4. Responding to the story: Look through the story and answer the following questions.

1. Your response:

1. What is your impression of the extract?

2. What did you like in the extract: its tone, its language, the characters?

3. What episode did you like/dislike in the extract? Why or why not?

4. Who would you recommend to read the story? Why?

2. Identifying facts:

1. What does the notion “the final examinations” mean to a medical student?

2. Who was responsible for the written papers examination?

3. Why did the male examiners usually adopt toward women student an attitude of undeserved sternness?

4. By whom and how are the examination result announced? Dwell on the procedure.

3. Interpreting meanings:

1. What is your attitude to an examination? Does it coincide with that of the medical student in the extract? Explain.

2. Do you agree to the described characteristics of the oral examination and the written answers? Prove it.

3. What is your viewpoint on the types of candidates in viva waiting-rooms? Does the description coincide with that of your fellow-students?

4. What do you think of the end of the extract? What does it describe? Have you ever experienced something like that? When?

5. Make up your own questions on the story and discuss the possible answers with your partner.

6. LISTING:

1. make a list of the most important happenings in the extract;

2. make a list of the phrases which describe the final examinations;

3. make a list of the kinds of the anonymous examinees;

4. make a list of the narrator’s feelings after the viva.

7. Retell the story as if you were:

a) Benskin c) Grimsdyke

b) Malcolm Maxworth d) the invigilator

7. Act out a conversation between:

a) the narrator and Grimsdyke c) a man student and a woman student

b) the Nonchalant and the Crammer d) a student and the examiner

9. Multiple choice cloze. Read the text below and decide which answer - А, В, С or D - best fits each space.

To a medical student the final examinations are something like death: an (1) inevitability to be faced sooner or later, one's state after which is determined by care spent in preparing for the (2).

An examination is nothing more than an (3) of a man's knowledge, conducted in a way that the authorities have found the most (4) and convenient to both sides. But the medical student cannot see it in this light. Examinations touch off his (5) spirit; they are a straight (6) between himself and the examiners, conducted on (7) rules for both, and he goes at them like a prize-fighter.

There is rarely any frank (8) in medical examinations, but the (9) spend almost as much time over the technical details of the contest as they do learning general medicine from their (10).

1. A upsetting	В unpleasant	С annoying	D obnoxious
2. A actual	В occurrence	С event	D occasion
3. A exploration	В investigation	С study	D survey
4. A fair	В favorable	С reasonable	D valid
5. A high	В driving	С low	D fighting
6. A contest	В tournament	С challenger	D emulation
7. A adjusted	В well-established	С favorite	D cleared-up
8. A fraud	В trickery	С cheating	D cheated
9. A candidates	В authorities	С participants	D jury
10. A digests	В supplies	С journals	D textbooks

Each correct answer is 1 point