Russian Lessons: Time Schedule

35. 
Can you please explain to me what is this system about? 
36. 
Each day, beginning with the first form, all pupils get homework (also 
called home assignments). After coming home from school, pupils, as a rule, 
have their dinner, spend a couple of hours playing outside, and then start to do 
their lessons. In primary school, time required to prepare homework is usually 
insignificant. However, as time goes on the pupil will need to work at home 
harder and harder. 
37. 
What happens if a pupil does not prepare his or her homework? 
38. 
In our schools it is customary to call pupils to the blackboard so that 
they can demonstrate in front of the whole class how they prepared their 
homework. During each lesson a teacher invites to the blackboard three to five 

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pupils - one by one. Each pupil can only guess when he or she will be called next 
time. 
39. 
Is it better, therefore, to be ready for each lesson - just in case? 
40. 
Exactly! Especially as a mark for the blackboard performance will be 
recorded in a diary which is checked by parents on a regular basis. In addition, 
according to the results of such performances, an overall mark for a quarter of a 
year is put down in the school report. Depending on the subject's marks for each 
quarter of a year, an overall mark for the whole year is recorded at the end of the 
year. And when the study of any particular subject is completed, then the mark 
for that year is included in the school-leaving certificate. 
41. 
How are students selected by a vooz for acceptance? Are all the 
applicants accepted or only those of them who have high marks in their school-
leaving certificate? And what is the difference between a university and an 
institute? 
42. 
Our universities prepare specialists mainly in the fields of the social 
sciences, the humanities, and general branches of science (for example: 
philosophers, physicists, philologists, journalists, and so on). The institutes 
prepare engineers, doctors, teachers, librarians, veterinary surgeons, economists. 
In cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, apart from the university, you will find 
several dozen different institutes, e.g. the electrotechnical institute, the 
shipbuilding institute, the institute of engineers of the cinematographic industry, 
the telecommunications institute, the medical institute, the teachers' institute, and 

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so on, and so forth. Admittance to a university or an institute, as a rule, is based 
on the results of five competitive examinations, which are conducted in that same 
institute. Only those who graduated from school with a gold or silver medal are 
excused from the exams (at least partially).