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Unit 1 Starting out Inside view

Conversation 1

Porter Good afternoon. Janet Good afternoon. Porter New student? Janet Yes.

Porter Welcome to Hertford College. Janet Thank you.

Porter Can I have your family name, please? Janet Yes, it’s Li.

Porter Er, L-double E? Janet No, L-I.

Porter And what’s your first name, Ms Li? Janet Janet.

Porter Janet Li... ah yes, there you are. Here are your keys. Janet Where’s my room?

Porter You’re in Staircase 6 Room 5. Janet Who am I sharing with?

Porter Nobody. You have your own room. Er...there’s a Ms Santos in the room next to you. Janet Oh. My own room? In China we usually have several people in a dormitory. Porter Well, here you don’t have to share with anyone. Janet Thank you Sir.

Porter No need to call me sir, Ms Li. Everyone calls me Stewart. Janet Please call me Janet!

Porter OK, Janet, um, can you just sign for your keys, please?

Conversation 2

Kate Hi, have you just arrived too? Janet Yes!

Kate I guess we’re neighbours. My name’s Kate Santos. Janet I’m Janet Li. Where are you from? Kate From New York. How about you? Janet I’m from Anshan in China. Kate Is Janet your real name?

Janet No, it’s my English name. My Chinese name is Li Hui. Is Kate your full name? Kate No, it’s short for Catherine.

Janet So do I call you Catherine or Kate? Kate Everyone calls me Kate. Janet Nice to meet you.

Kate OK, Janet. See you later. Janet Bye!

Conversation 3

Kate Hey! This is awesome! Look at the size of this dining hall. Janet Is this where we have all our meals? Kate I guess.

Mark You just arrived? Girls Yes!

Mark Me too. By the way, I’m Mark. Nice to meet you. Kate Hi, I’m Kate.

Mark Hi Kate, I guess you’re from the States.

Kate Right! How can you tell? You’re British, huh? Mark Yes, I’m from London. And you are ...?

Janet I’m Li Hui. I’m from China. But you can call me Janet. Mark Hi Janet. Welcome to England. What are you reading? Janet English.

Mark How about you, Kate? Kate My major is law. And you? Mark I’m studying PPE.

Kate That’s a special Oxford subject, isn’t it?

Outside view

Julie My name’s Julie Dearden, and I’m the Director of International Programmes here at Hertford College.

Eugene My name’s Eugene Berger, I studied here in Oxford for four years er, studying modern languages at

Somerville College.

Julie Oh, there are many Oxford traditions. Oxford is a very old university, the oldest English-speaking university

in the, in the world. And so there are many traditions which are associated with the colleges, with the times of the year, and with sport, and with eating, for example.

Eugene Each college is very different um, from um, the others, and it has its own character. Some colleges are

very conservative, and some are much more liberal and have a tradition of um, kind of liberal politics. But there are also some specific traditions.

Julie Formal Hall is when we all eat together here in college, the professors and the students. Usually it takes

places at seven o’clock in the evening, and the professors sit on high table which is the table over here, and the students sit on common table, which are the tables here. But everybody eats together. It’s a very beautiful evening because there are, there’s a special meal and we eat by candlelight.

Eugene I think er, the traditions that make Oxford so unique are firstly the Oxford Union and er, secondly, May

Day. The Oxford Union being a debating society where speakers come from all around the world to address the students and even allow themselves to be questioned by the students, making it a very interesting forum. Julie My favourite is er, May Day. And May Day is the first day of May, and we have a tradition called May

Morning, and on May Morning everybody gets up very early and the students have a celebration. There is a choir which sings on top of the tower at Magdalen College and all the people of the town and all the students go to listen to the singing. So it’s very nice.

Eugene The tradition that er, was most important to me was probably Summer Eights. I was a rower. And

Summer Eights is a rowing competition, held in May in the summer term. And in this competition, each college is trying to improve its place which it won the previous year and gradually work its way up the river. Julie When the students take exams, they must go to a special building and it’s called Examination Schools. And

also they must wear a special uniform, so they wear E. gown like mine, a black gown, and they wear a white shirt, arid the men wear a white tie and black trousers. The women wear a white shirt and a black skirt or black trousers. And they must wear this uniform, which has a Latin name - sub fuse — and they must wear this uniform in order to take their examinations.

Eugene I think the Oxford traditions lend character to the place and it’s such an old institution, it should have

traditions, but they can be very inconvenient. For example, sub fuse. This is the uniform that we are required according to the university rules, to wear.

Julie They also wear flowers in their buttonholes, and those flowers are carnations. And they wear different

colours, the students wear different coloured flowers for different examinations. So when you take your first exam you wear a white flower, and when you take your second exam you wear a pink flower, and when you take your final examination you wear a red carnation.

Eugene So we have to dress up in a full black suit, starched collar, white bow tie and carry a mortarboard. And to

write an exam in the summer heat whilst wearing all that which you’re not allowed to take off is um, uncomfortable.

Julie I really like the Oxford traditions, I think it’s part of our history, and part of um, being a student or a teacher

here at Oxford University.

Listening in Passage 1

Interviewer Can you tell me something about the Ivy League? You’re a professor at Harvard, is that right? Professor That’s right, yes.

Interviewer Tell me how many universities are there? How many institutions?

Professor In total there are eight institutions: There’s Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth,

Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Interviewer Ah, OK. And what’s the sporting ... I believe there’s some link with sports.

Professor There certainly is, yes. Originally the Ivy League referred to the sports teams from the universities

which competed against each other, especially in football, basketball and ice hockey. Now sometimes these universities, institutions, chose their students on the basis of their skills at these particular sports. But in the last 50 years, Ivy League schools have accepted a wider range of students because it wasn’t possible to be both world-famous for research and also top class in sport.

Interviewer And what about their academic importance? I gather they’re academically very, very important,

they’re very well-known.

Professor Absolutely at the top. They’re near or at the top of the USA colleges and university rankings. And

they’re almost always in the top one per cent of the world’s academic institutions for financial resources. Interviewer And what does it mean socially to go to an Ivy League university?

Professor Certainly if you’ve been to one of these institutions, you are presumed or assumed to be at the top end

of the scale. The Ivy League institutions have a reputation for social elitism, many of the students are rich, intellectual, white Anglo-Saxon, protestants. Not all of them of course, but quite a lot of them. Interviewer And do you know ... why’s it called the Ivy League, what’s the origin of the name?

Professor There are a number of stories, derivations, but possibly it’s based on four universities, and IV, the

letters IV, that’s the Roman numeral for four. Another more likely story is that ivy plants, which are symbolic of the age of the universities, you know, would be grown at the walls of these universities, these institutions, they cover the walls of the buildings. The term was created by a sports journalist, I think in the 1930s. Interviewer Right, OK. And which is the oldest university?

Professor The oldest goes back to the 17th century, that’s Harvard which was founded in 1636. And the youngest

of the institutions is Cornell which was founded in 1865.

Interviewer And which has the largest number of undergraduates?

Professor Cornell has the largest number, about 13,000, 13,500 undergraduates. The institution with the smallest

number is Dartmouth College with a little over 4,000.

Interviewer And what about the acceptance rate? Is it hard to get into? Professor That ranges from about seven per cent to 20 per cent. Interviewer And any famous alumni? Famous old boys?

Professor Hundreds! Hundreds of them. But I suppose worldwide, the two that would be definitely known all

over the world would certainly be George Bush who went to Yale, and John F Kennedy, President Kennedy, who was at Harvard. Interviewer Thank you.

Passage2

Andy Did you see the film on television last night? Jane No, I was out. What was it?

Andy A Beautiful Mind. It’s about John Forbes Nash, the mathematician who won the Nobel Prize.

Jane I’ve heard about that film, yes. He’s played by Russell Crowe, isn’t he? I like Russell Crowe, he’s great. Andy That’s the one, yes. Jane What’s it about?

Andy Well, the story begins in the early years of Nash’s life at Princeton University as a graduate student. Jane That’s one of the Ivy League schools, isn’t it?

Andy Yes, it’s all set in New England, lovely old buildings, beautiful autumn colours. It’s lovely to look at.

Anyway, Nash meets his roommate Charles, a literature student, who soon becomes his best friend. Nash admits to Charles that he is better with numbers than people, and the main thing he’s looking for is a truly original idea for his thesis paper.

Jane So he’s not interested in having fun?

Andy Well, yes, but he’s not very good with people or successful with women, that’s all. But, you know, it’s one

of these bad experiences with people which ultimately inspires his brilliant work in mathematics. Jane No good at relationships, so he becomes a genius at maths?

Andy That’s about right, yes. So when he finishes his studies at Princeton, he accepts a job at Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. Five years later, he meets Alicia, a student who he falls in love with and eventually marries.

Jane Ah! At last, the love interest!

Andy Yes, but wait a moment. Nash believes that he’s been asked to work by William Parcher for the US

Department of Defense on breaking Soviet codes. At one point he’s chased by the Russians, and it’s after this that he becomes mentally ill.

Jane I think I’ve seen this in the trailer to the film.

Andy So when he’s put in a psychiatric hospital, he thinks the Soviets have captured him. He’s given this painful

treatment which affects his relationship with his wife. And his intellectual skills. So he stops taking the medicine.

Jane It sounds quite hard to watch.

Andy Well, it is, but it’s well acted and directed, and so, you know, there’s a-bit of distance between the audience

and what’s happening on film. Jane So what happens next?

Andy Well, then his illness returns, so he and his wife decide to try and live with it. It all gets a bit complicated,

because we’re no longer sure if Charles, you know, his old friend, or even Parcher were real, or if they were just people that existed only in Nash’s mind. Jane That sounds awful. He must have been so ill,

Andy Actually, I’m kind of giving away the twist in the story. Anyway, later in his life, while he’s using the

library at Princeton again, he asks his rival Martin Hansen if he can start teaching again. And so the story ends