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28. Translate one paragraph from the following text in the written form paying attention to its grammar, lexical, and stylistic peculiarities.
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27. Group discussion on the topic “Education Development in Russia and Abroad”. Discuss the following statements in the group. Express and prove your opinions; support them with the examples from your experience.
1. The market for educational services is highly competitive: there is a large number of educational institutions.
2. The Russian government has pushed an ambitious higher education agenda focused on improving quality and international standing.
3. The country is seeking to radically enhance the global ranking of its universities by 2020, and to attract substantial numbers of internationally mobile tertiary-level students from around the globe.
4. The government has actively sought to send scholars abroad — and incent them to return home as part of a broader effort to modernize the flagging economy.
5. The reform effort is driven by concerns about educational quality. The main goal of the reforms is to merge poorly performing universities with higher quality institutions.
7. Foreign student quotas are seen as a measure of the effectiveness of higher education institutions, and the Russian government has, as part of its effort to boost the rankings of its universities, made it a priority to boost international enrollments.
8. The most popular destination choice among Russian degree students abroad in recent years has been Germany, where 18 percent of outbound students were enrolled in 2019 (UIS). The U. S., the Czech Republic, Great Britain, and France were the next popular choices, accounting for 9 percent, 8 percent, and 7 percent of enrollments, respectively.
9. Russian education has become more expensive for many students, even in the public sector. Students with high EGE scores are usually allowed to study for free; however, many students pay annual tuition fees averaging 120–140 thousand rubles for a bachelor’s degree and 220–250 thousand rubles for a Specialist degree.
10. Education abroad is less affordable than in Russia.
WRITING
28. Translate one paragraph from the following text in the written form paying attention to its grammar, lexical, and stylistic peculiarities.
The Mighty Semiconductor and the Rise of Silicon Valley
For thousands of years, people lived in a world without computers. There were no video games and no smartphones. Now computers are part of the daily life of many people, and it’s hard to imagine a world without them. What is it that makes a computer work? Inside every computer is a tiny circuit called a semiconductor. Often, a semiconductor is essentially a couple wires attached to a piece of silicon (a mineral like quartz). Though semiconductors are very small, they are important. Semiconductors are what make many electronics work, from car radios to the systems that pilots use to fly airplanes. For a computer to work, it needs electricity. Semiconductors carry the electric signals in computers.
In the United States, almost all semiconductors are made in a place called Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is just outside of San Francisco and is home to some of the country’s smartest scientists. The history of Silicon Valley is tied to the history of the semiconductor. The first mass-produced semiconductor was designed in the 1950s in Silicon Valley by a company called Fairchild Semiconductor. The engineers at Fairchild were interested in finding ways to make machines faster and smaller. Before Fairchild, people knew how to make semiconductors, but they didn’t know how to make large batches of them. In those early years, Robert Noyce was the boss at Fairchild. He was in charge of making sure the company built cutting-edge products the world had never seen before. Robert wanted his company to be a community where everyone was equal. At Fairchild, an engineer could rise to the top quickly, as long as he or she had a good idea. Everyone pitched in to help with problems, and everyone celebrated when a problem was solved.
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Engineers loved working at Fairchild, and the company grew quickly. NASA needed semiconductors for the computers in their new spaceships. The United States Department of Defense needed semiconductors for planes and other military vehicles. Computer systems were being put into all kinds of devices, and every single computer needed semiconductors. Soon engineers at Fairchild began quitting. They had exciting ideas and wanted to start their own companies. More than 50 other semiconductor companies were started by former employees at Fairchild. Most of these companies stayed in Silicon Valley. Soon it made sense for other high-tech companies to move to Silicon Valley, since there were already so many talented engineers in the area. In the 1970s the area began to be called “Silicon Valley, ” after the mineral that was the backbone of the semiconductor.
As computers spread throughout the country, Silicon Valley grew along with the industry. Soon it wasn’t just semiconductor companies. There were companies that made personal computers, printers, software… the list went on and on. Apple, the maker of the first personal computer, had headquarters close to Silicon Valley. Years later, Google’s headquarters were set in Mountain View, in the exact same city as Fairchild Semiconductor’s first building. Companies like Apple and Google have been attracting thousands of engineers from all over the world, making Silicon Valley a wealthy and thriving area. Investors have also followed engineers to Silicon Valley looking for promising companies with big futures. These new investors — known as venture capital firms — give a company the money it needs to start a business. Then if the company becomes big, a large chunk of the money it makes goes back to the investors.
But it isn’t just the money that draws workers to Silicon Valley — it’s also the opportunity. In Silicon Valley, there are new companies being created every week. There is money to invest in new companies. Silicon Valley has become a new global center of technology. As of 2013, Silicon Valley is home to more than 3 million people. Many of them came from other countries, and in over half of the homes in Silicon Valley, families speak another language besides English. Both immigrants from other countries and people who move to Silicon Valley from other parts of the United States bring new ideas to Silicon Valley. Soon these people may start their own companies, and those new companies may attract more engineers from other parts of the world. And so, Silicon Valley will continue to grow.
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