2. The first level of education In great Britain is primary school, children start their education at the age of four. The second stage is secondary school, at around the age of eleven or twelve. Then there is “ further” education at university or college. Full-time education is compulsory up to 16, it is free of charge. The alternative to that is public school, which in British system means private. Parents if they are willing to, can send their child to private school, but then they have to pay for it. Most schools are now co-educational.
4. There is no unified school-leaving exam or school-leaving certificate. However there are few types of exams.
GCSE = General certificate of secondary Education. The exams taken by most fifteen- to sixteen- year-olds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Marks are given to each subject separately, all being graded from A to G, where grades A,B,C are considered as good grades.
SCE = Scottish Certificate of Education, it is a Scottish equivalent of GCSE. Grades are awarded in numbers, where 1 is the best.
A Levels = Advanced Levels, higher-level academic exams, taken mostly by people around the age of eighteen who wish to go on to higher education.
SCE ‘Highers’ The Scottish equivalent of A-levels
GNVQ = General National Vocational Qualification. Courses and exams in job-related subjects. They are divided into five levels, the lowest level being equivalent to GCSEs/SCEs and the third level to A-levels/’Highers’. Most commonly, GNVQ courses are studied at Colleges of Further Education, but more and more schools are also offering them.
Degree- a qualification from an university. (Other qualifications obtained after secondary education are usually called ‘certificate’ or ‘diploma’). Students studying for a first degree are called undergraduates. When they have been awarded a degree , they are known as graduates.
Bachelor’s Degree- the general name for first degree, most commonly a BA- Bachelor of Arts, or Bas- Bachelor of Science.
Master’s Degree- the general name for second ( postgraduate) degree, most commonly an MA or MSc. At Scottish universities, however, these titles are used for first degrees.
Doctorate- the highest academic qualification. This usually carries the title Doctor of Philosophy. The time taken to complete a doctorate varies, but it is generally expected to involve three years of more –or-less full-time study.
6. Oxbridge –the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, federation of semi-independent colleges, each one having its own staff. Most of the colleges have their own dining hall, library and chapel, and accommodation for at least half of their students.
The old Scottish universities- Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen are more like civic universities, where most of the students live at home or find their own rooms in town. St Andrews is resembles Oxbridge in many ways. At all of them the pattern of study is closer to the continental tradition than to the English one- there is less specialization than at Oxbridge.
The early nineteenth-century English universities- its collegiate living arrangements are similar to Oxbridge, but academic matters are organized at university level. Each college (most are non-residential) is almost separate university.
The older civic (‘redbrick’) universities- these are nineteenth- century’s universities with a technical bias, sprang up in new industrial towns and cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds. Their called ‘redbricks ’ because their buildings were of local materials, often brick, in contrast to the stone of older universities. They catered only for local people. At first, they prepared students for London University degrees.
The campus universities- these are purpose-built institutions located in the countryside but close to towns, e.g. Lancaster, Sussex, Warwick. They have accommodation for most of their students on site and from their beginning attracted students from all over the country ( 1960s). They tend to emphasize relatively ‘new’ academic disciplines such as social sciences.
The newer civic universities- these were originally technical colleges set up by local authorities in the first sixty years of the century. Some of them upgraded to university status, and some upgraded to ‘polytechnics’, what meant they were allowed to teach degree courses ( the degrees awarded by a national body).
8. Manual and lowest grades of non-manual workers’ rate is quoted per hour/week, it’s called wages, and is paid every week usually in cash.
Non-manual workers’ rate is quoted per year, known as salary, and paid every month by cheque or into bank account.
10. Most doctors in the country are General Practitioners (GPs) and their at the heart of the system. If you need any kind of treatment first you go to your GP, who later on arranges for whatever tests, surgery, specialist consultation or medicine are considered necessary.
12. Before nineteenth century there was no welfare, there were institutions such as workhouse, where the old, the sick, the mentally handicapped people were sent, but they were treated very badly. During the first half of the twentieth century many welfare benefits were introduced to improve the welfare system. That’s why in the middle of the century the National Health Service was set up.
14. The most desirable home is a detached house, traditionally built of red brick. The shape of that house is irregular. The second on the list of the best is a semi-detached house, but they’re too expensive for most people. Each house is the mirror of the other, inside and out. The town houses are an exception, they often have three or more floors, many have been broken up into flats or rooms for rent. Less desirable is a terraced house, this kind of house usually has no way through to the back except through the house itself. Each house in the row is joined to the next one, and they usually have two floors. The least desirable is a flat, which doesn’t have a separated entrance. Britain has the second lowest proportion of flat-dwellers in the UE. Blocks of flats are quite rare in Britain and it is not popular to live in a flat. What is more , only the poorest people usually live in it. Many of these flats are Council flats.
Dwelling in Britain is different from the one in Europe, there are generally maximum two or three-floor buildings, where in the Europe there are housing estates of ten or more-floor blocks of flats.
16. Broadsheet is the type of newspaper that has quite a large format, comparing to tabloids, small font is used in the text, headlines’ font is little bigger , the text is longer than in tabloid and consists of facts only. Pictures attached to each article are of reasonable size, they’re definitely smaller than in tabloids. Broadsheets used to write only about political or economic matters, but nowadays this has changed a little bit. They still write mostly about more serious matters, but sometimes they present some less demanding topics. The better known broadsheets are The Independent, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Times.
Tabloid, in other way magazine. It has a small format, so it is easy to grab it in your hand, while you are waiting for a bus. The font of the text is bigger, and the text is shorter than in broadsheet, attached pictures are big. Tabloids write about sex and scandal, they love to follow life of the royal family, of celebrities. They don’t care about serious topics like global warming for example, but if they did the headline above the article would be scary, eye-catching and the picture above the text would be worrying and dramatic. The most popular tabloids are The Sun, The Daily Mirror and People.
18. shandy- is half beer and half fizzy lemonade, it has the reputation of being very good for quenching the thirst
cider- in some pubs cider is available on draught, and in some parts of Britain, most typically in the English west country, and it is the most common pub drink, not the beer
on draught- of beer, taken from a large barrel, that kind if beer has no gas in it and is drunk at room temperature
a fry-up- a meal of fried food, such as eggs and bacon
elevenses- is a cup of tea or coffee and some biscuits at around eleven o’clock
20. Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2005, Nov 13th
22. Sport plays probably the most important role in people’s lives in Britain than it does anywhere else in Europe. For most men it is their main entertainment . Lot of them take part in some kind of sport at least once a week, but most of them regularly follow one or more sports. Football, rugby, horse-racing, cricket, motor-racing and golf are the most popular in great Britain and they have the biggest fans and supporters.
24. Commonwealth is an organization consisting of the United Kingdom and the most of the countries that used to be part of the British Empire. The commonwealth has continued to hold the annual meetings with these countries. Some countries have even kept the British monarch as a head of state. These are no formal economic or political advantages involved in belonging to Commonwealth, but it has helped to keep cultural contacts alive, and does at least mean that every year the leaders of a sixth of the world’s population sit down and talk together.
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