RSSСсылки для студентов 4 курса
1. Схема для осуществления анализа художественного текста
2. Список тем для беседы на государственном экзамене (4 курс)
Темы для беседы на государственном экзамене по английскому языку
How do you feel about the modern family? – Что из себя представляет современная семья?
Parent-adolescent conflict: generation gap. – Конфликт отцов и детей.
Can we leave discrimination out in the XXIst century? – Возможно ли искоренить дискриминацию в 21 веке?
What makes a great leader? – Основные качества учителя.
Millennium generation: young people’s problems. – Проблемы молодежи в 21 веке.
The consequences of urbanization: life in a big city. – Последствия урбанизации: жизнь в большом городе.
Environment protection – nationwide concern. – Защита окружающей среды – общенациональная проблема.
Media as a weapon and medicine in today’s world. – Средства массовой информации вскрывают и решают проблемы современного общества.
Maladies of the XXIst century: stress, drugs, alcohol. – Социальные болезни: стресс, наркотики, алкоголь.
Education as a mediator between Man and society. – Система образования: посредник между человеком и обществом.
Juvenile delinquency: social factors and society’s response. – Детская преступность: социальные факторы и реакция общества.
Dealing with problem children: ways of interacting. – Способы взаимодействия с трудными детьми.
Teacher training: innovations and professional competence. – Подготовка учителей: инновации и профессиональная компетентность.
The mission of a teacher: what should you do to teach effectively? – Миссия учителя: как выполнить ее наиболее эффективно?
A teacher of English: how to effectively communicate in the classroom? – Преподаватель английского языка: эффективная коммуникация в аудитории.
Culture, predictability and obstacles to intercultural competence. – Культура: прогнозируемость и препятствия на пути к межкультурной компетенции.
English as a world language. – Английский язык – язык международного общения.
The role of the Internet in modern society. – Роль Интернета в современном обществе.
The immorality of war. – Войны – это зло.
Does art enrich people’s experience of life? – Обогащает ли искусство внутренний мир человека?
Violence in modern world: roots, nature, the way to struggle. – Насилие в современном мире: истоки, природа и пути искоренения.
Major religions: pluralistic world. – Плюралистический мир: основные религии.
Equality of opportunities in the society of the XXIst century. – Общество 21 века: равенство возможностей.
Do developments in science and technology really make our life easier? – Делают ли достижения науки и прогресса нашу жизнь легче?
Career prospects for language students. – Карьерные перспективы для студентов, изучающих иностранные языки.
3. Тренировочные тексты для художественного анализа
Text 1
CHARLES DICKENS ”DOMBEY AND SON”
(…) Mr. Dombey’s young child was so distinctly important to him as a part of his own greatness, or (which is the same thing) of the greatness of Dombey and Son, that there is no doubt his parental affection might have been traced, like many a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a very low foundation. But he loved his son with all the love he had. If there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it; if its very hard surface could receive the impression of any image, the image of that son was there; though not so much as an infant, or as a boy, but as a grown man – the ‘Son’ of the Firm. Therefore he was impatient to advance into the future, and to hurry over the intervening passages of his history. Therefore he had little or no anxiety about them, in spite of his love; feeling as if the boy had a charmed life, and must become the man with whom he held such constant communication in his thoughts, and for whom he planned and projected, as for existing reality, every day.
Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little fellow; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face. His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in after-life; and he had as hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful subservience of all other things and persons to it, as heart could desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a sullen disposition; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful way at other times of sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair. He would frequently be stricken with this precocious mood upstairs in the nursery; and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired. But at no time did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his father’s room, he sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. They were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombey entertaining complicated wordly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. Mr. Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted.
On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for a long time, and Mr. Dombey only knew that the child was awake by occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus –
‘Papa! What’s money?’
The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr. Dombey’s thoughts, that Mr. Dombey was quite disconcerted. He was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation involving the terms currency, paper, rates of exchange, values of precious metals in the market; but looking down at the little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered: ‘Gold, silver and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence.’
‘I don’t mean that, papa. I mean what’s money after all. I mean what can it do?’
‘Money, Paul, can do anything.’
‘Anything, papa?’
‘Yes. Anything – almost,’ said Mr. Dombey.
‘Anything means everything, don’t it, papa?’ asked his son: not observing, or possibly not understanding the qualification. ‘Why didn’t money save me my mamma? If it can do anything, I wonder why it didn’t save me my mamma.’
He didn’t ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had seen with a child’s quickness that it had already made his father uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite an old one to him, and had troubled him very much.
Mr. Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm (for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever broached the subject of his mother to him, though he had had him sitting by his side, in this manner, evening after evening), expounded to him how that money, though a very potent spirit, could not keep people alive whose time was come to die. But how that money caused us to be honoured, feared, respected and admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men; and how that it could even keep off death for a long time together. This Mr. Dombey instilled into the mind of his son, who listened attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part of what was said to him.
Text 2
GEORGE GISSING “THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS”
(…)The world had stood with Mr. Spicer. His mental development had ceased more than twenty years ago, when, after extreme efforts, he had attained the qualification of chemist’s assistant. Since then the world had stood with him. Though a true lover of books, he knew nothing of any that had been published during his own lifetime.
His father, though very poor, had possessed a little collection of volumes, the very same which now stood in Mr. Spicer’s cupboard. The authors represented in this library were either English classics or obscure writers of the early part of the nineteenth century. Knowing these books very thoroughly, Mr. Spicer sometimes indulged in a quotation which would have puzzled even the erudite. His favourite poet was Cowper, whose moral sentiments greatly soothed him. He spoke of Byron like some contemporary who, whilst admitting his lordship’s genius, felt an abhorrence of life. He judged literature solely from the moral point of view, and was incapable of understanding any other. Of fiction he had read very little indeed, for it was not regarded with favour by his parents. Scott was hardly more than a name to him. And though he avowed acquaintance with one or two works of Dickens, he spoke of them with an uneasy smile, as if in some doubt as to their tendency. With these intellectual characteristics, Mr. Spicer naturally found it difficult to appreciate the attitude of his literary friend, a young man whose brain thrilled in response to modern ideas, and who regarded himself as the destined leader of a new school of fiction. Not indiscreet, Godthorpe soon became aware that he had better talk as little as possible of the work which absorbed his energies. He had enough liberality and sense of humour to understand and enjoy his landlord’s conversation, and the simple goodness of the man inspired him with no little respect. Thus they got along together remarkably well. Mr. Spicer never ceased to feel himself honoured by the presence under his roof of one who wielded the pen. He thought of all authors as struggling with poverty, and continued to cite eighteenth-century examples by way of encouraging Goldthorpe and animating his zeal. Whilst the young man was at work Mr. Spicer moved about the house with soundless footsteps. When invited into his tenant’s room he had a reverential demeanour, and the sight of manuscript on the bare deal table caused him to subdue his voice.
The weeks went by, and Goldthorp’s novel steadily progressed. The weather was perfect; a great deal of sunshine, but as yet no oppressive heat, even in the chambers under the roof. Towards the end of June Mr. Spicer began to amuse himself with a little gardening. He had discovered in the coal-hole an ancient fork. This implement served him in his slow, meditative attack on that part of the jungle which seemed to offer least resistance. He would work for a quarter of an hour, then, resting on his fork, contemplate the tangled mass of vegetation which he had succeeded in tearing up.
“The worst of it is,” remarked Mr. Spicer one day, when he was perspiring freely, “that I can’t help thinking of how different it would be if this garden was really my own. The fact is that I can’t put much heart into the work. The more I reflect, the more indignant I become. Could anything be more cruelly unjust than this leasehold system? I assure you, it keeps me awake at night.”
The tenor of his conversation proved that Mr. Spicer had no intention of leaving the house until he was legally obliged to do so. More than once he had an interview with his late uncle’s solicitor, and each time he came back with melancholy brow. All the details of the story were now familiar to him; he knew all about the lawsuits which had ruined the property. Whenever he spoke of the ground-landlord, known to him only by name, it as with a severity such as he never permitted himself on any other subject. The ground-landlord was, to his mind, an embodiment of social injustice.
“Never in my life, Mr. Goldthorpe, did I grudge any payment of money as I grudge the ground-rent of these houses. I feel it as robbery, though the sum is so small. When, in my ignorance, the matter was first explained to me, I wondered why my uncle had continued to pay this rent, the houses being of no profit to him. But now I understand, Mr. Goldthorpe; the sense of possession is very sweet. Property’s property even when it’s leasehold and in ruins. I grudge the ground-rent bitterly, but I feel, that I couldn’t bear to lose my houses until the fatal moment, when lose them I must.”
Text 3
WILLIAM THACKERAY “VANITY FAIR”
(…) The prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventional regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance. The rigid formality of the place suffocated her and she looked back to the freedom and beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women; her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governess equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle, tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia?
The happiness – the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. “What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an earl’s granddaughter!’ she said to one. ‘How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well-bred as the earl’s granddaughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father’s, did not the men gave up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?’ She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future.
She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practiced incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that Minerva (the Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts) thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future.
The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. “I am here to speak French with the children,’ Rebecca said abruptly, ‘not to teach them music and save money for you. Give the money, and I will teach them.’
Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. ‘For five-and-thirty years,’ she said, and with great justice, ‘I never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom.’
‘A viper – a fiddlestick,’ said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment. ‘You took me because I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do.’
It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. ‘Give me a sum of money,’ said the girl, ‘and get rid of me – or, if you like better, get me a good place as a governess in a nobleman’s family.’ And in their further disputes she always returned to this point. ‘Get me a situation – we hate each other, and I am ready to go.’
Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her. In order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley’s family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free.
