Vocabulary and Text-Based Exercises

I. Answer the questions to the text.

1. What is the origin of the word mathematics?

2. What were the earliest uses of mathematics?

3. What did Babylonians and Egyptians begin using mathematics for?

4. Around what period and where did mathematics start being studied systematically?

5. What numbers are included into the group of basic sets of mathematics?

6. What branch of mathematics deals with space and spatial relationships?

7. What does numerical analysis investigate?

8. In what fields has mathematics a wide application?

9. What role does mathematics play in the development of other sciences?

II. Match the English words with their Russian equivalents.

calculus decimal fraction derivative imaginary number infinite-dimensional space integer numerical analysis quotient rounding variable

бесконечно мерное пространство вычислительная математика десятичная дробь математический анализ мнимое число округление переменная производная целое число частное

III. Match the words in a to the ones in b to build collocations.

a) algebraic, applied, computational, decimal, differential, imaginary, mathematical, numerical, real-valued, set, spatial, variable;

b) analysis, complexity, equation, fraction, function, geometry, logic, mathematics, number, quantities, relationships, theory.

How to Read Mathematics

Non-English speaking students sometimes find it difficult to read fractions, equations, formulae and other mathematical expressions in English. This is a good time to start building a “glossary” – a translation lexicon between the symbols of mathematics and plain language. Here we will dwell on some cases (for more examples see p. 54).

Fractions		Raising to a power		Taking a root
1/3	one third or a third	72	seven square	x	a square root of x
2/7	two sevenths	53	five cubed
6 3/4	six and three fourths	34	three to the fourth		a cube root of x
a/b	a over b	109	ten to the ninth
0.9	point nine	4–6	four to the minus sixth		a fifth root of x to the nth
6.85	six point eighty-five	xn	x to the nth

I. Now see how it works. Read aloud the examples written in words.

	a [ei] minus b [bi] all squared is equal to a square minus 2 a b plus b square
	function of P [pi] is equal to square root of x square plus y [wai] square plus z square
	x first equals negative b over two minus square root of b over two all squared minus a c all over a.