Exam Worries

1. There’s a teaching exam I want to take next

2. year but I'm very cautious about applying it.

3. In the first place, the pass rate isn't high up;

4. in fact, only a fifty percent of candidates actually

5. pass. Secondly, it's very expensive to do the

6. course and exam. It costs at £1,500 and

7. you need to take three months off the work.

8. Thirdly, it’s quite so stressful. Before you can

9. sit the final practical and written exams you

10. must have been written ten compositions and

11. have had ten lessons observed which are

12. being considered to have been of a high enough

13. of standard. In addition to all these points,

14. I want to make certain I have enough of the

15. right kind of teaching experience to pass through

16. before I attempt the exam. It’s lots of much

17. money to waste if you’re not all sure of passing.

14 Translate from Russian into English using your active vocabulary.

1) Это лекарство от бронхита собьет вашу температуру. 2) Я чувствую себя неважно, меня лихорадит, все тело ноет. 3) Врач говорит, что у меня 20 кг лишнего веса и мне нужно соблюдать диету. 4) У вас общее переутомление и вы нуждаетесь в хорошем отдыхе. 5) Есть ли у вас какие-нибудь капли от насморка? 6) Она жалуется на сильные головные боли и бессонницу. 7) Врач выписал мне рецепт и дал бюллетень. Я направляюсь в аптеку за лекарством. 8) Этот зуб совсем испорчен. Боюсь, его придется удалить. 9) От каких болезней вам делали прививки? 10) Мне делали рентген грудной клетки два года назад, когда я проходил медицинское обследование. 11) Некоторые люди не могут сами справиться со стрессом и нуждаются в медицинском лечении. 12) Здоровая диета предполагает правильное соотношение всех необходимых элементов: белков, углеводов, минеральных веществ и витаминов. 13) Употребление транквилизаторов для преодоления стресса ведет к зависимости от них и, в конечном итоге, разрушает здоровье. 14) Культ красивого тела и хорошей физической формы превратился у многих людей в идею-фикс (наваждение). 15) Ее отец перенес тяжелую онкологическую операцию, но, к счастью, поправился и сейчас чувствует себя неплохо. 16) Вечером у бабушки случился сердечный приступ и скорая помощь забрала ее в больницу. 17) Ребенка тошнит, поднялась температура. Боюсь, что у него пищевое отравление. 18) Общеизвестно, что легче предупредить болезнь, чем вылечить.

Read and Discuss

Text 1

Pre-Reading

A Skim the title of the text below to find out what it is about.

B Do you have any idea about the opposition of ‘medical science’

vs ‘natural healing’?

C What do you know about alternative therapies,

e.g. homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy, etc.?

Reading

Read through the text ‘Self-Care Has Come of Age – Again!’ and do the exercises that follow.

Self-care has come of age – again!

Some 40-50 years ago, there was general belief that “scientific medicine” would in short order obliterate just about all disease. Optimism continued to mount as new antibiotics and tranquilizers were discovered, new surgical procedures devised and perfected. For a while it seemed that if we could all live just a few more years, new discoveries might make us immune to death itself.

Looking back, we can see that the party mood began to sour about 20 or 25 years ago.

It was not just an innocent burst of enthusiasm. Real harm was done. Drugs, we all learned, sometimes had “side effects”. Needless X-rays were thought to promote cancer.

But that is only half of the new perspective. The other half has this to say: even when done correctly, the medical approach to disease is incomplete. Wonderful, yes. But not quite the whole answer.

What it ignores is the dimension of natural healing: strengthening the body’s immune system through nutritional and other natural means; physical therapies; stress reduction; diet improvement; and lifestyle change. To ignore these factors is to forgo, perhaps, a much more conservative, perhaps even more effective treatment. And even when extensive medical intervention is required, we now know, the battle against disease cannot be won by medicine alone. Unless the body has sufficient vitality to recover from the trauma of intervention, and then reestablish a state of health that will prevent the return of disease, medicine may be for naught.

Some people reacting against what they see as overdoctoring have rejected the technological approach almost completely. They have returned, in effect, to the 19th century, relying on herbs, untested diets and unscientific procedures to treat all illness.

But there is no need to reject all of modern medicine because of its occasional excesses. Nor is total rejection very smart. Today, we are in the unique position of being able to take advantage of the best technological medical care and the best natural healing techniques.

By using both approaches, as dictated by good sense, we can literally enjoy the best of two worlds.

NB: naught or nought (noun)

1. zero: the number zero. U.K. term nought

2. nothing: nothing at all (archaic or literary)

Their efforts were all for naught