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Read and dramatize the dialogue

Jack. Tell me, Brian, what is it like to be a university student in the US? Your university system is known to be unique, isn’t it?

Brian Schulz. I think it is, and our secondary education system too, which is quite unlike yours.

J. And what’s unique about it?

B.S. At the age of 6 or 7 children go to elementary school, which includes grades I to 5, then at the age of 12 — to middle school — grades 6, 7 and 8 and finally to high school — grades 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Harry Clarke. And many young people finish their education at high school. The thing is, it provides not only academic but vocational subjects as well. I’ve chosen to work after finishing school.

Cecily. Oh, have you? To tell the truth, I am at the point of doing that myself. But my parents won’t be happy about it, I am afraid. They insist on my staying at school and going to college.

Bert. All the same I’m convinced that it’s better to spend one’s youth studying.

A. I’m with you there. But when I come to think of the long anxiety-filled process of applying to university I can’t help feeling distressed.

B.S. You definitely shouldn’t. You never know what you can do till you try. True, applying to college is one of the most distressing times in the life of high school seniors but you must face it if you want to compete successfully in the working world.

H. Ask Brian, he knows all about it. He was enrolled to Georgetown University last year and is a freshman now, aren’t you, Brian?

B.S. It all began at the end of my third year of high school with the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT.

A. Is it the same kind of thing as the examinations for General Certificate

of Secondary Education in Britain?

B. Not exactly. This is a multiple choice test given on the same day across the nation. It is 3 hours long and has several sections that test math, verbal and reasoning skills.

Frank. So you work hard to get good scores, the higher the better?

B.S. Yes. SAT scores range from 400 to 1600, with scores over 1000 considered good. Most colleges require a good score for entry.

J. Well, What if a college rejects you?

B.S. You can apply to as many colleges at a time as you like. In fact it’s much easier to enroll at University than to study there.

Rona. Do you mean that there is no competition for admission at all?

B.S. For some prestigious and private colleges it is intense. But some public universities accept almost all applicants. It is in the course of study that nearly 50 per cent of the students drop out.

R. Did you have to pass examinations?

B.S. I had to complete the application forms. They are several pages long and ask a lot: what types of classes I took in high school, my hobbies and extracurricular activities, my family background and why I want to attend this college.

Irene. What else did you have to do?

B.S. Then I had to write the dreaded essay, some 200-1000 words in response to two questions, something like: If you could change one fact of human development what would it be and why?



U. You had to present recommendation letters instead, didn’t you?

B.S. Oh, quite a few of them, telling what kind of person I had been in class and outside of school.

Gloria. Quite a lot of requirements, isn’t it? I hope those were the last.

B. Not in the least. Some colleges also require a personal interview. They like to hear you speak, to see how you act under pressure, and how you present yourself as a person.

G. When did you find out whether you had been accepted by the college?

B.S. In April. Admission committees review all the papers and pick the best candidates for their school by February or March. Then they send notification letters to the applicants.

I. Did you get many of them?

B.S. I’ve heard from all the universities I had applied to. I had been accepted to eight, rejected by one, and put on the waiting list for one.

A. Good for you. That sounds encouraging. Perhaps I should try to apply to some professional college in the US.

Dialogue 2.


Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1181


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