Progress Test - CRIME AND PUNISHMENT / BEHAVIOUR AND MANNERS

Here’s a letter written in response to an article which emphasises the importance of education and suggests that the government should seek ways to increase a number of young people entering universities. Read it carefully and choose one option for each point in the task that follows.

1. Sir: I disagree with your correspondents who believe the Government should try to reverse
2. the trend of fewer state pupils going to university (Letters, 26 July). On the contrary, it
3. should encourage it.
4. I have just received a letter turning me down in my application for a fairly modest
5. administrative job, because I cannot compete with the other applicants on skills and
6. experience.
7. The reason I do not have sufficient skills and experience is that I spent four years in higher
8. education studying for an upper second joint honours degree, therefore not gaining work
9. skills directly relevant to the creation of wealth. This is why a degree can have an adverse
10. effect on a young person's employability similar to that of a criminal record.
11. The Higher Education Statistical Agency has recently reported that a third of graduates are
12. stuck in bar-work, shelf-filling and other menial jobs in which they often start at the
13. bottom and stay there. If some talented young people had decided to go straight to work
14. instead of university, they could have taken occupational training courses and prospered,
15. instead of being condemned to a miserable life of anything from low-paid menial work to
16. unemployability and economic inactivity.
17. Young people who can cope with a degree course to the benefit of both themselves and the
18. university should go there only if they are wealthy enough not to have to work for a living,
19. or if they are certain that they will get a graduate job.
20. The lower down the social pecking order they are, the greater the likelihood that the class
21. ceiling will prevent them from doing so. A faw-faw in your accent will often open more
22. doors than a MA. after your name.

• Ćwiczenie 1 aqm
• Ćwiczenie 2 aqm
• Ćwiczenie 3 aqm
• Ćwiczenie 4 aqm

Writing Select one of the topics and write a text of about 200-250 words
Write a letter to the editor disagreeing with the letter in Ex II, Reading Comprehension. Organize your arguments around the importance of education in getting your dream career. In your letter:

• Make reference to the letter that you have read
• Talk about your own experiences
• Specify the problem and/or express your opinion on the problem
• Offer a solution and/or write a conclusion