Устные темы по английскому языку.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The full and official name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is situated on the group of islands lying just off the mainland of the north-western Europe. The total area оf the country is over 244,000 square kilometres.

The British Isles include Great Britain proper, Ireland and a number of smaller islands. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland and Wales. The population of the UK is 57 million people. The largest and the most populated part of the UK is England. Its population is over 47 million people and its capital is London.

The UK is a highly developed industrial country. It is the world largest producer of marine navigational equipment as the main industrial branch of the country is shipbuilding. The UK enterprises are also widely-known for textile, television and radio sets production.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a parliamentary republic. It means that the head of the state is the monarch but his powers are restricted by the elected government and the parliament. So that the monarch reigns but does not rule. For the last 50 years Queen Elizabeth II has been the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The parliament consists of two chambers: House of Lords and House of Commons. House of Lords includes those members who are given a privilege to be referred to as peers and consider being a nobility of the country. House of Commons is an elected legislative body consisting of members of the different political parties. The main function of the parliament is to issue the bills, laws and regulations. They are obligatory for every citizen of the UK.

The Prime-minister of the country is elected in a 4- year-cycle by the total elections. The political party taken the most part of votes becomes the ruling party and its leader becomes a Prime-minister of the country. The ruling party nowadays is the Labour party. The Prime-minister is David Cameron.

London is the capital of the United Kingdom and the constituent country of England, and is the largest city in the European Union.

Traditionally London is divided into four parts: the City, Westminster, the West End and the East End.

The City of London is the world's greatest financial centre alongside New York City and Tokyo and one of the most important cultural centers. London's influence in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion and the arts contributes to its preeminent position. The City of London is the headquarters of more than half of the UK's top 100 listed companies including the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange. There are a lot of tourists’ attractions within the City. Among them St. Paul’s Cathedral, the greatest of English churches and the Tower of London.

St Paul's Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of London. The present building dates from the 17th century. Sir Christopher Wren was an architect of the masterpiece. The cathedral is one of London's most visited sights.

Another place of interest is the Tower of London. It was built in 1066 by William the Conqueror and since than has been playing an important role in historical and governmental events of the United Kingdom.

Westminster is the governmental part of London. It has many historical places and the brightest of them is the Westminster Abbey. It is a large, mainly Gothic church in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is also famous for its Poet’s Corner, place where a lot of outstanding poets, writers, politicians are buried.

Buckingham Palace is the official residence of the Royal family. It is famous for the ceremony of the Royal Guard change. It attracts thousands of tourists.

London currently has a wide range of peoples, cultures, and religions, and more than 300 languages are spoken within the city. The official population of the city is more than 8 mln. within the boundaries of Greater London making it the most populous municipality in the European Union.

Вопросы к теме:

Why is Great Britain considered to be an island state?

Why is the climate in Great Britain mild the whole year round?

What party is the ruling party nowadays?

What are the chief industries in Great Britain?

Who is Great Britain ruled by? Who is the real Head of the country?

The system of higher education in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The structure of higher education in Great Britain is very complex. The main sources of higher educational institutions are: universities (including the Open University1), teacher-training colleges and polytechnics. British universities come in all ages, sizes and shapes.

The oldest of them, Oxford and Cambridge, founded in the 12-th and 13-th centuries took the students from all over the country.

The younger civic or “Redbrick” universities serving the needs of their cities were organized in the 19-th century. The newest “Whitebrick” universities came into existence during the 1960s. Admission to universities is by examination or selection in the for of interviews.

Applications from candidates for admission to nearly all universities are submitted to the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS). It is the UCAS that sends the copies to different universities and each university selects its own students.

British universities are independent, self-governing institutions. Although they all receive financial support from the state (about 79 per cent), the Department of Education and Science has no control over their regulations, curriculum, examinations and the way in which the money is spent.

Teacher education includes all forms of education provided mostly by teacher-training colleges which receive their grants directly from the Department of Education and Science. The great majority of colleges are maintained by the Local Education Authorities. The most usual route to a teaching qualification is by way of three or four year course, leading to the Bachelor of Education Degree.

The universities and teacher-training colleges are classed as higher educational institutions because they award degrees. The normal duration of a first degree course is three of four years. At the end a Bachelor Degree is awarded on the results of examinations. A Master Degree is usually awarded after a further year or two years of studies.

The highest degree is the Doctor of Philosophy. It is awarded for research and submission of a thesis-normally after Bachelor and Master Degrees.

Apart from the Universities and teacher-training colleges there are 30 polytechnics in England and Wales and 14 Scottish central institutions. The work of the Polytechnics is of university level. But the universities, funded directly by the state, are less controlled than the Polytechnics.

Local Education Authorities are responsible for the budgets of the Polytechnics. Their work is planned and financed by the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council.

Most degrees in Polytechnics are awarded by a national body called the Council for National Academic Awards. The Council ensures that the degrees awarded in polytechnics are equal to the degrees awarded by universities. Polytechnics award the Diploma in Technology.

The usual course for the diploma is 3 years for full-time students and 4 years for “sandwich” course ones. The “sandwich” course students alternate periods of full-time education and full- time employment. These courses provide many people with the opportunity of receiving higher technical education.

Вопросы к теме:

Why are British universities independent and self-governing institutions?

What are the main traditions of British higher education?

Why are universities and teacher training colleges classed as higher educational institutions?

Are there any differences in awarding degrees in our country and in Great Britain? What are they?

What is a “sandwich” course in British higher education?

University or institute you have graduated from

Rostov State University of Civil Engineering

Rostov State University of Civil Engineering is the largest University in the south of Russia with the dynamic development. It is a leading institution of national higher education and it is considered to be the center of education, science, culture and sport in Russia. It was established as Civil Engineering Institute in 1944 and in 1997 it got the status of a University.

Rostov State University of Civil Engineering is dynamic at present. Nowadays it has 6 institutes, 3 faculties, a lyceum, a preparatory center, a center of scientific and technical construction examination, a certification center, two scientific research institutes: “Dortrans Scientific research Institute” and “Scientific research Institute of territorial management and city planning» and other departments.

At present Rostov State University of Civil Engineering is the center of modern and highly qualified vocational higher education. More than 10,000 students get training here. They get qualifications in 33 special subjects, 17 programmes for masters in the fields of «Building», «Economics», «Transport systems», «Environmental protection» and others.

Modern technically equipped classrooms, computer and training laboratories provided with up-to-date facilities and software are available to students.

The University provides access to new learning opportunities, scientific research and creative work. Students and young scientists participate in a number of degree project competitions, subject competitions and All-Russian and regional conferences.

The modern university institutes provide opportunities to ensure high quality training and research. The University has 14 buildings, 13 research departments and a library of 800,000 volumes, 5 reading rooms, an IT centre and 40 computer rooms.

Non-resident students live in three comfortable hostels. Students improve their health at the University Sanatorium and the Health Center.

The Academic body of the University has always been interested in extension of scientific and technical cooperation with other leading higher educational institutions and business companies in Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, China, India, Finland and Austria. Most of them belong to the International Corporate Technical University established in Rostov State University of Civil Engineering.

Foreign scientists and researchers give lectures to the students of the University. They also take an active part in different joint educational projects.

The University has gained the reputation for patriotic, cultural and intellectual development of students. The University is famous for being not only the educational and scientific center, but also the cultural center which offers a wide range of spare time activities for students.

The slogan of the University «Glorious in the Past, dynamic at Present and aimed at the Future» reflects the higher education philosophy with the combination of traditions, innovations, experience and creative research in its concept.

Вопросы к теме:

When did our University get its status of a University?

What institute of our University did you graduate from?

How do you understand the slogan of our University?

What are the fundamental subjects of the first-year study?

Did you take part in the student’s life of our University? How?

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Simple to complex: a molecular perspective

Modern synthetic chemistry has reached the point where it is possible to prepare small molecules to almost any structure. These methods are used today to manufacture a wide variety of useful chemicals such as pharmaceuticals or commercial polymers. This ability raises the question of extending this kind of control to the next-larger level, seeking methods to assemble these single molecules into supramolecular assemblies consisting of many molecules arranged in a well defined manner.

These approaches utilize the concepts of molecular self-assembly and/or supramolecular chemistry to automatically arrange themselves into some useful conformation through a bottom-up approach. The concept of molecular recognition is especially important: molecules can be designed so that a specific configuration or arrangement is favored due to non-covalent intermolecular forces. The Watson–Crick basepairing rules are a direct result of this, as is the specificity of an enzyme being targeted to a single substrate, or the specific folding of the protein itself. Thus, two or more components can be designed to be complementary and mutually attractive so that they make a more complex and useful whole.

Such bottom-up approaches should be capable of producing devices in parallel and be much cheaper than top-down methods, but could potentially be overwhelmed as the size and complexity of the desired assembly increases. Most useful structures require complex and thermodynamically unlikely arrangements of atoms. Nevertheless, there are many examples of self-assembly based on molecular recognition in biology, most notably Watson–Crick basepairing and enzyme-substrate interactions. The challenge for nanotechnology is whether these principles can be used to engineer new constructs in addition to natural ones.

From the history of electricity

Long before any knowledge of electricity existed people were aware of shocks from electric fish. Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BC referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish. Electric fish were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians. Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by catfish and torpedo rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects. Patients suffering from ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them. Possibly the earliest and nearest approach to the discovery of the identity of lightning, and electricity from any other source, is to be attributed to the Arabs, who before the 15th century had the Arabic word for lightning (raad) applied to the electric ray.

Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia until 1600, when the English scientist William Gilbert made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. He coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from ήλεκτρον [elektron], the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed. This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.

Water pressure

Water pressures vary in different locations of a distribution system. Water mains below the street may operate at higher pressures, with a pressure reducer located at each point where the water enters a building or a house. In poorly managed systems, water pressure can be so low as to result only in a trickle of water or so high that it leads to damage to plumbing fixtures and waste of water. Pressure in an urban water system is typically maintained either by a pressurized water tank serving an urban area, by pumping the water up into a tower and relying on gravity to maintain a constant pressure in the system or solely by pumps at the water treatment plant and repeater pumping stations.

Typical UK pressures are 4-5 bar for an urban supply. However, some people can get over eight bars or below one bar. A single iron main pipe may cross a deep valley, it will have the same nominal pressure, however each consumer will get a bit more or less because of the hydrostatic pressure (about 1 bar/10m height). So people at the bottom of a 100-foot (30 m) hill will get about 3 bars more than those at the top.

The effective pressure also varies because of the supply resistance even for the same static pressure. An urban consumer may have 5 metres of ½" lead pipe running from the iron main, so the kitchen tap flow will be fairly unrestricted, so high flow. A rural consumer may have a kilometre of rusted and limed ¾" iron pipe so their kitchen tap flow will be small.

For this reason the UK domestic water system has traditionally (prior to 1989) employed a "cistern feed" system, where the incoming supply is connected to the kitchen sink and also a header/storage tank in the attic. Water can dribble into this tank through a ½" lead pipe, plus ball valve, and then supply the house on 22 or 28 mm pipes. Gravity water has a small pressure (say ¼ bar in the bathroom) but needs wide pipes allow higher flows. This is fine for baths and toilets but is frequently inadequate for showers. People install shower booster pumps to increase the pressure. For this reason urban houses are increasingly using mains pressure boilers (combies) which take a long time to fill a bath but suit the high back pressure of a shower.

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Tchaikovsky's prize-giving tease

by Andy Potts on 01/07/2011

The Moscow News

 

The winner of the Grand Prix at the Tchaikovsky International Competition remains a secret for a while longer – but most of the other prizes have been announced.

After a gala performance in Moscow a delayed award ceremony handed out medals in the instrumental and vocal classes, but kept a packed house on tenterhooks waiting for news of the biggest prize.

Culture minister Alexander Avdeyev delighted in teasing the music lovers who thronged the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, telling them: “We know the names of all the winners, but today we do not reveal all the secrets.

“The Grand Prix will be announced [on Sunday] after the concert in St. Petersburg.”

The crowd roared its disapproval, RIA Novosti reported.

 

No violin prize

The organizers had promised to award gold medals in all categories – previous years had prompted scandals when the top prizes were withdrawn – but that did not happen as planned.

There was no gold for the violinists, where Sergei Dogadin of Russia and Israel’s Itamar Zormarom shared silver.

And the cello contest, which was won by Narek Nakhnazaryan, also raised eyebrows.

Earlier in the competition there were claims that conductor Mark Gorenstein had racially abused the Armenian youngster during a rehearsal.

Gorenstein later apologized and Nakhnazaryan went on to take the audience prize as well as the jury’s awards.

Daniel Trifonov ensured a home win in the piano section, and added the audience award, while Koreans Park and Sun Jung Seo took the top awards in the vocal section.

Russian innovation is running out of puff

by Alina Lobzina on 12/05/2011

The Moscow News

If you’re looking for innovation in Russia, it’s more likely to be lighting up a cigarette than blazing a trail into space, according to the Higher School of Economics.

Tobacco companies have become the nation’s leaders in new technology, leaving telecoms and oil refining choking on their smoke.

Ironically, President Medvedev’s innovation-hungry government is also intent on stubbing out cigarette sales.

But they will need to find a new way to spark the country’s boffins into life in other fields, with research showing that less than 10 per cent of Russian firms are “innovatively active”.

Elsewhere, smaller economies in Eastern Europe score 20-40 per cent on the same scale.

 

Global concept, local gains

Four in ten tobacco companies apply new technologies to their everyday work, thanks mostly to their links to multinational corporations.

And that investment comes despite constant restrictions on advertising tobacco, plans to raise duty on cigarettes and proposed legislation to enforce more no-smoking zones in Russia.

Anatoly Vereschagin, the head of communications at JTI, told Vedomosti the company invested nearly $380 million dollars over the last three years to modernise the production process.

 

Making connections

Telecoms manufacturers come second in Russia’s list of innovators, with just over a third of companies introducing new ideas.

And aerospace, a source of national pride in Soviet times, comes third with 33.6 per cent, followed by oil refining on 32.7 per cent.

But that’s well behind other economies, where innovative technologies run close to 70 per cent.

Germany tops the charts ahead of Canada and New Zealand, while neighbours Finland (55.4 per cent) and Estonia (55.1 per cent) also score highly.

Russian mortgage rates falling

by Andy Potts on 29/06/2011

The Moscow News

 

Mortgages in Moscow are getting cheaper – but falling interest rates will not solve the market’s problems on their own.

The HMLA, the agency which deals with mortgage rates, has announced plans to cut costs for borrowers by up to 2.6 per cent, bringing the lowest lending rates down to 8.9 per cent.

It hopes to see 15-20 per cent more people take out ruble-denominated loans to buy property by reducing the level of repayments and requiring smaller up-front deposits.

 

More work needed

While experts agree that action is needed to tackle high interest rates – in Western markets loans are often half the price of the Russian counterparts – this is not the only issue.

Alla Moroz, director of the real estate sales department at housebuilder Etalon Invest, told The Moscow News that “inflated interest rates” were the main issue, but added that banks needed to do more to promote home loans.

“For a long time after the crisic Russian banks opted against mortgages on new buildings, and when they returned to the market they demanded existing real estate as collateral,” she said. “In addition many banks required extra guarantees which did not encourage the mass spread of mortgages.”

She also called for Russian banks to learn from the example of their Western peers and adopt a more understanding approach to debt restructuring.

“For example, if the borrower suffers reduced circumstances but had always made payments in good faith, the bank can renegotiate the contract to keep the customer solvent.”

More transparency in the system could help with this, she believes, welcoming the small steps which are being made towards sharing information about applicants’ long-term credit history.

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The sphere of my scientific interest.

I graduated from (указать название университета или института) in (указать год окончания).

Being a third-year student, I got interested in the problem of …

I studied the literature on the problem, made different experiments and came to the conclusion that it is a very important and urgent problem nowadays.

The theme of my graduation paper is …

In my graduation paper I do research in the field of … (указать область исследования)

It is a comparatively new branch of science that studies (что изучает новая отрасль науки) …

Major developments include advances in (указать область науки) …

The branches of science contributing a lot to progress in my field of science are (смежные науки) …

At present I study the problem of (проблема в настоящее время) …

My scientific supervisor is professor …

In solving our problem we follow the hypothesis that …

Over the past few years the interest in the problem has been due to the fact that (чем обусловлен интерес к проблеме) …

(Имя ученого) was the first to underline / define / the problem.

There is a lot of literature on the problem of my research but it is out of date.

But I want to add that many aspects of the problem still remain unsolved…

My task is : a) to define …

b) to prove …

c) to analyze …

At present my research is concentrated on …

And now I want to take a post-graduate course to continue my research work.

Вопросы к теме:

What is the field of your research?

What are your reasons for talking a post-graduate course?

Can you name outstanding researchers in your field of science?

Do achievements in your branch of research influence everyday life? In what way?

Have you ever participated in international conferences? What are the results?

Составители:

Д. филол. н., проф.,

Зав. кафедрой иностранных яз. О.П. Рябко

преподаватель Л.Н. Литовченко