Галина Краснощекова - English for academic and scientific purposes

As you can see, the brain is just the hard drive that holds the information. It is the mind that needs to be observed and understood, how the parts of the mind interact and instruct the saving of the information. It is also interesting to observe that most of today's mental illnesses are treated by altering the way the hard drive (brain) accesses the information with drugs instead of spending more time on reconstructing how the information is put there. This is of course because it is very difficult for even the most intelligent of people to grasp that there is even a difference. (2)

Word study:

Task 5

Compose word combinations matching a line in A with a line in B.

Task 6

Match the definitions.

Task 7

Match the words with similar meaning.

Task 8

Give the Russian equivalents to the following.

It is important to recognize, go through the exact same electrical process, difference between imagination, a single grain of sand, source of happiness and misery, immovable rigid memory structure, expansion of consciousness, emotional response.

Task 9

Translate the following word combinations into English.

Реагировать на окружающую среду, наблюдать за чем-либо, ограничивать избыток чего-либо, результат отношений, держать в памяти, сила притяжения, структура памяти, ограничивать себя, преимущественно, эмоциональный отклик.

Task 10

Match an adjective (A) and a noun (B).

Task 11

Match these sentences halves (as given in the text).

Task 12

Which preposition goes with the following verbs?

Task 13

Look at the expressions below. Use a dictionary to check any words and phrases you did not understand.

1. the country suffered a brain drain

2. he is really brainy

3. can I pick your brains later?

4. we need to do some brainstorming

5. I have had a brainwave

6. he went out of his mind(with anger)

7. cast your mind back

8. he put it out of his mind

9. have/keep an open mind on difficult issues

10. put your mind to it

11. she is not in her right mind

12. he is in two minds

13. the job was completely mindless

14. I can see it in my mind’s eye

15. it was totally mindless vandalism

Task 14

Replace the phrases in bold with an expression from the previous exercise. You may need to change the form of the words or phrases to fit the sentence.

a) All the people in the office met to share their ideas.

b) He is a little bit crazy and unstable.

c) I am sure you can solve the problem if you really try hard.

d) The residents all agreed the attack on the library was without any reason whatsoever.

e) I have never seen her so angry, she completely lost control.

f) There was a huge number of skilled and professional people leaving.

g) I do not know the answer myself so I would like to get some of your ideas.

h) He decided to consider all the possibilities and not decide on one answer immediately.

i) This work is the most boring, repetitivething I’ve ever done. I don’t have to use my brain at all.

j) She was always really cleverat school.

k) The policeman asked me to remember something that happened a long time ago.

l) There are a couple of things that I am unable to decideabout.

m) She’d never been there but when I described the island, she could imagine what it looke like.

n) It was taking a long time to think of something but suddenly I had a fantastic idea.

o) She couldn’t change wht had happened so she decided not to think about it any more.

Speaking:

Task 15

Answer the following questions.

1. What did you think when you read the headline?

2. What springs to mind when you hear the words “brain” and “mind”? 3. What do we keep in mind? 4. The mind is not the brain. Yes? No? 5. What are the four parts of the mind?

6. Where are our memories kept?

7. What are five sensory perceptions people possess?

8. When does brain memory disappear and why?

9. Only people have mind and brain. Yes/No

Task 16

Make a list of mind and memory functions.

Task 17

Speak on brain using the mind map.

Reading B

Task 18

Read the text, try to catch its essentials and be ready to do the tasks.

Differences between the human male brain vs female brain have historically served to emphasize women’s subservient role in society. Everyone knows that men and women are different, However, aside from external anatomical, primary, and secondary sexual differences, scientists know also that there are many other subtle differences of how men and women process language, information, emotion, cognition, etc.

One of the most interesting differences appear in the way men and women estimate time, judge speed of things, carry out mental mathematical calculations, orient in space and visualize objects in three dimensions, etc. In all these tasks, women and men are strikingly different, as they are too in the way their brains process language. This may account, scientists say, for the fact that there are many more male mathematicians, airplane pilots, bush guides, mechanical engineers, architects and racecar drivers than female ones.

On the other hand, women are better than men in human relations, recognizing emotional overtones in others and in language, emotional and artistic expressiveness, esthetic appreciation, verbal language and carrying out detailed and pre-planned tasks. For example, women generally can recall lists of words or paragraphs of text better than men can.

The "father" of sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson, of Harvard University, said that human females tend to be higher than males in empathy, verbal skills, and social skills and security seeking, among other things, while men tend to be higher in independence, dominance, spatial and mathematical skills, rank-related aggression, and other characteristics.