Examination Card 10

I. Read text 10 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

How Children Fail

Most children in school fail. Close to forty per cent of those who begin high school drop out before they finish. For college, the figure is one in three. Many others complete their schooling only because we have agreed to push them out of schools, whether they know anything or not. If we ‘raise our standards’ much higher, our classrooms will bulge with kids who can’t pass the test to get into the next class (1). The most alarming thing here is that they fail to develop more than a tiny part of the tremendous capacity for learning (2), understanding, and creating with which they were born. Why do they fail?

They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused. They are afraid, above all else, of failing or disappointing the many anxious adults around them, whose limitless hopes and expectations for them hang over their heads like a cloud. They are bored because the things they are told to do in school are dull and make narrow demands on the wide spectrum of their intelligence, capabilities, and talents. They are confused because most words that pour over them in school make little or no sense, contradict other things they have been told and hardly ever have any relation to what they really know. How does this mass failure take place? What really goes on in the classroom? Why don’t kids make use of more of their capacity?

This book is the rough and partial record of a search for answers to these questions. It began as a series of memos written to my colleague and friend Bill Hull, whose fifth-grade class I observed and taught in during the day. Later, these memos were sent to other interested teachers and parents. They have not been much rewritten, but they have been edited and rearranged under four major topics: Strategy; Fear and Failure; Real Learning; and How Schools Fail. 

Strategy deals with the ways in which children try to meet, or dodge (5), the demands that adults make on them in school. Fear and Failure deals (3) with the interaction of fear and failure, and the effect of this on strategy and learning. Real Learning deals with the difference between what children are expected to know, and what they really know. How Schools Fail analyses the ways in which schools foster bad strategies, raise children’s fears, produce learning which is usually fragmentary, short-lived (4), and generally fail to meet the real needs of children. These four topics are clearly not exclusive. They tend to overlap and blend into each other. They are, at most, different ways of looking at and thinking (2a) about the thinking (2b) and behaviour of children. The children, who deserve better lives and better schooling.

(From How children fail by John Holt. The preface)

II. Do the Following Language Focus Tasks (the items for analysis are underlined in the text):

1) Provide a complete syntactical analysis of the sentence;

2) Identify parts of speech of the three –ing forms (2, 2a, 2b) and their syntactical functions;

3) Comment on the Subject-Predicate agreement in the sentence;

4) Comment on the word-building pattern of the word;

5) Suggest several synonyms of the word.

Examination Card 11

I. Read text 11 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

Lie detector

A new form of lie detector that works by voice analysis and can be used without a subject’s knowledge has been introduced (2) in Britain. The unit is already widely employed by the police and private industry in the US, and some of its applications there raise serious worries. The Dektor psychological stress analyser (PSE) is used by private industry for pre-employment screening, investigating thefts, and even periodic staff checks. Although at least 600 of the devices are used in the US, there are apparently only three in Britain.

In addition to the normally understood voice generation mechanisms - vibrations of the vocal chords and resonance of cavities inside the head - there is a third component caused by vibration of the muscles inside the mouth and throat. Normally - not under stress - these voluntary muscles vibrate at 8-12 Hz, and this adds a clearly noticeable frequency-modulated component to the voice. The PSE (4) works by analysing this infrasonic FM component enabling to pick out a word or phrase that caused stress.

Dektor emphasises that the device shows only stress, not dishonesty. Three steps are suggested to overcome this difficulty. First, the subject is supposed to see a full list of the questions in advance. Second, there are ‘neutral’ questions and one to which the subject is specifically asked to lie. Third, if an individual shows stress on a vital question (such as "Have you stolen more than £100 in the last six months?"), then additional questions must be asked to ensure that this does not possibly reflect an earlier theft (1).

In the US, the device is used for pre-employment interviews, with questions such as ‘Have you used marihuana?’ and for monthly checks with branch managers. The potential application of the PSE in Britain is extremely disquieting (5), especially as there seems no law to prevent its use. The most serious problem is that its primary application will be in situations where people may not object - such as pre-employment interviews. But it can also be used to probe a whole range of personal issues totally unrelated to job - union and political affiliations, for example. And, of course, the PSE can be used without the subject even knowing (3); its inventors analysed the televised Watergate hearings and told the press who they thought was lying. Finally, the device is not foolproof but depends on the skill of the investigator, who receives only a one-week course from Dektor. Sounds encouraging, doesn’t it?

(Article by Joseph Hanlon in New Scientist)