OBLIGATORY ACTIVE VOCABULARY

HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE USA

Part 1.
(= the Thematic Vocabulary, Parts 1 and 2 from V.D.Arakin’s textbook, Unit 1)
1. Who is who: applicant/prospective student; freshman; sophomore, junior, senior, undergraduate student;
graduate (grad) student; part-time student; transfer student; night student; faculty: teaching assistant, assistant
professor, associate professor, (full) professor; counselor.
2. Administration: dean, assistant dean, department chairman; President of the University; academic vice-
president; student government; board of trustees.
3. Structure: college (college of Arts and Sciences); school (school of Education), evening school; grad school;
college of continuing education; department; career development and job placement office 2.
4. Academic calendar: fall, spring term/semester; fall, winter, spring, summer quarter; school/academic year;
exam period/days — reading days/period, break/recess; deadline (fall term break; winter recess or winter holidays,
summer vacation).
5. Academic programs: course (a one/three-credit course); to take a course, to give a lecture; pass-fail course;
elective, a major/to major (what’s your major?); a minor (second in importance); discussion session; seminars — a
more academic class, usually with grad students.
6. Summer school: a course of lessons, talks, etc., arranged in addition to the year’s work in a university, college,
or school after the start of summer holidays (to earn additional credits or to improve the academic grades).
7. Grades: to get/to give a grade; pass-fail grading (to take grammar pass-fail); grades A, B, C, D, E; A-student; to
graduate with straight A; a credit, to earn a credit; education record.
8. Tests: quiz; to take/to give an exam; to retake an exam (a retake); to flunk a course; to flunk smb; to drop out/to
withdraw; a pass-fail test; multiple choice test; essay test; SAT, PSAT (preliminary SAT) ACT; GPA.
9. Red Tape: to register (academically and financially); to enroll for admission; to interview; to sign up for a
course; to select classes/courses; to drop a course, to add a course, a student I.D., library card; transcript, degrees:
B.A., M.A., Ph.D.; to confer a degree; to confer tenure, thesis, paper, dissertation.
10. Financing: full-time fees; part-time fees; grants; student financial aid; to apply for financial aid; to be eligible
for financial assistance; scholarship; academic fees; housing fees; a college work-study job.
11. Going to college: university, college, junior college/community college, professional school, graduate school,
institute, academy; Ivy League; to choose/select a college (public or private); to find out about the university ranking,
admissions requirements, financial assistance available; applicant; to apply for admission, to apply to between three to
six colleges in the last year of high school; application including a transcript with the list of all the courses taken and
all the grades received in high school; SAT (=Scholastic Aptitude Test), to take Preliminary SAT, ACT (=the
American College Test), Achievement tests (=special tests in a subject), TOEFL (=the Test of English as a Foreign
Language); standardized test scores; GPA (=Grade Point Average), a general assessment of the applicant’s character.
12. Financing higher education: public/private colleges and universities, Endowment, to charge tuition (fees),
full-time, part-time fees, housing fees, to apply for financial assistance, to award financial assistance as part of a
package; grants, scholarships, loans, part-time jobs on campus; to win/get a grant, scholarship; to pay extra for room
and board; to work full-time in the vacations.
13. People at university or college: Board of Trustees; University President, Academic vice-president, dean,
assistant dean; faculty; counselor, professor, full professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor; TA
(teaching assistant); student body; freshman, sophomore, junior; undergraduate (student), graduate student (grad);
history/biology/psychology major; part-time/full-time student, transfer student, night student, A-student; campus;
fraternity; sorority; alumnus (pl. alumni).
14. Studying for a degree: curriculum; syllabus; course; subject; lecture; seminar; to study for a bachelor degree;
to select/add/drop a course; to flunk a course; to attend/skip classes; to major in a subject; to study concurrently four
or five subjects; to attend lectures and seminars; to complete 10 courses per an academic year; to award/to earn
credits, a credit (=one hour of class per week); a three-credit course; to accumulate credits; to transfer credits from one
university to another; a pass-fail course; to play truant; to be expelled for taking drugs/for making racist remarks; to
be suspended for cheating in the exam; academic dishonesty such as copying from another student during the test / the
use of covert notes or crib sheets; internet plagiarism; to use web-sites with ready-made essays; contract cheating;
fall/spring term or semester.
15. Exams: examiner, examinee, candidate (Br); to prepare/revise/study/cram/swot up for an exam; to take/do an
exam; to do well/badly in an exam, to pass/scrape through/fail an exam; to retroughake an exam; to meet/miss the
deadline; to assess a student’s progress; to get very good/poor grades in the exam, grades: A,B,C,D - E,F (=failure), to
improve their grades; final examination; to graduate from a university.
 16. Graduation: graduation ceremony; to wear a gown and mortarboard; to obtain/get a degree; associate degree
(=after two years of study at a community college), Associate of Arts (A.A.); bachelor’s degree (=a first university
degree), Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Science (B.S.), Education (B.Ed.), Master’s degree (=a postgraduate degree), Master
of Arts (M.A.) etc.; Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) (=the highest university degree); to receive congratulations and
handshakes.

Part 2.
(From the text “Doctor in the House” (V.D.Arakin’s textbook, Unit 1))

 to be nothing more than …  to touch off the fighting spirit

Examinations are nothing more than an
investigation of a man’s knowledge.
 to have smb do smth.
His father will have him go in for medicine.
The examiner will have him give the proper
answer.
 Now that …
Now that you are well again, you can travel.
Now that he’s become a graduate student, he
can go in for research.
Now that you are through with the problem
you can do anything.
 to cheat in exams
She was caught UK cheating in her French
exam/ US cheating on her French exam
 to stumble through (the answer, one’s speech)
 to get through
 to struggle one’s way through
 to tick the day off (the calendar)
 to swot up on smth; to cram (for smth) (US)
 to win through
 to keep an eye open for smth
 to cut smb short
 to mark the papers
to grade the papers
to mark the tripos (=the exams for a BA
honours degree at Cambridge University,
consisting of two parts)
 to rally one’s thoughts
 to come out (about results)
 to call smth out, to roll call names
 to raise/lower one’s voice
 any frank / flagrant cheating in smth
 an unpleasant inevitability
 immediate punishment
 well-established rules
 the examining committee
 a well-trodden path
 an awkward expression
 nonchalant; a nonchalant manner / shrug; to
look nonchalant.
 an attitude of undeserved sternness
 to adopt some attitude towards somebody
 depressing experience
 triumphal, triumphal garlands
 to seek the opiate oblivion
 to receive congratulations and handshakes
 to fail an exam
 to muff smth (= to miss an opportunity to
do something well); He muffed his lines (=
he forgot them or said them wrongly).
 to plough
 to pip smb (=to beat smb in a race,
competition, etc. by only a small amount
or at the last moment); She pipped her
rival for the gold medal; He was pipped
at/to the post for the top award.
 Part 3.
(A)
(from North Star, Reading and Writing, 3rd edition,
Unit 7)
 homeshooling/ home education, to homeschool, to
be homeschooled, a homeschooler
 to be unschooled, unschooling, an unschooler
 long-distance learning
 self-instruction
 viable, a viable alternative/ option
 a traditional/ conventional/ mainstream school/
schooling; unconventional/ alternative/ marginal
schooling, conventionally schooled students
 to be bullied, to be (emotionally/ physically)
bullied, to be harassed
 to dictate smth
 to be stimulating, stimulating courses
 avid, an avid learner
 to motivate, to be motivated
 to provide a complete education
 a misconception, to be based on misconceptions, a
popular misconception
 the social isolation, to be isolated from one’s
peers, to experience isolation,
 eclectic, an eclectic group, to interact with an
eclectic group, an eclectic approach
 ongoing consultation (between smb)
 an ambition, to fulfill one’s academic and
professional ambitions
 persistence, persistent, to persist
 to encounter difficult course work
 to have the expertise, to lack expertise, subject
matter expertise, to have considerable expertise in
doing smth
 to balk at something, to balk at the thought of/
that…
 to memorize
 a fully-accredited institution
 an independent-study correspondence institution,
to study by correspondence, I did a
correspondence course in economics (=a course of
study that you do at home, communicating with
your teacher by post or email and sometimes using
materials on the internet)
 to outline the courses
 to earn a diploma
 to buckle down
 to work entirely on one’s own
 to submit, to submit a project
 to obtain grades for one’s transcript
 primary responsibility / concern / goal, etc.
 to dredge up long-forgotten lessons
 a volunteer job
 voracious, a voracious reader/ learner
 to read voraciously for hours
 a school buddy
 outside activities
 curriculum-oriented
 to get hands-on smth, hands-on experience/
practice/ help
 his tastes ranged from … to …
 a by-product, the inevitable by-product of mutual
respect, recognition
 to be top-notch, a top-notch company/ college/
physical condition
 to pursue one’s interests, to pursue a carreer
 to take full advantage of community resources
 to handle smth, to handle discipline problems
 exemplary of smb/smth, Her behaviour was
exemplary.
 to keep up with smth/ smb
 to feel at some disadvantage
 to socialize (with others, with one’s peers)
 to round out one’s education
 to abound in\ with
 to dispute, a dispute, His theories are open to
dispute, a long-standing dispute between the
families over ownership of the land
 to adjust to smth, to be/ get adjusted to
 to be on the rise
 to give credit for completed work
 to earn a diploma; to earn college credits
 to attend a public school
 to eliminate “administrativia”
 accountable, to be accountable for smth, to make
(teachers/ students) accountable
 to set educational agendas for one’s children
 to enrol (US English enroll) to enrol on a course
(UK), to enroll in a course (US)
(B)
(from North Star, Listening and Speaking, 3rd edition,
Unit 7)
 the daily ritual of homework; a nightly ritual
 to advocate (the return of capital punishment,
etc.); an advocate of smth/smb; The group
does not advocate the use of violence
 fervent (anti-homework activist)
 a solid/ firm foundation; to lay the foundations
 to fluctuate around smth (syn. to vary), to
fluctuate throughout the history; to fluctuate
from school to school
 to have tangible benefits; ant. intangible
 to raise/ to boost/ to build-up one’s self esteem
 low/ poor self-esteem; to have high/low self-
esteem
 to sacrifice one’s health for a job, to sacrifice a
promising career to look after a child
 demanding assignments
 to monitor the situation (syn. to control)
 to be held accountable for the results
 to become distraught; His family were too
distraught to speak yesterday; to be distraught
at the fact that; to be distraught at the news
that; to be distraught over smth; she was
distraught over marriage troubles / doing
smth
 to be over the top/ to go over the top
 to get out of control
 to stay out of the picture
 to conduct a study worldwide
 to buckle down for smth/ to do smth
 to conk out (inf.) (of a person) to go to sleep
 to have/ hold/ put/ keep one’s nose to a
grindstone = (informal) to work hard for a long
period of time without stopping
 to outlaw (homework as child labour); to be
outlawed by smb / smth
 to be truncated (by many social forces)
 to pre-empt smb / smth (=to prevent); A good
training course will pre-empt many problems.
 to merge (into smth.)
 to haunt (smb.)
 to impel (smb. to do smth.); to impel social
interaction, encourage social behaviour
 agonizing (UK), agonizing (US), agonizing
questions, an agonizing choice
 (to support smth.) wholeheartedly
 Part 4
Phrasal Verbs
(from V.D. Arakin’s textbook, Unit 1)
go about
go along
go at (smth or smb)
go back, to go back on
something (a promise, agreement,
one’s word, etc.)
go behind (the poet’s words)
go by, let it go by
go down, go down with
somebody (with the public)
go down the drain
go Dutch/ halves
go easy (infml), go easy on
somebody
go as/so far as (not fml)
go into
go over
go round