What do you think?

• Are you happy with your choice of specialization? Why?/Why not?

• How did you get interested in science?

• What are your plans for the future? Do you have any particular career in mind?

• Would you like to become a research scientist? Why?/Why not?

• What else except for an inquisitive mind one should have to be a research scientist?

Writing

1. Write a paragraph about your choice of specialization. Use the questions above as the guidelines to help you to organize your ideas and develop a good piece of writing.

Managing your learning A paragraph is a group of related sentences that develop an idea. In a paragraph there is usually one idea that is more important than all the others and it is commonly found at the beginning. The main idea is supported by major details that grow out of it. And there are also so called minor details that grow out of the major ones, i.e. examples, explanations, additional information, etc. When you write, try to join your ideas with the linking words and phrases. When you have finished, re-read and check your work.

Tool box: Listing 1 first of all moreover besides actually finally as for in any case

Reading

1. The words below are all from the text you are going to read. Are they nouns, verbs or adjectives or past participle forms? Match the words with their meanings that follow.

Tool box: The parts of speech You can sometimes guess this from the shape of the word. e.g. suffices--ful means it is an adjective. -ed – probably the past tense or past participle form of a regular verb or an adjective. You can also guess the part of speech from the words which come before or after it, e.g. an exciting subject. Exciting must be an adjective as it comes between the article a and the noun subject.

flexibility	valuable and useful to people in their lives and work
current	work that you do to earn money
conventional	a part which combines with other parts to form something bigger
relevant	ability to bend or change
advance	able to be obtained, used, or reached
suited	no longer young
component	present time, modern, up-to-date
available	to develop or improve something
applied	traditional
area	something which has practical use
employment	is right for a particular person, situation or occasion
mature	a part of a subject or activity

1. You are going to read the text about the Combined Science (Natural Sciences) course. Before you read the text, look up the word ‘combine’ in the dictionary.

2. According to the title of the course, what subjects do you think are included in the curriculum? Work with a partner and discuss your opinions, make a list of subjects.