practice8-q3

Email to the School Newspaper

The university has decided to increase tuition by 10%. I know it’s a lot but we should support this. The money will be used to add new research facilities with modern equipment and to hire more instructors. Our research facilities possess many out-of-date pieces of machinery that are no longer used in the professional world, which gives students inadequate lab experience to compete in the job market. Also, many of our basic courses have a huge number of students. More professors will yield smaller classes, which will provide a better classroom learning experience for us all.

Question

Explain the woman’s opinion of the change and the reasons she gives for holding that opinion.

Transcript

00:00/01:16

M: Hey Suzy. What are you reading?
W: I’m reading Tina’s email in the paper. Did you read it yet?
M: Yeah. What do you think about what she said?
W: Well, I have to admit, I really didn’t like the idea at first, but she made some really good points. I actually agree; I think the tuition increase is a good idea after all.
M: Are you serious? Don’t you think it’s a lot?
W: It’s a big increase, but the school could dramatically improve the equipment in our research departments with that money. I’m doing chemistry research now for one of my classes and most of the machines are old and there aren’t that many.
M: Really?
W: Yeah. Most companies don’t even use the machines we have anymore anyways, so I definitely don’t feel like I’m getting the kind of experience that will help me find a good job once I graduate.
M: That’s terrible.
W: And, hiring more professors will help a lot. I understand that introductory courses are always going to be big, but even in my more advanced classes, there are too many students. In fact, some classes are only offered once a year instead of twice because there are too few professors.