Talk about vivisection as a method of medical research. (tape)
Talk about some typical unpleasant childhood memories that people might have. Describe an episode from your or someone else's childhood that changed to a certain extent your vision of the adult world. ("My memories of Boarding School", "The snowdrops"). I am in the strong believe that very few people or even nobody would argue that a happy home life gives people a base from which they can go into the world with confidence(доверие,вера). Small children are bitterly frail (слабые,неустойчивые) like first snowdrops and they are desperate(безнадёжно) [‘desperet] for the help and care of their parents. And parents from their own part ought to make their kids’ childhood the happiest and the most unforgettable time because if the life spent at home is difficult and full of bad emotions, future life won't give happiness and satisfaction. A lot of parents say that they send their children to boarding schools because they have to work, pressed for time and have nobody to look after their children while they are away, but why should little boys and girls be deprived of their childhood!? I'd like to tell you about two episodes from my childhood that changed my vision of the adult world. The first one is the death of my neighbor. He was 17 then. He died in a road accident. His bike was too powerful for him —well, to go on that speed on a wet dark night. Over 70, the police said, straight [streit] into the back of a stationary track. That boy was an only child in his family. His parents were very cut up(огорчены, не находили себе места) . My parents didn’t take me to the funeral (похороны), but I remember my mother wearing a mourning dress with six carnations [kaneishn] (гвоздики) in her hands. The second story is about my playfellow (друг детства) Mike who was sent to a boarding school. He hated almost every day of his time there. Apart from having to keep to a great many rules and customs, many of which seemed to him stupid, they were never allowed to be alone. The thing is Mike was extremely dependent of being alone part of every day, so daily life at school was very hard for him. What was more, in the middle of a school term he developed a cough. The nurse said there was nothing wrong with him and gave him some lozenges. But two days later he was taken to hospital ill with bronchitis and pneumonia. His main memory of his stay at hospital was that the night nurses used to get together in his ward and play cards and chat. Keeping him awake when he was seriously ill did not bother them! This story was a real shock for me, my soul was bleeding and I realized how deeply he was hurt. (I am sure that its better not to give birth to a child if you are not going to love, support and cherish it.)
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Talk about the freedom of the will as an essential quality of human nature.(Is Freedom of the will a hard gift?)
Having created man free, i.e. capable of realizing his free will and being master of himself, God doesn't want to intrude upon his freedom. Man is free to accept or reject Him. God looks upon man as an individual, not as a puppet on a string, and respects his dignity. He treats man like His greatest value, for man is the only one in all creation that has God's spirit breathed into him.
However, freedom of the will is a gift, which is dangerous and hard to deal with. It implies a lot of responsibility. The New Testament has it, "You were called for freedom, only do not exercise your for fleshly indulgence". But our world is striving for evil more than for the good. Saint Fyodor compares our world in its wildness and apostasy to a horse, which is galloping desperately, not knowing where to go or what to do, because the rider is drunk. It is the image of mankind that is made drunk by sin, having used its freedom.
However sinful man is, God doesn't turn away from him. A new Adam, Jesus Christ, comes into the history of mankind to redeem people's sins and save them from spiritual death and slavery to sin.
Talk about the frustrations and rewards of teaching as seen by an American university teacher. (“Why I teach”).
Well, I guess everyone would admit that teaching is a vocation and if you are not cut out for it, it is better not to take it up: the thing is it is not an easy task as it may seem at first sight.
The narrator, an American university teacher, proves my words!
He says that teaching is not at all easy for him, he adds that teaching is the most difficult of all the ways he has attempted to earn his living: mechanic, carpenter, university administrator, writer. For him it’s a red-eye, sweaty-palm, sinking-stomach profession. Red-eye, because he never feels ready to teach no matter how late at night he stays up to prepare. Sweaty-palm, because he is always nervous before he enters the classroom. Sinking-stomach, because he usually walks out an hour later convinced that he was even more boring than usual.
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But at the same time there are many rewards of teaching!
Ø He teaches because he likes the pace of the academic calendar and teaching is built on change. Even when the material he teaches is the same he changes, and, more important, his students change.
Ø He also likes the freedom to make his own mistakes, to learn his own lessons, to himself and his students.
Ø As a teacher he is his own boss.
Ø He likes to ask questions that students must struggle to answer.
Ø His job gives him variety and challenge and, what is the most valuable, the opportunity to learn by himself.
Ø In conclusion he admits that being a teacher is being there, being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breath. So, being around people who are beginning to breathe, he occasionally finds himself catching his breath with them.
Having read this story, I realized that teaching is a very difficult profession to follow but worth to be taken up as a great deal of rewardings covers all the struggles!!!
5. Talk about the relationships between the members of the Garstin family and Mrs Garstin's ambitions. (An extract from "The Painted Veil" by S.Maugham).
In my opinion, having a good family is an essential thing for a person. So, we can't be completely happy if we don't have a family or if the atmosphere in it is negative. For me home is the place where I can really relax, talk about my troubles, and feel really loved and important. However, not all people realize and appreciate it.
Such a thing happened to Mrs. Garstin who was a hard, cruel, ambitious, parsimonious and stupid woman. She despised her husband and nagged him without mercy. She discovered that if she wanted him to do smth she had only to give him no peace and eventually he would yield. Poor Bernard Garstin was painstaking, but had no will to advance himself to his ambitions. His wife tortured him all the time! He was really scored of her, so he was always silent at home. Even for his daughters Mr. Garstin was only a source of income. They took it for granted that he led a dog's life in order to provide them with money. Of course, nobody thought about the feelings of the subdued little man who worked from morning till night.
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It was her daughters whom Mrs. Garstin put her hopes on. Her silver dream was to provide them with everything by arranging good marriages for them. One of her daughters, Kitty, was a real beauty, so Mrs. Garstin dreamt of a brilliant match for Kitty. When Kitty reached 25 and was still unmarried, her mother was exasperated. She understood that Kitty had missed her market. Doris, Kitty's younger sister, at the age of 18 became engaged to the son of a rich surgeon who had been given a baronetcy during the war. Kitty in panic married a penniless young doctor who took her to Hong Kong.
Mrs. Garstin really puts me off because she spoiled the lives of her closest people: her husband whom she nobody respected, her elder daughter, having married a man whom she didn't adore, her younger daughter to whom she would always say she was ugly.
This woman really puts me off because she herself was a loser: she didn't have a career and could not be a good wife and mother.
6. What impressed you in the story" If Only They Could Talk"? Share your impressions of treating a sick animal.
Frankly speaking, my heart was bleeding while I was reading this sad story. I felt really sorry for this old man, who was losing, perhaps, the only true friend—his dog. The dog went down with that mortal disease called cancer. Mr. Dean had to build up all his strength to face that horrible news: his dog had to be put to sleep. I imagined him standing in his cheerless, lonely room with faded pictures on the walls, with the frayed, grimy curtains and the broken-springed armchair.
Unfortunately, our pets don't live long and we can't but put up with it. I sympathize this old man greatly. I know how it feels to lose a friend. My story is full of sadness as well.
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I had never had a pet before the age of 10 when my parents bought me a nice white little kitten. I was the happiest child in the world then. I called her Myrka. All the family took to her very quickly. But 5 months later she started throwing up and I took her to the vet. The doctor examined the kitten and said there was nothing wrong with her, that she was fit as a fiddle and bursting with health. He only wrote out a prescription for some vitamins. However, the next day my poor cat felt bad again! Her paws became stiff and she couldn’t move. That was late in the evening and I didn't know whom to ask for help. What I'll always remember is her deep, round, widely open eyes full of horror and the last cry for help. She passed away in my arms late at night.
Next morning I made a complaint to the vet, but they didn't admit that there was a fault.
I've never had another pet since then…
Talk about vivisection as a method of medical research. (tape)
Frankly speaking, I am in two minds about whether I approve of vivisection or not. I can't but agree that there are many positive sides of it. To begin with, people are able to make advances in medicine, so they say they can't do without carrying out experiments on animals, they also say that without them there will be no progress. Doctors would be unable to observe human beings in scientifically controlled conditions, that's why they have to rely on animals. For ex. the knowledge of the nervous system is largely due to it. Vivisection has also allowed people to find cures for many illnesses such as diphtheria, smallpox and t.b. Later if someone was bitten by a dog with rabies they had a very little chance of surviving. Now there is an antidote! what's more, cancer recovery rates have greatly improved due to the work done on animals. Unfortunately, drugs also have to be tested on animals prior to their release on the market, as they have to be sure the drugs don't have any side-effects.
Well, it is all very well, but I'd give my right arm to prevent all these poor animals from suffering. And as for the drug tests it's very difficult to predict its effect on human beings, because experiments are carried out on animals. As for the understanding of the nervous system many experts would agree that it can be done equally well just by careful observation. And it's common knowledge that many drugs such as penicillin and aspirin were found by accident.
And we should forget about the animals themselves. Some experiments are really cruel and inhumane: dogs are made to smoke cigarettes; mice have shampoo and cosmetics to be put on their eyes to see what happen. In the end many of these animals have to be put down.
So, I think we should do our best to take care of animals not just take advantage of them!
8.Compare the different attitudes to women’s employment in medicine in the 19th century and today. (A letter).
Honestly, before reading this story it had never occurred to me that in the 19th century women’s employment in medicine was considered to be impossible as men thought that women can't become equally educated physicians. In other words, the idea of a woman doctor was felt to be immoral and shocking at that time.
That’s why I can't help admiring the main heroine (Elizabeth), who managed to become the first woman to gain the degree in modern medicine in the USA.
Her life story is really exciting. The reason why she decided to apply for a medical course was a very painful disease requiring surgical invention of a very good friend of her family. Although the thought of following medical career was so utterly repugnant to her, Elizabeth couldn’t refuse her friend's request.
At that time when medical care was suggested to her she was experiencing an unusually strong struggle between attraction towards a highly educated man with whom she had been very intimately thrown, but his views were too narrow and rigid, I guess he couldn’t accept her choice. That’s why she had to sacrifice her love. She even saved a bunch of flowers that reminded her of him...
The centuries passed. Women’s employment in medicine is no longer considered to be immoral and, what is more, it has become a women dominated profession. So, women have proved that they deserve much more rights in our modern society.
9. What do you know about different methods of combating infectious diseases in the past and present? ("Smallpox — Epitaph for a Killer", "AIDS Hysteria").
Due to the development of medicine and rapid technological progress nowadays it has become possible to cure many serious diseases that used to be fatal.
In the past people used different methods of combating highly contagious diseases.
Smallpox, for example. Suspicion, fear and hostility have long thwarted attempts to control it. In 1885 affected children were forcibly removed from their parents and placed in isolation. For thousands of years smallpox, an accepted fact of life that killed millions and often blinded and disfigured survivors, was dreaded as plague or cholera.
Many laws were introduced to cope with epidemics, which were terribly cruel and ineffective. For. ex., they used force to remove people infected with plague, made plague barriers, used fires to purify public places or attacked and persecuted immigrants.
Over the centuries, spying, imprisonment and taking away civil rights have all been introduced by various legal means to prevent diseases from catching.
AIDS is considered to be the most horrible malady of the 21century. Modern society realizes that laws will only be effective if they are built upon good information about all these serious diseases, and how they are transmitted. No isolations or limits of the supplies of condoms or the availability of sterile syringes for drug users will solve the problem. Laws against particular minority groups are not the way out as well, as they are unjust, unfair and discriminating. That’s why control of all these diseases must depend on education. This is where the solution must lie, in educating communities, risk groups and every individual.
10. Talk about different attitudes to sports in society. (The Sporting Spirit, Americans' Attitude to Sports)
It's common knowledge that sport nowadays is increasing in its popularity. In some countries such as G.B, the USA it has become a national obsession.
There are different attitudes to sports in our society nowadays.
For some people it’s a wonderful way to get rid of tension and to let off the steam. Sport provides an opportunity for people to express themselves in a way that is not always possible in work life. It gives a challenge and can break down economic and social barriers.
Many people overwhelmingly appreciate in their culture. They think that spectator sports have a positive impact on society, that competitive sports help children to learn valuable life lessons. A lot of people consider sports participation to help people get along with those from different racial or ethic groups. Sports involvement is also thought to help people in the business world and to get along better with people of the opposite sex.
At the same time there is a growing evidence of the flip side. And to my mind the number of negative views has increased.
To begin with, sport has become too connected to big business. Sometimes it seems less to do with enjoyment and more with making money.
More and more people come to think that sport can't create good relationships between nations. Some international competitions end in orgies of hatred because of nationalism and racism.
Nearly all kinds of sport nowadays are competitive. People don’t enjoy the game as their try to do their utmost to win. For. ex. on the village field, where it's possible to play just for fun, people don’t do that because the question of prestige arises.
At the international level sport sometimes looks like a mimic warfare. It's horrible that nations can work themselves into furies over these absurd contests and seriously believe that they are tests of national virtue.
Many people are convinced that professional sport has nothing to do with fair play because it's bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all the rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.
Another reason is violence that not only appears on the field in the view of the verbal abuse, racist remarks, but violence going from fans who are not interested in the game and come to look for trouble.
11 Talk about the competitive nature of sports and the feelings of rivalry involved. (Where Have All the Fans Gone? The Sporting Spirit).
To begin with, I would like to say that nowadays professional sports seems less to do with enjoyment and more to do with making money. Besides, international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred; it does not create good will between the nations.
Actually nearly all sports are competitive. You play to win and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. As soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger units will disgraced if you lose the most savage combative instincts are aroused.
At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare, and the worst of this is that spectators who work themselves into a furies seriously believe that winning at sports shows that a country is better, that sports is a feet of national virtue.
The act I want to point out here is that people want to see one side on top and the other side humiliated. Even when the spectators do not intervene physically, they try to rattle opposing players with boos and insults. Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all the rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.
Moreover, the point I want to stress here is that television and media play an important role in it. There is much football on TV and they show only exciting parts, goals, fouls, and violence. They only show young people when they are doing something wrong. They ought not to give so much publicity to troublemakers who want to show so-called individuality and start violence when there is a TV camera nearby.
As a result, people have stopped going to the matches and prefer staying at home watching on TV. They get a better view and they like the action replays. They confess that they are afraid to go to the matches with children, because there are many gangs of teenagers who are not interested in football, but just they come to look for trouble. Besides, there is too much foul language.
In conclusion, I want to say that I see the solution to the problem in educating children since childhood. There ought to be more discipline at home and in schools.
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