IELTS by topics/ Education
Part one
Primary and secondary education
Basic concepts:
- Find definitions or explain in your own words the following concepts:
Compulsory education
Primary, secondary, tertiary education
Public schools, private schools, home schools
School curriculum
Controversial issues:
- Brainstorm the following topics:
Home schooling vs. Public education. Which do you believe is better – to study individually at home with private tutors or to go to a public school with other children?
Reading 1
Children taught at home learn more
Youngsters of all social classes do better if they avoid school, study discovers
by Amelia Hill
The Observer, Sunday 13 August 2000
Children taught at homesignificantly outperform their contemporaries who go to school, the first comparative study has found.
It discovered that home-educated children of working-class parents achieved considerably higher marks in tests than the children of professional, middle-class parents and that gender differences in exam results disappear among home-taught children.
The study, to be published by the University of Durham in the autumn, will support a call for the Government to introduce legislation to help the growing army of parents who are choosing to remove their children from schools.
The numbers of home-educated children in Britain has grown from practically none 20 years ago to about 150,000 today - around 1 per cent of the school age population. By the end of the decade, the figure is expected to have tripled. Home educationhas won so much support in Scotland that more than 200 campaigners from across Britain are to march to the Scottish Parliament next month to demand a relaxation in legislation which makes it harder for parents to educate their children at home in Scotland than in England and Wales.
'Home-educated children do better in conventional terms and in every other way too,' said Paula Rothermel, a lecturer in learning in early childhood at the University of Durham, who spent three years conducting the survey. She said: 'This study is the first evidence we have proving that home education is a huge benefit to large numbers of children. Society just assumes that school is best, but because there have never been any comparative studies before this one, the assumption is baseless.'
Rothermel questioned 100 home-educating families chosen randomly across the UK, conducting face-to-face interviews and detailed appraisals of their children's academic progress, in line with recognised Government tests. She found that 65 per cent of home-educated children scored morethan 75 per cent in a general mathematics and literacy test, compared to a national figure of only 5.1 per cent. The average national score for school-educated pupils in the same test was 45 per cent, while that of the home-educated children was 81 per cent.
Rothermel said: 'The improved exam results could be down to the sheer quantity of parental attention and the sense of long-term security that gives them... It could also be down to the fact that families who home educate from birth had worked with their children from the word go and without the disruptive transition at an early age to the very different environment of school.'
Rothermel found that the children of working-class, poorly-educated parents significantly outperformed their middle-class contemporaries. While the five- to six-year old children of professional parents scored only 55.2 per cent in the test, children far lower down the social scale scored 71 per cent. Rothermel said: 'This was really a staggering finding, but better-educated parents are probably more laid back than poorly-educated parents and so are less likely to push their children.'
Alison Preuss, a mother of three, has been home teaching for six years and is director of Schoolhouse, a Scottish support group for parents who have opted out of conventional schooling. She said: 'In school [children] have knowledge poured into them, while at home they're proactive in choosing what they learn. It's a better preparation for university because they are used to motivating themselves.
'Their social skills and general knowledge are more advanced because they're not restricted by the confines of a national curriculum. They can explore a huge variety of subjects, concentrating in depth on whichever ones capture their imagination.'
Vocabulary practice
1. Translate the underlined words and collocations
2. Make three sentences using the vocabulary from the text
Reading practice
3. Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?
◦ Boys taught at home achieve better results
on the tests than girls False/True/NG
◦ The amount of home-educated children from working class has increased significantly over the past two decades False/True/NG
◦ It is easier to provide home schooling for children in England
than in Scotland False/True/NG
◦ Many researches have been conducted to compare
the benefits of home schooling and conventional education False/True/NG
◦ The study was carried out among home-educated children from
specific regions of the UK False/True/NG
◦ It was proved that middle-class parents are less demanding
of their children than the lower-class parents False/True/NG
◦ A higher number of home-educated children enter
universities because they are better prepared for it False/True/NG
Part two
Tertiary education
Basic concepts in higher education:
- Find definitions or explain in your own words the following concepts:
Tertiary, higher education
Top universities (according to top university rankings): Ivy League, Top public universities (Public Ivies) in the US; The Russel Group in GB; The great schools (Les Grandes ecoles) in France, etc.
Bachelor's, undergraduate degree
Master's, postgraduate degree
Ph.D., doctorate degree
Major, minor
University curriculum
Credit hours
Bologna process
Controversial issues:
- Brainstorm the following topics:
1. Free higher education. Do you think the government should cover college tuition or it should be the responsibility of students?
2. College degree: at home or abroad? Which do you think is better, to receive a college degree in your native country or to apply to a foreign university?
Reading 2
What You (Really) Need to Know
By LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS (President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006)
The New York Times, January 20, 2012
A PARADOX of American higher education is this: The expectations of leading universities do much to define what secondary schools teach, and much to establish a template for what it means to be an educated man or woman. College campuses are seen as the source for the newest thinking and for the generation of new ideas, as society’s cutting edge.
And the world is changing very rapidly. Think social networking, gay marriage, stem cells or the rise of China. Most companies look nothing like they did 50 years ago. Think General Motors, AT&T or Goldman Sachs.
Yet undergraduate education changes remarkably little over time. My predecessor as Harvard president, Derek Bok, famously compared the difficulty of reforming a curriculum with the difficulty of moving a cemetery. With few exceptions, just as in the middle of the 20th century, students take four courses a term, each meeting for about three hours a week, usually with a teacher standing in front of the room. Students are evaluated on the basis of examination essays handwritten in blue books and relatively short research papers. Instructors are organized into departments, most of which bear the same names they did when the grandparents of today’s students were undergraduates. A vast majority of students still major in one or two disciplines centered on a particular department.
It may be that inertia is appropriate. Part of universities’ function is to keep alive man’s greatest creations, passing them from generation to generation. Certainly anyone urging reform does well to remember that in higher education the United States remains an example to the world, and that American universities compete for foreign students more successfully than almost any other American industry competes for foreign customers.
Nonetheless, it is interesting to speculate: Suppose the educational system is drastically altered to reflect the structure of society and what we now understand about how people learn. How will what universities teach be different? Here are some guesses and hopes.
A. Education will be more about how to process and use information and less about imparting it. This is a consequence of both the proliferation of knowledge — and how much of it any student can truly absorb — and changes in technology. Before the printing press, scholars might have had to memorize “The Canterbury Tales” to have continuing access to them. This seems a bit ludicrous to us today. But in a world where the entire Library of Congress will soon be accessible on a mobile device with search procedures that are vastly better than any card catalog, factual mastery will become less and less important.
B. An inevitable consequence of the knowledge explosion is that tasks will be carried out with far more collaboration. As just one example, the fraction of economics papers that are co-authored has more than doubled in the 30 years that I have been an economist. More significant, collaboration is a much greater part of what workers do, what businesses do and what governments do. Yet the great preponderance of work a student does is done alone at every level in the educational system. Indeed, excessive collaboration with others goes by the name of cheating.
For most people, school is the last time they will be evaluated on individual effort. One leading investment bank has a hiring process in which a candidate must interview with upward of 60 senior members of the firm before receiving an offer. What is the most important attribute they’re looking for? Not GMAT scores or college transcripts, but the ability to work with others. As greater value is placed on collaboration, surely it should be practiced more in our nation’s classrooms.
C. New technologies will profoundly alter the way knowledge is conveyed. Electronic readers allow textbooks to be constantly revised, and to incorporate audio and visual effects. Think of a music text in which you can hear pieces of music as you read, or a history text in which you can see film clips about what you are reading. But there are more profound changes set in train. There was a time when professors had to prepare materials for their students. Then it became clear that it would be a better system if textbooks were written by just a few of the most able: faculty members would be freed up and materials would be improved, as competition drove up textbook quality.
Similarly, it makes sense for students to watch video of the clearest calculus teacher or the most lucid analyst of the Revolutionary War rather than having thousands of separate efforts. Professors will have more time for direct discussion with students — not to mention the cost savings — and material will be better presented. In a 2008 survey of first- and second-year medical students at Harvard, those who used accelerated video lectures reported being more focused and learning more material faster than when they attended lectures in person.
D. As articulated by the Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman in “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” we understand the processes of human thought much better than we once did. We are not rational calculating machines but collections of modules, each programmed to be adroit at a particular set of tasks. Not everyone learns most effectively in the same way. And yet in the face of all evidence, we rely almost entirely onpassive learning. Students listen to lectures or they read and then are evaluated on the basis of their ability to demonstrate content mastery. They aren’t asked to actively use the knowledge they are acquiring.
“ Active learning classrooms ” — which cluster students at tables, with furniture that can be rearranged and integrated technology — help professors interact with their students through the use of media and collaborative experiences. Still, with the capacity of modern information technology, there is much more that can be done to promote dynamic learning.
E. The world is much more open, and events abroad affect the lives of Americans more than ever before. This makes it essential that the educational experiencebreed cosmopolitanism — that students have international experiences, and classes in the social sciences draw on examples from around the world. It seems logical, too, that more in the way of language study be expected of students. I am not so sure.
English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile. While there is no gainsaying the insights that come from mastering a language, it will over time become less essential in doing business in Asia, treating patients in Africa or helping resolve conflicts in the Middle East.
F. Courses of study will place much more emphasis on the analysis of data. Gen. George Marshall famously told a Princeton commencement audience that it was impossible to think seriously about the future of postwar Europe without giving close attention to Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War. Of course, we’ll always learn from history. But the capacity for analysis beyond simple reflection has greatly increased (consider Gen. David Petraeus’s reliance on social science in preparing the army’s counterinsurgency manual).
As the “Moneyball” story aptly displays in the world of baseball, the marshalling of data to test presumptions and locate paths to success is transforming almost every aspect of human life. It is not possible to make judgments about one’s own medical care without some understanding of probability, and certainly the financial crisis speaks to the consequences of the failure to appreciate “ black swan events ” and their significance. In an earlier era, when many people were involved in surveying land, it made sense to require that almost every student entering a top college know something of trigonometry. Today, a basic grounding in probability statistics and decision analysis makes far more sense.
A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could. Think, for example, of the widespread use of the e-book, or the coming home to roost of debt problems around the industrialized world. Here is a bet and a hope that the next quarter century will see more change in higher education than the last three combined.
Vocabulary practice
4. Translate the underlined words and collocations
5. Make three sentences using the vocabulary from the text
Reading practice
6. Match the opinion of the author to the paragraphs, circling the right letters. One paragraph can be mentioned more than once
· The student has to be more involved
in the process of studying A/B/C/D/E/F
· Students should learn more about other nation's cultures
and experiences A/B/C/D/E/F
· Critical thinking is more important nowadays
than simply knowing or reflecting on the data. A/B/C/D/E/F
· Team effort is much more in demand nowadays
than individual work A/B/C/D/E/F
· It is more effective to learn from recorded lectures
than from those given in person A/B/C/D/E/F
· Since information has become easily accessible, education
nowadays shouldn't be so much about providing information,
more about teaching how to utilise it A/B/C/D/E/F
· It is not essential for students to learn foreign languages A/B/C/D/E/F
· Innovations will greatly affect the process of studying A/B/C/D/E/F
Vocabulary:
1. Primary, secondary, tertiary education/school/schooling
2. To engage in undergraduate/postgraduate study/program
3. To go to school/college/university
4. To get a college degree/a bachelor's/master's/MBA degree in medicine/economics/accounting...
5. To finish school/to graduate from university
6. To apply to university/to pass entrance exams
7. To enter a university/to enroll in/at a university/to be admitted
8. To major in Maths/to have a major in Biology
9. First-year, second year student
10. To meet high academic expectations
11. To get good marks/ grades for classwork/ a high score on a test/to perform well/ to achieve good results
12. To excel/ to be a straight-A student/ to do well in school/to do poorly
13. Curriculum/to have/offer a curriculum/to be on one’s curriculum
14. Course/ subject/ to do/take a course/to take or to concentrate/ focus on a subject
15. This university offers degrees/majors/courses in law and medicine
16. To attend a college/a class/ to miss classes
17. To charge high tuition/additional fees
18. To offer financial assistance programs/ scholarships
19. Faculty, (academic) staff, pupils, applicants, students, graduates
20. Top ranking schools
21. School and universities help students acquire/absorb knowledge; acquire a specific set of skills and abilities; acquire competence and abilities; learn to think critically; become competent, skillful
22. Teachers in schools and universities convey knowledge and teach skills
23. To be literate/ illiterate/ literacy/ computer-literate
24. State-of-the-art facilities (library, well-equipped classrooms, gym)
Vocabulary practice 1
Fill the gaps with the words from the box
| high academic expectations/ top ranking schools/ applying/ tertiary education/ faculty and staff/ majoring in/ financial assistance programs/ enroll at the college/ charge tuition fees/ facilities/ attend/ higher education/ first-year students/ college degree |
1. A ______________________ can provide you with many opportunities in life.
2. There are key steps you will take when you__________________—whether you’re_________________ for the first time or registering for classes as a returning student.
3. Learn about _________________ that can help you_____________ school.
4. _______________ provided by universities and other higher education institutions – is the level of education following secondary schooling. ___________________ plays an essential role in society, creating new knowledge, transferring knowledge to students and fostering innovation
5. A study of college students' scores on admission tests for graduate schools showed that students _______________ mathematics received scores substantially higher than the average on each of the tests studied.
6. The University of Chicago College__________ has three components: general education requirements, a major, and electives.
7. Researchers claim that without__________________ for themselves and/or high expectations of others for them, _______________students would still not reach high levels of achievement.
8. The availability of highly qualified and experienced ________________determine, to a great extent, the excellence of an academic institution.
9. Universities in England will be able to__________________ of up to £9,000 per year from 2012, as the government transfers much of the cost of courses from the state to students.
10. There’s more to universities than research and teaching, _____________________ are also assessed according to sporting, medical, and any other ________________ they provide for their students.
Vocabulary practice 2
Translate:
Образование, бесспорно, является ключом к успеху любого государства, которое стремится играть важную роль в соременном мире. В большинстве стран в наше время начальное и среднее образование стали обязательными. Прежде всего, школа учит социальным навыкам, которые помогают человеку жить в социуме и общаться с другими людьми. Во-вторых, она борется с базовой безграмотностью, так как навыки чтения и письма стали жизненно важными для существования в современном мире. Кроме того, компьютерная грамотность и умение бродить по интернету сегодня настолько же важны, как и умение читать.
В том, что касается высшего образования, оно до сих пор является вопросом индивидуального выбора, хотя и столь же важно в определении будущего нации. Специализация в области математики, физики, биологии и других предметов гарантируют инновации и технологический прорыв в этих областях; дипломы по музыке, живописи и литературы обеспечивают культурный престиж страны, а степени в области делового администрирования ведущих школ приведут к ее экономическому успеху.
Vocabulary practice 3
Translate:
B. Успех ученика средней школы зависит от двух критериев. Первый – это статус школы. Несмотря на то, что среднее образование обеспечивается государством, школы различаются по качеству. Так, например, в Великобритании частные школы предоставляют значительно больше возможностей, чем государственные. У них более квалифицированный преподавательский состав, у которого больше шансов заинтересовать и увлечь ребёнка. Соотношение количества преподавателей к количеству учеников в таких школах также значительно ниже, чем в государственных образовательных учреждениях, что обеспечивает подход более индивидуальный, ориентированный на конкретную личность. Более того, такие школы обычно оборудованы всем самым лучшим: спортзалами и бассейнами, медицинскими кабинетами, полностью компьютеризированными библиотеками и т. д. Будучи мотивированными в учебе, имея через интернет доступ к самым лучшим библиотекам и художественным галереям мира, обладая возможностью заняться любым спортом, ученик имеет возможность развиться в полноценную личность.
С другой стороны, даже лучшая школа с наиболее выдающимися учителями не добьётся никаких результатов без согласия и желания ученика. Ученик сам должен не пропускать занятия, стараться получать хорошие отметки за работу на уроках и добиваться высоких показателей на экзаменах. Он должен стремиться к тому, чтобы удовлетворять самые высокие требования школы и преуспевать по всем предметам и во всех областях. В таком случае, когда когда эти два условия соблюдены, он может стать полным отличником.
Essay questions
1. Education is the single most important factor in the development of a country. Do you agree?
2. What are the factors which are related to academic success in high-school students?
3. Do the benefits of studying abroad justify the difficulties? What advice would you offer to a perspective student?
4. The idea of going overseas for university study is an exciting prospect for many people. But while it may offer some advantages, it is probably better to stay home because of the difficulties a student inevitably encounters living and studying in a different culture. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? Give reasons for your answer.
5. Education is recognized as vital to the future of any society in today's world. Governments throughout the world should make education compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 and 15. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
6. Foreign language instruction should begin in kindergarten. Discuss.
7. Should sports classes be sacrificed in high school so students can concentrate on academic subjects?
8. Subjects such as Art, Sport and Music are being dropped from the school curriculum for subjects such as Information Technology. Many children suffer as a result of these changes. To what extent would you support or reject the idea of moving these subjects from school curriculum? (IELTS Practice tests with answers)
9. Everyone should stay in school until the age of 18. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
10. In the past lectures were the traditional method of teaching large numbers of students. Nowadays new technology is increasingly being used to teach students. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this new approach?
11. Some people believe that exams are an inappropriate way of measuring students’ performance and should be replaced by continuous assessment. Do you agree or disagree with this view?
12. Some people argue that universities should provide students with more practical training for their future career. Should university education be more vocational or academic. Discuss.
13. In many countries schools have severe problems with student behavior. What do you think are the causes of this? What solutions can you suggest? (Cambridge IELTS 4)
14. Many universities charge higher fees for foreign students. Why do they do this? Do you believe that it is fair?
15. Most university graduates earn more money than less well educated people. Some people argue that this means they should pay the full cost of their education. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
16. Nothing is more important to a country’s future than education. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Speaking module
Part 1/Small talk
25. What kind of school did you go to as a child?
26. What was your favorite subject as a child?
27. Who was your favorite teacher?
28. What is the education system like in your country?
29. Do you think your country has an effective education system?
30. What are you studying now?
31. What school are you enrolled in? What is your major?
32. What is your area of specialization?
Part 2/Card
| Describe a subject you enjoyed studying at school. You should say: when and where you started studying it what lessons were like what made this subject different from other subjects and explain why you enjoyed the subject |
| Describe an enjoyable event that you experienced when you were at school. You should say: ñ when it happened ñ what was good about it ñ why you particularly remember this event. |
| Describe a skill you want to learn. You should say: ñ what it is. ñ why you think it is important. ñ how you are going to learn it. ñ what role it will play in your future life. |
| Talking about learning English. You should say, ñ when and where you began studying English ñ what is the most interesting thing in an English class ñ what is the most effective way of learning English What difficulties you have when learning English. What the advantages of learning English are. |
Part 3/ Discussion:
1. What skill do you think the university has provided for your (future) job?
2. What skills can you learn in school?
3. What is the most popular skill that people want to learn?
4. What kind of school would you send your children to? Why?
5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of school education vs. family education?
6. What problems do you have when studying English?
7. Do you think that English is the most important language in the world?
8. Can English take the place of Russian in your country?
9. What other languages are taught in Russia?
10. What difficulties would a foreigner have when he learns your native language?
11. What problems would Russian people have when communicating with foreigners?
12. What is the best time for a child to start learning a foreign language?
13. How will translation and interpretation develop in the future?
Answer key/Education
Reading practice 3
F (… gender differences in exam results disappear among home-taught children )
NG (The numbers of home-educated children in Britain has grown from practically none 20 years ago to about 150,000 today)
T (...a legislation which makes it harder for parents to educate their children at home in Scotland than in England)
F (there have never been any comparative studies before this one)
F (Rothermel questioned 100 home-educating families chosen randomly across the UK)
F (better-educated parents are probably more laid back than poorly-educated parents and so are less likely to push their children)
NG (It's a better preparation for university)
Reading practice 4
D, E, F, B, C, A, E, C
Vocabulary practice 1
Education/practice: 1. college degree, 2. enroll at the college; applying, 3. financial assistance programs; attend, 4. tertiary education; higher education, 5. majoring in, 6. curriculum, 7. high academic expectations; first year students, 8. faculty and staff, 9. charge tuition fees, 10 top ranking schools; facilities
Vocabulary practice 2
Education is definitely a key to success for any nation that wants to play an important role in the modern world. In most countries nowadays primary and secondary education have become compulsory. First of all, school teaches social skills that help a person to live in society and communicate with other people. Secondly, it fights basic illiteracy, since reading and writing skills are vital for anyone navigating in the modern world. Besides, being computer-literate today and knowing how to surf the net is almost as important as knowing how to read.
In terms of tertiary level, it is still a question of individual choice, but it as important in shaping the future of a nation. M ajors in maths, physics, biology and other subjects will guarantee innovations and technological advances in these spheres; d egrees in music, painting and literature will ensure the cultural prestige of a country, while top school MBA's will bring about its economic success.
Vocabulary practice 3
B. The performance of a high school pupil depends on two main criteria. The first is the ranking of the school. Although secondary education is provided by the state, schools vary in quality. In the UK, for example, private schools offer much greater opportunities to a student than public ones. They have highly qualified faculty and academic staff, that is much more likely to get your child interested in the subject and be inspired by it. Their ratio of teachers to pupils will also be lower than in state institutions, which will provide a more individual, customized approach. Moreover, they will have state-of -the-art sport, medical and other facilities, such as gyms and swimming pools, health centers, fully computerized libraries, and so on. Being academically motivated, having access to the best world libraries and art galleries through the Internet, being able to take up any sports he or she wants, the student will develop to be a more integrated personality.
On the other hand, even the best school with the most outstanding teachers will not be able to achieve anything without the student's consent and willingness. The pupil himself should never miss classes, do his best to get good grades for classwork and to achieve high scores on the tests. He should strive to meet high academic expectations and to perform well in all subject and areas. In this case, when these two criteria are met, he can become a straight-A student.