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Patricia meets Vince again. He asks to take her out. Read and reproduce.

– Pat, would you like to come and have dinner with me?

– I'd love to.

– What about Monday?

– Let me have a look at my diary. I'm afraid I can't. On Monday I've got a class late in the afternoon and then in the evening I play the drums in our orchestra. Tuesday is all right.

– I'm sorry but on Tuesday in the afternoon I meet with my tutor. Let's make it Wednesday.

– Wednesday is fine. Oh, no. I am going to the theatre with my Russian teacher, Boris. Friday night I must attend the English Club meeting. On Saturday I am going to the country with my friend. Gosh! I am a busy woman.

– How about Thursday, then?

– Fine.

– Thursday, 6 o'clock in the evening. O.K.?

– Yes, thank you very much. I'd love to come. Oh ...

– Yes?

– awfully sorry, but on Thursday I don't eat anything. I'm on a diet.

6. In pairs improvise dialogues for a similar situation.


Read the following text and prepare a discussion of the problem in question. Find some facts or ideas to support your point of view. Make use of the arguments and counter-arguments that follow the text.

 

”Examinations exert a pernicious influence on education”

 

We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of testing a person's knowledge and ability remain as primitive as ever they were. It really is extraordinary that after all these years, educationists have still failed to devise anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the knack of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person's true ability and aptitude.

As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are the mark of success or failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesn't matter that you weren't feeling very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that don't count: the exam goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror, or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do. The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success and failure are clearly defined and measured. Can we wonder at the increasing number of 'drop-outs': young people who are written off as utter failures before they have even embarked on a career? Can we be surprised at the suicide rate among students?

A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorise. Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict: his reading; they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge, but induce cramming. They lower the standards of teaching, for they deprive the teacher of all freedom. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are red need to training their students in exam techniques, which they despise. The most successful candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.



The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They get tired and hungry; they make mistakes. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight. After a judge's decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner's. There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person's true abilities. Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate message recently scrawled on a wall: '1 were a teenage drop-out and now I are a teenage; millionaire.'


 

The argument key words:

1. Great progress in many fields, but exams: a primitive method of testing knowledge and ability.

2. Educationists haven't devised anything more efficient, reliable.

3. Exams should test what you know; often do the opposite.

4. Test of memory, working under pressure; not ability, aptitude.

5. Exams cause anxiety: mark of success or failure; future decided by them.

6. Personal factors (e.g. health, mother's death) immaterial.

7. Cannot give of your best if in terror or after sleepless night. |

8. School: vicious competition: success, failure clearly defined, measured.

9. Increasing number of 'drop-outs', suicides.

10. Education should train you to think for yourself; exam system doesn't.

11. Exams encourage memorisation; restrict reading; induce cramming.

12. They lower teaching standards; teacher: no freedom.

13. Teachers often judged by exam results; therefore teach exam tech­niques.

14. Most successful candidates not best educated; best trained in tech­niques.

15. Results: subjective assessment by examiner

16. Examiners human: tired, hungry, make mistakes, work under pressure.

17. After judge's decision, right of appeal; not after examiner's.

18. There must be more effective ways of assessing ability.

19. Exams merely a profitable business

The counter-argument key words:

1. Exams are a well-tried system: many advantages.

2. They offer the best quick way of assessing a candidate.

3. Their reliability has been proved again and again.

4. They are marked anonymously: therefore reliable.

5. Not possible to do well relying merely on memory and exam techniques.

6. They are often not the only way of assessing a candidate: used in connection with teachers' assessments.

7. Exams are constantly being improved.

8. There are complex checking systems used by examiners to ensure fair results.

9. There is a lot of research into objective testing techniques to eliminate human error.

10. Computers are already widely used to mark specially devised tests, "ii Pernicious aspects of system (cramming, etc.) are not the fault of examinations, but of the teacher.

12. Teachers cram weak pupils to push them through; able pupils don't need cramming. ,

13. Teachers want examinations: they provide a clear objective.

14. The exam system may not be perfect, but it's the best we have; it may be painful, but so are many things in life.

 
 



Date: 2015-12-17; view: 904


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