Vocabulary Study and Practice

Text 3 The Purpose of Lectures

Lectures are designed to help you find your way through rapidly extending fields of knowledge, to stimulate your interest in a subject and provoke you to think about it and to provide you with a balanced and up- to-date survey of a particular field of knowledge. Lectures must be amplified by your own reading and thinking about the subject.

The technique of extracting information from lectures differs from the technique of reading. You must not think that listening means passively writing down what your lecturers sav. It is an active process: you must take note as well as take notes. The good lecturer will arrange his material in logical order, clarify the most important concepts and will probably repeat or emphasize the significant points. He may, especially if his subject is a language, a science, a technology or a medical subject, aid your understanding by making frequent use of the blackboard. I t is highly likely that he will present his material in such a way as to stimulate your interest in his subject, provoking you to think further about it and to read further in it. To be a good listener, you must listen with critical intelligence to what is being said, perceive what is fundamental and seek to relate what is being said to your previous knowledge. You must not be a passive and uncritical absorber of information. Remember that what you take away from a lecture depends to no small degree on what you bring to it.

What notes should one take? Should one concentrate on listening to a lecture and take no notes, but attempt to reconstruct it later on, or attempt to take it down verbatim, or aim at some compromise between these two extremes? The compromise solution is the most workable solution. One should never attempt to make a verbatim report of a lecture. In any case, that will be impossible, unless one writes shorthand, or the lecturer goes at a dictating speed, in which event he will be dull to listen to. If you attempt to record every word of a lecture delivered at a normal speed, you will soon find that you lose the train of the lecturer's thought and that your interest and attention begin to flag. Think about what is being said and use your own words for recording it except when something is said which needs to be taken down verbatim; it compels us to participate in the learning process, it aids our memory of the lecture and makes it possible for us to review it later on. To do this effectively is an extremely difficult feat, but this is the most effective way of listening to a lecture,

(from The Art of Study by A. Laing)

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the purpose of lectures?

2. What is the difference between listening to a lecture and reading a book? 

3 Why can't we just put down the lecture verbatim?

4. How can the lecturer aid the student's understanding of his subject?

5. Why can't lectures be delivered at a dictating speed?

Vocabulary Study and Practice

I.Суффикс -fy (-ify) (to amplify, to clarify) служит для образовании от прилагательных и существительных глаголов, от которых, в свою очередь, образуются существительные:

ample — amplify — amplification

clear — clarify — clarification

just — justify — justification

class — classify — classification

mode — modify — modification

satis (Lat. enough) — satisfy — satisfaction

II.Обратите внимание на многозначность следующих слов: technique — 1. техника, мастерство, умение; 2. технический прием; способ, метод; методика

technology — 1. техника, технические науки; 2. технология; 3. тех-нические средства, аппаратура; 4. технический прием; способ, метод; методика

intelligence — 1. интеллект; 2. информация; 3. разведка; Intelligence Service разведывательная служба Великобритании; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Центральное разведывательное управление США (ЦРУ)

intelligent — умный, разумный интеллигентный — cultured, educated интеллигенция — intelligentsia {рус. заимствование)

III.to take note — to be attentive, to pay attention to take notes — to write down important points

Exercise 1. Find synonyms of the following words in the text:

important, to try, to help, to write down, to enlarge.

Exercise 2. Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying attention to the words in bold type. First, look these words up in the dictionary, keeping in mind their various meanings; remember also that they may belong to different parts of speech.

A. 1. There are different ways of cooking fish. 2. When a person wants to say something, he will find a way to say it. 3. This problem can be solved in several ways. 4. Sociology is interested in the way groups interact with one another and with the institutions they develop. 5. I never like the way doctors speak to you. 7. Thank you for helping my brother the way you have. 7. It is disgusting the way taxes keep going up. 8. The reporter changed the story the way the editor wanted. 9. Much of what we do, even the way we think, is based on habit. 10. The way you spend your time determines your life. 11. Technology has strongly affected the way newspapers are published.

B. 1. Without order, stability is impossible. 2. We must put the house in order. 3. The duty of the police is to maintain order. 4. They came into the restaurant and ordered dinner. 5. It is possible now to order goods by e-mail. 6. At the restaurant, a waiter came to take their order. 7. The general ordered the soldiers to storm the building. 8. The district court ordered the hospital closed. 9. He had to hurry in order to reach the town before dark. 10. Many people learn English in order to be able to travel.

C. 1. The needle of the compass points to the North. 2. All the evidence points to his guilt. 3. I like the report in general, but there are points I object to. 4. Your point of view will be discussed at the conference. 5.I must point out that you are making a mistake. 6. The astronomer pointed his telescope to the Moon. 7. At the museum, he pointed out the finest pictures to me. 8. There is no point in asking him questions. He will not tell us anything. 9. She was not listening and missed the point of the story.

D. 1. US schools spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on technology. 2. Such programs are a poor use of expensive technology. 3. William Caxton, the first English printer, learned the technique of printing in Germany. 4. Mary learned modern management techniques in college. 5. People adopt certain techniques for getting along in life. 6. As early as 2500 ВС, Native Americans living in Massachusetts developed sophisticated fishing techniques. 7. The technique of reading differs in many important respects from the technique of extracting information from lectures. 8. If you have never learned about the best studying techniques, you probably waste time and effort in your studying.

E. 1. He was recruited as a translator for the US military intelligence. 2. Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make computers work in an intelligent way. 3. Are their intelligent life forms on other planets? 4. The boy was intelligent and his father tried to give him a good education.

F. 1. She didn't like to speak of her health and changed the subject. 2. Geography was my favorite subject at school. 3. British subjects are allowed to enter the country at all times. 4. He is subject to colds. 5. This area is subject to floods. 6. The police are — like the rest of us — subject to the law. 7. The air bases were subjected to an intense air attack.