University-Life.doc

Unit Three: University Life

Unit Three: University Life
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.
Seneca
The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
Mark Twain

Section-One: Pre-reading

For many people, university life is an unforgettable experience—one of joys and tears, success and failure, opportunities and challenges. Studying, assignments and examinations are far from everything in campus life. What is even more important is tracing one’s path on the way to maturity: learning to be independent, learning to get along with others, and learning what one values and how to foster those values. University, in this sense, is more like a training base for students to get ready for the real world. In this unit, we will probe into several aspects of university life and problems students may encounter. But before you start reading, discuss the following questions in a group.

1. Before you became a university student, you may have imagined what it would be like to study in a university. Is university life the way you imagined it would be?
2. What do you think is the most important thing to achieve at university? Explain.
3. Do you agree that examinations are an important means of assessing your school work? How do you feel when you are sitting in an examination?
4. Many university students nowadays take part-time jobs. What is your attitude towards students taking part- time jobs?
5. In what ways is the university life of your generation different from that of your parents’ generation? Explain.
6. Do you share a room with others at university or do you rent your own room? List the advantages and disadvantages of shared and single rooms.

Section Two: In-reading

Reading One

Since one’s performance in examinations is generally the overriding factor in deciding the final class grades or marks, many students rack their brains to get satisfactory results – by working hard, burning the midnight oil, or playing little tricks. Let’s see what the boy in the following article does in order to get a good score.
How to Get an A on Your Final Exam

During my senior year in college, I served as a teacher’s assistant. One of my roles was to administer and proctor the exams. The class was a freshman introductory course, which had well over five hundred students.

The students were given four exams during the semester and one cumulative final exam at the semester’s end. In order to manage these five hundred college freshmen, I had to establish rules. The rules were as follows. The exams began at exactly 9:00 A.M. The students would pick up test booklets and blue books and proceed to a seat of their choosing. They would have exactly fifty minutes to complete the examination. At exactly 9:50 A.M., I would call out, “Pencils down!” Everyone has to stop writing immediately, put their pencils down, proceed to the front of the room and turn in their blue books. Those who did not put their pencils down at exactly 9:50 A.M. and turn in their blue books would receive an automatic F, no exceptions!
When final exam time came, the students were so indoctrinated into the system that I only needed to announce one warning at 9:40 A.M. So as the final minutes ticked away, I announced, “It is 9:40. You have ten minutes until pencils down.” Then at 9:50 A.M., I barked my last command for that semester: “It’s 9:50, pencils down. You know the rules!” And boom, all pencils went down, just like always. All 500 students stood---or was it only 499? Yes it was. Everyone filled the aisle except for one sneaky guy---a guy way up in the nosebleed section.
He was just writing and writing away. I saw him up there, but he didn’t think I could. Once again, I barked, “Pencils down everyone!” But he kept writing and writing, trying to beat my system. How dare he! Boy, would I get him! At 9:58 A.M., as I began to organize the stacks of examination packets, I saw this young man running down the aisle to surrender his exam to the table.
“Here, Mr. D’Angelo, take my blue book!” he huffed and puffed.
“I cannot accept this. You know the rules. Pencils down at 950 A.M., or you get an automatic F.”
“Please, Mr. D’Angelo, take my blue book!”
“No! You know I can’t do that. It’s against the rules.”
“Please, please, take my blue book! I’m barely passing this class. My mom and dad will kill me if I have to repeat this class. Just take it, and no one will ever know.” A tear began to stream down his cheek.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t.” I went back to the stacks, organizing them one by one. The young man just turned and walked away with his shoulders slumped.
Now with a stack of five hundred or so blue books in my arms, I watched the freshman walk up the stairs toward the exit. Just about at the halfway point, I saw him boldly turn around, with great confidence, you might say with a hint of arrogance.
He swiftly jogged down to me.
He questioned softly, “Mr.D’Angelo, do you know who I am?”
“Why no, and frankly I couldn’t care less.”
“Are you sure you don’t know who I am?” he inquired with even greater confidence. I started to get a little concerned. Was this the dean’s son? What had I gotten myself into?
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.” I said with a little hesitation in my voice.
“Are you absolutely, 100 percent sure that you don’t know who I am?”
“For the last time, no. I don’t know who you are!”
“Well then, good!” and he shoved his blue book into the middle of the stack and ran out the door.
(from Chicken Soup for the College Soul. By Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen. 1996. Health Communications, Inc. )
(622 words)

Words in Focus
proctor (v.)
To proctor an exam is to supervise students in an exam.
cumulative (adj.)
If a series of events have a cumulative effect, each event makes the effect greater.
indoctrinate (v.)
If people are indoctrinated, they are taught a particular belief with the aim that they will reject other beliefs and automatically follow what they have been taught.
bark (v.)
If you bark at someone, you shout at them aggressively in a loud, rough voice.
sneaky (adj.)
If you describe someone as sneaky, you disapprove of them because they do things secretly rather than openly.
nosebleed (n.)
If you have a nosebleed, it means that a small blood vessel inside your nose has
broken from stress, etc. and your nose is bleeding a lot from the inside. Some people
are prone to getting nosebleeds.
the nosebleed section (ph.)
This is a humorous idiomatic phrase that refers to a far-back, high-up section of a large
auditorium or stadium. This phrase came from the fact that people often get nosebleeds
at high altitudes, such as on a very high mountain.
surrender (v.)
If you surrender something you would rather keep, you very reluctantly give it up or let someone else have it, perhaps after a struggle.
huff and puff (ph.)
If someone huffs and puffs, they express their annoyance or dissatisfaction with a decision or situation loudly but do not do anything to change it. In this case, “huff and puff” means to speak with great exertion, as after running, while trying to catch one’s breath.
slump (v.)
If you slump somewhere, you fall or sit down there heavily, for example, because you are very tired or feel ill. If your shoulders are slumped, it means that your back is bent with saddened disappointment and weariness.
arrogance (n.)
Arrogance refers to a proud and superior manner, showing too much pride in oneself and too little consideration for others.
shove (v.)
If you shove something somewhere, you push it there quickly and roughly.

Check Your Comprehension
Answer the following questions with the information from the text.
1. What would be the punishment for those who failed to turn in the blue books in time?
2. How did the students behave in the exam?
3. What did the boy beg the teacher’s assistant to do? What was the assistant’s response?
4. Has the boy been a good student in this introductory course?
5. Why did the boy ask repeatedly if the teacher’s assistant knew him?
6. What’s your general impression about the teacher’s assistant?

Check Your Vocabulary
Find a word or phrase from the list of words or phrases provided below to complete each sentence. There are more words and phrases than you need to fill in all the sentences. Change word forms where necessary.

introductory bark arrogance cumulative
stacks of sneaky indoctrinate surrender
huff and puff stream slump nosebleed

1. Feeling extremely exhausted after a day’s work, she into the sofa and soon fell asleep.
2. “Impertinent!” Mr. Smith again and again at his son’s rudeness, stomping around the room after his son had left.
3. The policeman at the criminal and raised his gun.
4. Having a is a common symptom of high blood pressure.
5. His behaviour has driven away a lot of friends. He always acts suspicious and like he’s up to something
6. “I will surely beat him!” claimed the older boxer with an air of .
7. If you do not have enough time to go through the whole book, read the
remarks to get a vague idea about it.
8. She unfolded the letter from her son, tears down her cheeks.
9. They have been ordered to their passports.
10. It is simple pleasures, such as a walk on a sunny day, which have a
effect in improving our general mood.

Group Discussion
Get yourselves into groups and discuss each of the following questions based on the information from the article and also your own knowledge, experiences, and beliefs.
1. If you were the teacher’s assistant, what would you do next?
2. Have you ever seen or heard of similar tricks played during an exam? If yes, describe them to your friends.
3. If you were principal/president of the school, what measures would you possibly take in the proctoring of exams?
4. Many students feel that university life is stressful. What do you think is the source of
the major pressures in one’s college life?
5 Do you think an educational system without traditional exams will function better than one relying heavily on such exams? Give reasons.

Reading Two

If you consider lazy students to be the only ones suffering during examinations, you will find yourself wrong when you encounter another group of students, who have test anxiety. The following article focuses on this subject and gives advice on how to overcome test anxiety.

Learning to Keep Your Cool during Tests

1． Have you ever felt so panicky during an examination that you couldn’t even put down the answers you knew? If so, you were suffering from what is known as test anxiety.
2．According to psychologist Ralph Trimble, test anxiety is a very real problem for many people. When you’re worried over your performance on an exam, your heart beats faster, your pulse speeds up, hormones are secreted. These reactions trigger others: You may sweat more than normal or suffer from a stomachache or headache. Your field of vision narrows and becomes tunnel-like, leaving you with very little peripheral sight. Before you know it, you’re having difficulty focusing.
3． “What I hear students say over and over again,” says Dr Trimble, who is involved with the Psychological and Counseling Center at the University of Illinois, “is, ‘My mind went blank.’”
4． For a number of years, Dr. Trimble helped many students learn how to function better during exams and to bring up their grades. Some of these students were interested in sharing what they learned and, with Trimble’s help, began holding workshops on overcoming test anxiety. For many students, just being in a workshop with other sufferers was a relief. They realized they weren’t freaks, that they were not the only ones who had done poorly on tests because of tension. The workshops were so successful that they are still given.
5． In the workshops, students are taught that anxiety is normal. You just have to prevent it from getting the best of you. The first step is to learn to relax. If before or during an examination you start to panic, stretch as hard as you can, tensing the muscles in your arms and legs; then suddenly relax all of them. This will help relieve tension.
6． But keep in mind that you don’t want to be too relaxed. Being completely relaxed is no better than being too tense. “If you are so calm you don’t care how you do on an examination, you won’t do well,” Trimble says. “There is an optimum level of concern when you perform at your best. Some stress that in a challenging situation, being keyed up is good and will help them to do better. But if they label it anxiety and say, ‘It’s going to hit me again,’ that will push them over the edge.”
7． As a student you must also realize that if you leave too much studying until a day or two before the examination, you can’t do the impossible and learn it all. Instead, concentrate on what you can do and try to think what questions are likely to be asked and what you can do in the time left for studying.
8． When you sit down to study, set a moderate pace and vary it by interspersing reading, writing notes, and going over any papers you have already written for the course, as well as the textbooks and notes you took in class. Review what you know. Take breaks and go to sleep in plenty of time to get a good night’s rest before the exam. You should also eat a moderate breakfast or lunch, avoiding drinks with caffeine and steering clear of fellow students who get tense. Panic is contagious.
9． Get to the exam room a few minutes early so that you will have a chance to familiarize yourself with the surroundings and get out your supplies. When the examination is handed out, read the directions twice and underline the significant instructions, making sure you understand them. Ask the teacher or proctor to explain if you don’t. First answer the easiest questions, then go back to the more difficult. If you are stumped on a multiple-choice question, first eliminate the impossible answers, then make as good an intuitive guess as possible and go on to the next.
10． On essay questions, instead of plunging right in, take a few minutes to organize your thoughts, make a brief outline, and then start off with a summary sentence. Keep working steadily, and even when time starts to run out, don’t speed up.
11． After the examination is over, don’t torture yourself by thinking over all the mistakes you made, and don’t start studying immediately for another exam. Ins