Banker is Told he Cannot Buy Son a Place at Oxford

THERE WAS a time when each year a number of places at Oxford University were reserved for the offspring of major benefactors. But money no longer appears to provide any such guarantee after it emerged that one of the university’s most generous donors had withdrawn a pledge of £100,000 and severed links with hisold college after it rejected his son.

Philip Keevil, a prominent City banker who has already given more than £100,000 to the university over the past 15 years, expected his generosity to be rewarded with preferential treatment for his children.

“Universities have perhaps not yet realised that they can only really raise money from the old members. That means they have to feel they belong and they are being fairly treated”, he said.

Today his son, a British state school pupil won a scholarship to study at Harvard University in the United States.

The Independent

September 2 2003

Упражнение III.Прочтите вслух вопрос и ответ, переведите их с листа:

Текст 7

FOR HIS 21^ST BIRTHDAY PRINCE WILLIAM WAS INTERVIEWED BY THE PRESS ASSOCIATION ABOUT HIS LIFE AT ST ANDREWS

Q. William, how do the University dons treat you?

W. “Once they stopped trying to spy me at lectures then it was all very relaxed. I try to attend as many lectures as I can but inevitably there are certain times when I never make them for lots of reasons. But I go to all my tutorials.”

Q. We heard things were not always easy for you?

W. “No. I thought about quitting university after a year. But I was like most people, I think, when you first come to university.

“It’s new surroundings, new scenery, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s the same as starting school really and I was a little uneasy.

“But I went home and talked to my father during the holidays and throughout that time debated about whether to come back – not seriously debating it – but it did cross my mind.

“My father was very understanding about it and realised I had the same problems as he probably had. He was very good about it and we chatted a lot and in the end we both realised, I definitely realised, that I had to come back.”

Q. Is you room similar to that of the other students?

W. “I’m not particularly fussy about my room. I just want it to be somewhere I can relax, my own space. But I do have drapes up in my room. I like that because it makes it more cosy. I’ve got to have a stereo – got to have music, I love my music. I don’t like to play it loud. I have a good view from my window of the dramatic coastline.”

Q. Why dramatic? Don’t you like to swim in the sea?

W. “I do swim in the sea but that really doesn’t last very long. It’s usually in and out, and I make a big fuss and shout how cold it is and then don’t do it again for a while.”

Q. Academically you are taking an unexpected path?

W. “Yes, I am teaching myself an East African language. I’m trying to teach myself Swahili which is something that has proved a little harder than Ithought.”

Q. Why such a choice?

W. “It’s because of my love of Africa. It’s an odd language to learn but I wanted to do something that was very specialised. I love the people of Africa and I’d like to know more about them – and to speak to them.

“I’ve got a book and a book-tape. Like I say, I’m teaching myself. I have them in my room and they’re collecting dust quite rapidly but I am trying to make progress.

“I might drop history of art to specialize in geography tor the final two years of the degree course. I am torn between the two. But I have to decide soon.”

Q. You often praised your father’s talent as a painter?

W. “Yes, he’s brilliant. He’s very modest about it and he’s always criticizing his own work. But I do actually really like it.

“Harry can paint but I can’t. He has our father’s talent while I am about the biggest idiot on a piece of canvas. I did a couple of drawings at Eton which were put on display. Teachers thought they were examples of modern art but in fact I was just trying to paint a house. I like traditional art. I love the Renaissance. It’s fascinating because it’s just so detailed and precise.

“More modern people – Picasso and his blue period. I do like that. He was revolutionary.

“I did do my A-level history of art dissertation on Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings which are in the Royal Collection, so I was very lucky.”

Q. What about your future?

W. “I really haven’t thought much about that I’m really just concentrating on getting through the next two years. I honestly haven’t thought about what I’m going to do next.

“The media have been particularly good up here and I hope that continues. It’s probably because of the media's considerate attitude that I’ve been able to have such a good time.”

Q. Are you somehow involved in student polities?

W. “I am aware of issues such as student loans and university fees. I do listen to what goes on and I know there are sensitive issues. There are some students who have just cause to be worried about loans and tees but most students here, as far as I know, don’t get involved.”

Q. Are you ever nervous?(His reply was unexpected.)

W. “Little do you know.”

The Guardian

Friday, May 30, 2001

Note: St Andrews [snt'ændr:z] – приморский город-курорт в графства Файф. Шотландия, там находится старейшин и Шотландии университет, основанный и 1411 году, а также известное поле для игры в гольф (golf course).

Упражнение IV.Текст для зрительно-устного перевода с листа по абзацам без предварительной подготовки.

STUDENT SPELLING AND GRAMMAR “CRISIS”

Rebecca Smithers

Education correspondent

Standards of spelling and grammar among an entire generation of English-speaking university students are now so poor that there is “a degree of crisis” in their written use of the language, the publisher of a new dictionary warned yesterday.

The problem is not confined to Britain, but applies also to students in Australia, Canada and the USA.

Faye Carney, dictionaries publisher said: “We thought it would be useful to get in touch with lecturers, teachers and academics to find out what problems their students were having with their writing and what help they might need from a dictionary. The results were shocking.

Students were regularly found to be producing incomplete or rambling, poorly connected sentences, mixing metaphors “with gusto” and overusing dull, devalued words such as “interesting” and “good”.

Overall they were unclear about appropriate punctuation, especially the use of commas, and failed to understand the basic rules of subject/verb agreement and the difference between “there” “their” and “they’re”.

Bethan Marshall, a lecturer in English at King’s College London and a member of the London Association of Teachers of English, said:

“The type of student we’re getting now is very different from what we were seeing 10 years ago and it is often worrying to find out how little students know. The emphasis on phonics in the teaching of English in England does, I think, make us worse at spelling. We fetishise spelling in this country, unlike in Germany where, if a word is regularly misspelled, then it is changed.”

The Encarta dictionary for students has a list of 800 commonly misspelled words, and notes which distinguish between pairs of words pronounced similarly but spelled differently and which have different meaning – for example, “faze” and “phase”, and “pray” and “prey”.

“We are sure that the use of computers has played a part. People rely increasingly onautomatic tools such as spell-checks which are much more passive than going to a dictionary and looking something up. That can pull them into a false sense of security.”

This has significant implications for the future, especially for young people.

The Independent

October 2001

Упражнение V. Переведите на слух:

The principal, научно-исследовательская работа, tuition, dons, proctor, степень бакалавра, dissertation, диссертация, grant, университетская форма, chapel, thesis, University chancellor, tutorial, master’s degree, university fees, low-interest loan, to rusticate, to fine, tuition fees, заём по низким процентам, ректор университета, диссертация, campus, modest means-tested grants, плата за обучение, academic dress, практические занятия, укомплектовывать штаты, диплом.

Повторите это задание несколько раз.

“I shall haveto give you ten days or $20”

“I’ll take the $20, Judge”

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