MINISTRY OF HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT “VITEBSK STATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF THE ORDER OF PEOPLES’ FRIENDSHIP’ CHAIR OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES “BELARUS IN BRIEF’ ENGLISH STUDY GUIDE FOR THE FIRST-YEAR OVERSEAS MEDICAL STUDENTS Библиотека ВГМУ 00053106 Vitebsk VSMU 2011 -едК-=-20:378-054.(07>- ББК81.432.1р30 К13 Referee: the Head of the Foreign Languages Chair of the Educational Establishment “Vitebsk State Academy of Veterinary Medicine" A.I. Kartunova. Kadushko R.V. K13 “Belarus in Brief’. The English study guide for the first-year overseas medical students: study guide / R.V. Kadushko, I.S. Andreyeva. - Vitebsk: VSMU, 2011. - 195p. ISBN 978-985-466-351-7 'bo636(p The English study guide “Belarus in Brief’ is designed for the first-year overseas medical students. The aim of this guide is to help the overseas students to adapt to Belarusian environment and get acquainted with the history, natural resources, the main towns and cities, population, traditions, education and political life of Belarus. It consists of four units, supplementary texts and literature references. This guide may be used at practical cla.sses as well as for independent study. УДК = 20:378-054.(07) ББК 81.432.1p30 Kadushko R.V., Andreyeva I.S., 2011 Educational establishment “Vitebsk State Medical University”, 2011 ISBN 978-985-466-351-7 CONTENTS Unit One: The Republic of Belarus (general information). Grammar: Degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs: Rules....................................................................................................... ^ Exercises................................................................................................. Vocabulary learning................................................................................. ■ ■ Reading Comprehension.............................................................................. * Q uiz..................................................................................................... •••■ Unit Two: Administrative and Territorial Structure of the Republic of Belarus. Grammar: The category of Voice. The use of the Active Voice: R u le s.................................................................................................................... 44 E xercises............................................................................................................. Vocabulary learning.................................................................................... Reading Comprehension............................................................................. ^ Q uiz............................................................................................................. Unit Three: Population of the Republic of Belarus. Grammar: The Passive Voice: Rules....................................................................................................... Exercises................................................................................................ o4 Vocabulary learning.............................................................................................. Reading Comprehension.............................................................................. Q uiz............................................................................................................. Unit Four: The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus. Grammar: Non-finite forms of the verb. Functions of Participle I and Participle 11: .........................................................................................................102 Vocabulary learning.................................................................................... Reading Comprehension.............................................................................. Q uiz............................................................................................................. Supplementary texts: I. From the history of Belarus............................................................... | II. Our great countrymen....................................................................... ill. Cultural life........................................................................................ | IV. Holidays............................................................................................ V. Education............................ .............................................................. VI. Medical service..................................................................................... ° VII. Towns................................................................................................ IX. Grammar in facts and figures............................................................ Appendix...................................................................................................... R eferences................................................................................................................ , „ ^ Keys................................................................................................................ '^4 PREFACE The English study guide “Belarus in Brief’ consists of 4 units: “The Republic of Belarus (general information), “Administrative and territorial structure of the Republic of Belarus”, “Population of the Republic of Belarus”, “The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus”. Each unit contains a list of active words with concise explanations and examples, which highlight key terms and concepts and help the students to use the vocabulary in context; international words with their Russian equivalents for comparison; grammar rules and exercises to practise them; text with pre-text and after-text exercises; topics for discussion and a mini­ quiz. Some units are preceded by a “Lead-in” part containing thought- provoking questions on the topic. They are intended to challenge the students thinking about certain problems. To arouse interest of the students and make the process of learning more exciting and just for fun each unit contains Jokes, laughs and smiles” part and assays on the topic of special interest to be written by the students. The texts presented in the guide are easy to read because the level of difficulty has been controlled carefully to correspond to the actual abilities of students to understand some new and unknown notions explained in pre-text exercises. Each text is complemented by a mini-quiz of multiple choice questions that helps to check students’ understanding of the main content of the text. The main grammar topics which are introduced in the study guide are “Degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs”, “The category of Voice. The use of Active and Passive voice”, “Non-finite forms of the verb”, “Functions of Participle I and Participle II.” The Grammar” part of every unit contains grammar rules and patterns supplemented by tables to which the students may turn for reference while doing grammar exercises. Various exercises enable the students to distinguish different giammar forms and use them properly in separate sentences and mini-texts. Vocabulary employed in exercises is taken from the “Vocabulary learning part and is based on the topic of the unit. The main part of the guide is followed by supplementary texts and newspaper articles to which interested students can refer for additional information. The authors hope that this guide will provide overseas students with firm foundation for understanding the realities of everyday life in the Republic of Belarus and that the simple-to-complex material organization approach and interesting texts for reading and discussing will inspire the curiosity of the students. Unit One: The RepubliC of Belarus (General information). Grammar: DeGrees of Comparison of adJeCtives and adverbs. There are three degrees of comparison: positive, Comparative, and superlative. The superlative is generally used with the definite article. Ways of formation may be synthetic, analytic, and suppletive (imegular). The synthetic way is by adding the inflection -er, -est, as fine -finer -finest. This means is found with monosyllabic and some disyllabic adjectives in which the stress falls on last syllable: 1) short - shorter - shortest polite ” politer - politest profound - profounder - profoundest 2) in which the second syllable is the syllabic [1]: noble- nobler - noblest 3) with adjectives in -er, -y, -some, -ow: tender - tenderer - tenderest happy - happier - happiest handsome — handsomer - handsomest narrow - narrower — narrowest Adverbs that are identical in form with adjectives take inflections following the same spelling and phonetic rules as for adjectives: early - earlier - earliest late - later - latest hard - harder - hardest slow - slower - slowest Several adverbs ending in -ly (quickly, loudly) form comparatives according to the same pattern, dropping their adverb-forming suffix. These adverbs acquired the form in -ly only recently and retained the older forms of the comparative and superlative: quickly - quicker - quicke.st loudly - louder - loudest Polysyllabic adjectives form their degrees of comparison analytically, by means of more and most; difficult - more difficult - most difficult curious - more curious - most curious Most disyllabic adverbs in -ly and all polysyllabic ones form the comparative and superlative analytically, by means of more and most: wisely - more wisely — most wisely softly - more softly — most softly deeply - more deeply - most deeply The adverb often occurs with both types of comparison: , Г oftener L more often