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Conversation 1

Listen to a conversation between a student and an admission officer at City College.

Student: Hi, can I ask you a few questions about starting classes during your summer session? Q1

Admission officer: Sure, ask away. It starts next week, you know.

Student: Yeah, and I wanted to get some required courses out of the way, so I can, maybe I can

graduate one term earlier and get out into the job market sooner. Q2

Admission officer: That sounds like a good idea. Let me pull up the summer school database on my

computer here.

Student: Ok.

Admission officer: OK, here it is. What

’

s your student ID number?

Student: Oh, well, the thing is, I

’

m not actually admitted here. I will be starting school upstate at Hooper

University in the fall, but I

’

m down here for the summer staying with my grandparents,

‘

cause I have a

summer job near here.

Admission officer: Oh, I see. Well.

Student: So I

’

m out of luck?

.

.

Admission officer: Well, you would be if you were starting anywhere but Hooper, but City College has a

sort of special relationship with Hooper, a full exchange agreement. So our students can take classes at

Hooper, and vice versa.Q5 So if you can show me proof, eh, your admissions letter from Hooper, then I

can get you into our system here and give you an ID number.

Student: Oh, cool. So, um, I wanna take a math course and a science course, preferably biology, and I

was also hoping to get my English Composition Course out of the way, too.

Admission officer: Well, all three of those courses are offered in the summer, but you

’

ve got to

understand that summer courses are condensed. You need longer hours and the assignments are doubled

up because it

’

s the same amount of information presented and tested in a regular term, but it

’

s only six

weeks long. Two courses are considered full time in summer term. Q3 Even if you weren

’

t working, I

couldn

’

t let you register for more than that.

Student: Yeah, I was half expecting that. What about the schedule? Are classes only offered during the

day?

Admission officer: Well, during the week, we have some classes in the daytime and some at night. And

on the weekends, we have some classes all day Saturday or all day Sunday for the six weeks.

Student: My job is pretty flexible, so one on the weekday and one on the weekend shouldn

’

t be any

problem. Ok, so after I bring you my admissions letter, how do I sign up for the classes?

Admission officer: Well, as soon as your student ID number is assigned and your information is in our

admission system, you can register by phone almost immediately. Q4

Student: Oh, what about financial aid? Is it possible to get it for the summer?

Admission officer: Sorry, but that

’

s something you would have to work out long before now, but the

good news is that the tuition for our courses is about half of what you

’

re gonna be paying at Hooper.

.

.

Student: Oh, well, that helps. Thank you so much for answering all my questions. Ah, I

’

ll be back

tomorrow with my letter.

Admission officer: I won

’

t be here then, but do you see that lady sitting at that desk over there? That

’

s

Ms Brinker. I

’

ll leave her a note about what we discussed and she

’

ll get you started. Q4

Student: Cool.

Lecture 1 World History Class

Listen to part of a lecture in a world history class.

Professor: In any introductory course, I think it

’

s always a good idea to step back and ask ourselves:

What are we studying in this class? And why are we studying it? So, for example, when you looked at the

title of this course in the catalogue, Introduction to World History, what did you think you were getting into?

What made you sign up for it, besides filling the social science requirement?

Students: Hahahahah

Professor: Anyone?

Student: Well, just the history of everything, you know like starting at the beginning with, I guess the

Greeks and Romans, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, you know, that kind of stuff, like what we did in

high school.

Professor: Ok, now what you are describing is one approach to world history. In fact, there are several

approaches, basic models or conceptual frameworks of what we study when we do history. And what you

studied in high school, what I call the western-heritage model, this used to be the most common approach

in US high schools and colleges. In fact, it

’

s the model I learned with, when I was growing up back, oh,

about a hundred years ago.

Students: Hahahahahha

.

.

Professor: Ah, at Middle Town High School up in Maine, I guess it made sense to my teachers back

then, since, well, the history of Western Europe was the cultural-heritage of everyone in my class, and this

remained the dominant approach in most US schools till, oh, maybe 30, 40 years ago. But it doesn

’

t take

more than a quick look around campus, even just this classroom today, to see that the student body in the

US is much more diverse than my little class in Middle Town High. And this western-heritage model was

eventually replaced by or sometimes combined with one or more of the newer approaches. And I want to

take a minute to describe these to you today. So you can see where this course fits in. Ok, so up until the

mid-20th century, the basic purpose of most world history courses was to learn about a set of values,

institutions, ideas, which were considered the heritage of the people of Europe. Things like democracy,

legal systems, types of social organization, artistic achievements. Now, as I said, this model gives us a

rather limited view of history. So in the 1960s and 70s, it was combined with or replaced by what I call the

different- cultures model. The 60s were a period in which people were demanding more relevance in the

curriculum, and there was criticism of the European focus that you

’

re likely to find in all the academic

disciplines. For the most part, the different-cultures model didn

’

t challenge the basic assumptions of the

western-heritage model. What it did was insist on representing other civilizations and cultural categories, in

addition to those of Western Europe. In other words, the heritage of all people, not just what goes back to

the Greeks and Romans, but also the origins of African, Asian, Native American civilizations. Though more

inclusive, it

’

s still basically a heritage model, which brings us to a third approach. What I call the

patterns-of-change model. Like the different-cultures model, this model presents a wide cultural

perspective. But with this model, we

’

re no longer limited by notions of fixed cultural or geographical

boundaries. So then, studying world history is not so much a question of how a particular nation or ethnic

group developed, but rather it

’

s a look at common themes, conflicts, trends that cut across modern- day

borders of nations or ethnic groups. In my opinion, this is the best way of studying history, to better

.

.

understand current-day trends and conflicts. For example, let

’

s take the study of the Islamic world. Well,

when I first learned about Islamic Civilization, it was from the perspective of Europeans

’

. Now, with the

patterns-of-change model, we

’

re looking at the past through a wider length. So we would be more

interested, say, in how interactions with Islamic civilization, the religion, art, literature, affected cultures in

Africa, India, Spain, and so on. Or let

’

s take another example, instead of looking at each cultural group as

having a separate, linear development from some ancient origin, in this course, we

’

ll be looking for the

common themes that go beyond cultural or regional distinctions, so instead of studying a particular

succession of British Kings or a dynasty of Chinese emperors. In this course, we

’

ll be looking at the

broader concepts of monarchy, imperialism and political transformation.

Lecture 2 Environmental Science Class

Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental science class.

Professor: OK, now let

’

s talk about another environmental concern, soil erosion. It

’

s a major problem

all around the world. Sometimes erosion damages soil so severely that the land can no longer be cultivated,

and it

’

s just abandoned. That happened in a big way right here in the United States. Some of you have

probably read the novel

“

the Grapes of Wrath

”

, and maybe you remember that the story took place in the

1930s during the time of what was called the Dust Bowl. Dust Bowl is a term we use to describe an

ecological and human disaster that took place in the Southern Great Plains region. For nearly eight years,

dust and sand blew across the area and covered everything. It was so bad, it even made breathing and

eating difficult, and farmers could only look on helplessly if their crops were destroyed, and the land and

their lives were ruined.

Now, there

’

ve always been droughts and strong winds in that region, but that was ok because the

native grasses had deep roots in the ground that were able to hold the soil in place. So the wind wasn

’

t

.

.

able to, you know, erode the soil too badly. This changed though between the 1900 and 1930. Agriculture

was expanding rapidly then, and lots of farmers in the Southern Great Plains wanted to grow wheat and

other crops they could sell for cash, uh, crops that would be profitable. So they ripped up much of the

grassland to plant these crops like wheat which don

’

t hold the soil down nearly as well. At the same time,

livestock, cattle, too many of them were feeding on grasses in the area, and damaging a lot of the

grassland. So these animals caused even more erosion of the soil. It didn

’

t help that many of the actual

owners of the land were not living anywhere near the area. A lot of the landowners lived way back east and

rented out the land to local people who lived on the land and worked on it, but didn

’

t have much reason to

take really good care of it. I mean, it wasn

’

t their land, right? The tenant farmers weren

’

t really interested in

conserving someone else

’

s soil, not for the long term anyway. Also, some thought the land couldn

’

t be

really damaged. You know that the soil was so rich and deep that it didn

’

t matter if the topsoil, the soil on

the surface, blew away. They thought they could just plow more, but they were wrong. Good topsoil takes a

long time to form. It can literally take thousands of years to create good topsoil that will grow vegetation,

and a very short time to ruin it. So after only a few years of excessive plowing, the land pretty much

couldn

’

t be farmed any more. And people moved on to other places, and let the old areas just sit there, and

when they didn

’

t plant anything on that land, that made it vulnerable to even more erosion. So it was kind of

vicious cycle you could say. Another problem, ironically, was that advances in technology were actually

destroying the land, instead of improving it. A lot of farmers were using huge new tractors that dug deep

into the ground, and tore up a lot of the soil. And then of course there was the weather. You know, when

people look back on the Dust Bowl era, they tend to blame the drought, the lack of rain between 1934 and

1937. We can

’

t ignore the drought. I mean, it was the worst on record at the time, and did help bring on this

disaster. But without the soil destruction, the drought alone wouldn

’

t have resulted in the devastation we

call the Dust Bowl. It was poor farming techniques that made that happen. Since then, though, we

’

ve paid

.