and depressed at times. He’s very soft and sweet, not a typical strict father, and he’s always been very easy-going. When I was a child, both my parents were very relaxed, and I could do what I wanted to most of the time. They had an attitude like “Let the children get on with their lives and don’t interfere!” Maybe it might seem like they didn’t care, or that they were cold, but I don’t know, it’s just the English way. They don’t want to interfere as much in other people’s lives, and let people get on with their own thing.

Text 3 Daily Routine

Eli: At the moment I'm living in Japan and life here is pretty different to anything I've really experienced before. I think just because the daily routine is so different. In England, I was really lazy. I'd probably get up as you know 8:30 in the morning. Leave ten minutes later, cause I always brush my teeth at work, eat breakfast at work, get to work for 9 o'clock, come home from work at 5:30, lie on the sofa, watch the Simpsons, cook some food, go to bed, and that was the sort of daily routine in England, a very lazy one. I mean, even if I needed to get to the supermarket which was probably 3-400 meters away, I'd get on my scooter to do it. Walking anywhere would be just a massive hassle and so it was a bit of a shock when I got to Japan and all that changed, the one thing you have to do a lot of in Tokyo is walk. You have to walk everywhere. I mean the train systems are absolutely amazing but you need to walk to get to the train. You need to walk between the trains and when I first arrived, I walked my feet into the ground. After a week they were aching so badly. But just apart from the walking, it's a business of life here, I mean no one actually lives in Tokyo because it's so expensive.

We all live out in the suburbs in what we call bed towns, and so actually getting into school every morning, I'm studying Japanese here, I have to get up pretty early just to get onto the train, to then travel, commute, an hour in, to get to school on time, which of course I never do. I'm meant to be at school at about nine, which would mean, leaving my house at about 8, getting up at 7. I know this is not shocking for a lot of people, but after the routine I had, it's a pretty shocking experience for me, especially the hour of commuting on the train where you're kept in like sardines, you just would never have in London underground in England where I'm from.

Text 4 Daily Routine

When I was working regularly at the newspaper, I would start the day by getting up at about half past seven, have a shower, brush my teeth and try to listen to the radio at eight o’clock, because they have fifteen minutes of news in English which was useful for my work. Then I would go to work, and maybe get a cake or something on the way, if I hadn’t had time for breakfast, or buy some fruit from a little stall on the street. Quite often I walked to work, which only took about twenty minutes.

When I got to work, I was usually one of the first people there. Next I’d read the paper, and then I’d start working on certain tasks that I’d have to do every week for the newspaper, like writing some short news briefs or going through the newspapers to find any interesting stories.

Then I usually had a few interviews to do, and afterwards I’d write them up on the computer, and at some point I’d go out for lunch. I liked to just go out to the market and get some vegetables. I used to be a vegetarian in England, so I would buy peppers and tomatoes and some bread rolls, and then have a cold lunch. In the afternoon, it would be more of the same, writing up, or maybe working on some longer story or interview.

I used to come home at about seven. I stayed quite late at work, and then did some shopping on the way back to get some food for the evening, and when I got back I’d start cooking. I actually enjoy cooking. I find it really relaxing. After thinking all day, it’s nice to just chop up vegetables and think of something really mindless, and not have to concentrate too hard.

After dinner, I usually watch television. Quite often on weekdays I’m too tired to go out, but, if I do, maybe I go to the cinema with my friends or I go out to dine to other people’s houses. Where I go also depends on how much money I have. Sometimes I go out to a restaurant or go for a pizza.

Text 5 Spare Time

I am fond of good books and good music, and when I have some time to spare, I like to go to the theatre or a concert. There are more than a dozen very good orchestras in Britain and some of them are world famous. Orchestras in Britain have no concert halls of their own, but play in halls rented from local authorities or private companies.

Theatrical performances are given by theatre companies. There are about 200 professional theatres in Britain. Like orchestras, the theatre companies usually play in rented theatres, but there are several theatres which have their own homes. The British are not fond of cinema. Rather then take trouble of going out to see a film, they would stay at home and watch television. In Britain the choice of films is limited to young people. Films are placed in one of three categories. "U" means suitable for everybody, "A" stands for more suitable for adults and films of "X" category are suitable only for adults. A person under 16 years of age may see an "A" film only in company of an adult. Only person over 16 years of age may see "X" films. Those, who prefer to stay at home, may spend their free time, watching TV, listening to the radio. They have many TV and radio programmes to choose from.

As for me, I am a great cinema-goer. I like the cinema tremendously. I see all the best films that are on. I prefer feature films, though I enjoy documentaries almost as much to say nothing of animated cartoons films, news-reels or popular science films. I usually go to the cinema for morning or day shows. If I want to go to an evening show I book tickets beforehand. I like to come to the cinema a couple of minutes before the movie starts. If I have long time to wait I can always look at the portraits of film stars hanging on the walls in the foyer, or listen to a little concert that is usually given for the spectators. It is a good idea that those who are late are not allowed to enter the hall until the news-reel is over. I hate being disturbed when a film is on.