Task 1

Scan the following text and fill in the table by answering the following question: What do the numbers given in the table refer to?

How Many College Students Are in the U.S.

For many, college evokes images of sprawling campuses with masses of students scurrying across quads and courtyards. And this image is not wholly inaccurate. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a whopping 19.7 million students were enrolled at U.S. colleges in fall 2020.Over the years, the number of college students in the U.S. has grown significantly. These days, most high school graduates choose to enroll in college. In its 2020 Condition of Education report, NCES found that 69 per cent of 2018 high school graduates immediately attended college. In the past year, however, college enrollment has fallen sharply due to challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The states with the most college students are California, Texas, New York, and Florida, with each serving more than 1 million students. California is the only state to serve over 2 million students. This data makes sense when we consider that these four states boast the highest total populations. They are also home to popular public university systems, such as the University of California, the California State University, and the University of Texas. On the opposite end, the states with the fewest college students include Alaska, Wyoming, and Vermont. Each of these jurisdictions serves fewer than 50,000 students. Unsurprisingly, these states also boast the smallest total populations.

However, the situation changes when the state's number of college students is measured as a proportion of its total population. New Hampshire – where 14 per cent of the state population is enrolled in college — would win the award for the largest concentration of students. This means that you are more likely to run into a college student in New Hampshire than in any other state. The majority of college students in the U.S. are undergraduates. Only about 15% of postsecondary students are pursuing a graduate degree. In terms of enrollment status, about three-fifths of students attend school on a full-time basis. In previous decades, the numbers of full-time and part-time college students were more or less equal, but this gap has since widened, with more students opting for full-time study.

Finally, close to 75% of college students in the U.S. attend public institutions. This trend is likely due in part to the fact that public colleges and universities tend to offer less expensive tuition rates to in-state applicants, making them an appealing option for those looking to save money and avoid taking on as much debt.

Over the past few decades, the total number of college students in the U.S. has increased significantly, going from just 13.8 million in 1990 to nearly 20 million in 2020. Additionally, over the past 20 years, the total undergraduate enrollment grew 26%. However, enrollment has been inconsistent. Fall 2010 marked the peak in U.S. enrollment, when the total number of college students hit a record-breaking 21 million. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of undergraduates fell 8%, most likely as a consequence of the 2007-09 Great Recession and rising tuition costs.

More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented drops in enrollment around the country and among all student groups. Experts suspected that the annual summer melt — when those who planned to go to college end up not attending — would wind up hitting colleges harder due to the ongoing public health crisis. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, undergraduate enrollment fell 4.4% in the fall, and 4.5% this spring compared to last spring. Colleges also reported a 13% decline in first-year enrollment in fall 2020.

Student groups most impacted by the pandemic include international students, Native American students, and Black students, all of which experienced an enrollment decline of at least 7%. Nobody can predict how long these enrollment drops will last, but most experts appear to agree that the rise in COVID-19 vaccinations and a swift return to normal campus operations should bolster attendance rates.

Source: https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/how-many-college-students-in-the-us/

Task 2

Read the following text quickly and answer the questions.

1. When was penicillin discovered and by whom?

   1928 / Ian Fleming

2. Who continued with Fleming’s work after he stopped studying penicillin?

   Howard Flory and Ernst Chain

3. What were the first successes with penicillin in human medicine?

   1. successfully treated patient for streptococcal septicaemia in 1942
   2. reduction in the number of deaths and amputations of troops during World War II

Penicillin: An accidental discovery changed the course of medicine

It all started with a mold that developed on a staphylococcus culture plate. Since then, the discovery of penicillin changed the course of medicine and has enabled physicians to treat formerly severe and life-threatening illnesses such as bacterial endocarditis, meningitis, pneumococcal pneumonia, gonorrhea, and syphilis.

Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish researcher, is credited with the discovery of penicillin in 1928. At the time, Fleming was experimenting with the influenza virus in the Laboratory of the Inoculation Department at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.

Often described as a careless lab technician, Fleming returned from a two-week vacation to find that a mold had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus culture plate. Upon examination of the mold, he noticed that the culture prevented the growth of staphylococci.

An article published by Fleming in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in 1929 reads, “The staphylococcus colonies became transparent and were obviously undergoing lysis … the broth in which the mold had been grown at room temperature for one to two weeks had acquired marked inhibitory, bactericidal and bacteriolytic properties to many of the more common pathogenic bacteria.”

Fleming described the colony as a “fluffy white mass which rapidly increases in size and after a few days sporulates” and changes color from dark green to black to bright yellow.

Even in the early experimentation stages, penicillin had no effect against gram-negative organisms but was effective against gram-positive bacteria.

Published reports credit Fleming as saying: “One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”

Though Fleming stopped studying penicillin in 1931, his research was continued and finished by Howard Flory and Ernst Chain, researchers at University of Oxford who are credited with the development of penicillin for use as a medicine in mice.

Penicillin made a difference during the first half of the 20th century. The first patient was successfully treated for streptococcal septicaemia in the United States in 1942. However, supply was limited, and demand was high in the early days of penicillin.

Penicillin helped reduce the number of deaths and amputations of troops during World War II. According to records, there were only 400 million units of penicillin available during the first five months of 1943; by the time World War II ended, U.S. companies were making 650 billion units a month. To date, penicillin has become the most widely used antibiotic in the world.

by Katie Kalvaitis

Source: https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20120325/penicillin-an-accidental-discovery-changed-the-course-of-medicine

Task 3

Before you start reading the text, answer the following questions.

1. What do you think the title The link between personality and success means?

   Open answer

2. Ask three questions that you would like the text to answer.

   Open answer

3. What are three different personality types?

   Open answer

Read the following text and complete the table below by putting a tick (√) next to the characteristics 1-12 that are more likely to be associated with extroverts and / or introverts and / or ambiverts.

The link between personality and success

The modern manager has to play the role of coach in charge of their team. And that requires an understanding of the different personality types they may be managing, and indeed the role their own personality may play in the way they manage.

Karl Moore, an associate professor at McGill University in Canada, has written two recent articles on the role of different personality types in business. One of the most common divides is between introverts and extroverts. Mr Moore estimates that around 40% of the population are introverts, 40% are extroverts and 20% are “ambiverts” who can display both characteristics.

It is easy to assume that extroverts are most likely to go far in business. An academic study* found that extroverts were 25% more likely to be in a high-earning job than those who were less outgoing. The chain of causation is not clear. It is possible that working in a high-paid job makes people more confident and outgoing, although personality traits tend to develop early in life.

The study also found that the children of professionals were more likely to be extrovert. It could simply be that children who grow up in more prosperous homes are less likely to face the kind of stressful events that undermine self-confidence. People with higher self-confidence may apply for more prestigious jobs and may be more likely to believe that their efforts will be rewarded; those with a negative self-image may feel it is not worth trying too hard.

So introverts should not give up hope of climbing the greasy pole. A study in 2017 found that introverts were slightly more likely than extroverts to surpass the expectations of boards and investors when appointed as chief executive.

Ambiverts can be good salespeople because they are able to listen to their clients and understand their needs but also have the energy to sell their firms’ goods and services. Mr Moore thinks that successful executives have to become ambiverts at times in order to succeed. Introverts must try to show enthusiasm, or make a stirring speech, when the situation calls for it. And extroverts need to shut up and listen to their teams—not least because when the boss speaks first, subordinates will be reluctant to disagree.

Bartleby (who is an introvert but doesn’t like to talk about it much) thinks that the key is not to be too far out on the scale in either direction. An extreme introvert risks seeming too remote to manage a team and may lack the ability to inspire. But an extreme extrovert can simply overwhelm the business, with other managers unable to constrain them. Perhaps becoming an entrepreneur, or founding a successful firm, requires a significant degree of self-confidence but nobody can get every decision right, and there comes a time when a founder needs the expertise of other people. By the same token, managers need to think about the different personality types when conducting meetings. It is easy for meetings to be dominated by extroverts, who have a tendency to speak the loudest and most often. Introverts may never contribute to the discussion. In his book, “Running Meetings That Make Things Happen”, Jon Baker says that one answer is to circulate materials well in advance. Introverts, he writes, “don’t debate something as effectively if they’re still learning about it. If you want the views of the more detail-conscious members in your team, give them time to absorb the information.”

Mr Baker also suggests that managers should encourage introverts to contribute to the discussion by asking specific questions of them in their area of expertise. Another approach is to ask people to write down their ideas rather than contribute verbally. In theory, this approach should improve the quality of the discussion; after all, if the views of the introverts aren’t valuable, why have they been invited to the meeting?

What makes life tricky for managers is that people don’t have labels on their foreheads stating which kind of personality type they are. Sometimes people make it obvious (like the old joke “How do you tell if people went to Harvard?” “They’ll soon tell you”). But that means managers have to spend time chatting to, and observing, their team members before deciding how best to get them motivated and inspired. Managers need to be less like Henry Ford, and more like Sigmund Freud.

Source: The Economist, March 25th, 2021