Entry examinations

Exemplary program of entry examinations on Russian language

General information about the language

Modern Russian standard language as a subject of scientific research. Russian standard language is a standardized and worked-up form of the nation-wide language. Russian language as one of the Indo-European languages. Place of the Russian language among related Slavic languages. Language and culture. Language and history of the nation. Main changes in the Russian language in the last decades. Problems of language ecology. Russian language in the modern world. Russian language is a national language of the Russian nation, official language of the Russian Federation and language of the international communication. Russian writers on wealth and artistic expression of the Russian language. Linguistics as a language science. Sections of linguistics. Leading scientists Russianists. Main linguistic vocabularies.

Language system

Language as a system. Main levels of language. Phonetics. Syllable as a unit of language. Classification of vocal and consonant sounds.
Distinctive role of speech sounds. Notion of phoneme.
Emphasis in Russian language.
Distinctive role of lexical stress.
Phonetic figures of speech in Russian language.
Tone. Main elements of tone (logical emphasis, pause, impression and depression of voice, speech tone, etc.)
Distinctive function of tone. Main requirements to intonationally correct and expressive speech.
Vocabulary and phraseology. Word as a main unit of language.
Lexical and grammatical, direct and figurative meanings of words; monosemantic and polysemantic words. Figurative meaning of words and basis of figures of speech.
Synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, paronyms
Historical changes in the lexical structure of the language. Archaisms and historisms. Main sources of vocabulary replenishment.
Neologisms
Origins of words: native Russian and borrowed words. Old Slavic words. Commonly used and not commonly used words.
Dialecticisms, professionalisms, term words.
Phraseological units of the Russian language: idioms, phraseological combinations, sayings and proverbs, eloquent expressions. Phraseologism sources. Lexical means of speech expression. Lexical vocabularies of the Russian language. Morphemics and word-generation. Morphema as a unit of language. Morphema types. Vowel and consonant graduation in morphemas. Historical changes in word structure. Ethimology and a section of linguistic.
Main ways of word generation in the Russian language. Word generating means of speech expression.
Morphema and word generating vocabularies. Morphology. Parts of speech in the Russian language.
Independent and auxiliary parts of speech.
Exclamation
A noun: meaning, constant and inconstant sings, syntactic role.
Methods of noun generation.
Adjective: meaning, constant and inconstant sings, syntactic role.
Categories of adjectives by meaning.
Adjective generation ways
Numeral: meaning, constant and inconstant sings, syntactic role
Cardinal and serial numerals. Categories of cardinal numerals. Inclination of numerals.
Pronoun. Meaning of pronouns. Categories. Inclination of pronouns.
Verb: meaning. constant and inconstant sings, syntactic role
Verb generation ways.
Participle
Adverbial participle
Adverb. Meaning and categories of adverbs
Adverb generation ways.
Preposition. Notion of preposition. Functions of prepositions. Categories of prepositions.
Conjunction. Notion of conjunction. Functions of conjunctions. Categories of conjunctions by meaning.
Particle. Notion of particle. Functions of particles. Categories of particles by meaning. Exclamation. Meanings of exclamations.
Morphological means of speech expression.
Syntax. Expression and sentence and syntax units.
Expression. Structure of expression. Types of relations in expressions.
Simple sentence.
Grammatical basis. Types of simple sentences by purpose of statement, by intonation.
One-member and double-member sentences.
Types of one-member sentences.
Members of sentence: main and secondary members; expression ways of the sentence members. Extended and unextended sentences; complete and incomplete sentences.
Homogenous members of sentences.
Segregated members of a sentence.
Addresses. Introductory words and sentences.
Complex sentence.
Types of complex sentence.
Conjunction and conjunctionless complex sentences.
Conjunction complex sentences: compound and complex sentences.
Compound sentences with different types of co-ordinating conjunctions.
Complex sentences with different types of relations. Types of complex sentences.
Conjunctionless complex sentences.
Complex sentences with different types of relations.
Sentences with direct and indirect speech.
Synonymy of synthactic structures.
Syntax figures of speech.

Culture of speech

Culture of speech, its subject and objectives. Main notion of the culture of speech at level of correct speech, norm of literature language. Orphoepic, lexical, grammatical, spelling norms. Norm variations. Information on language norm in various types of linguistic vocabularies.
Reference literature on culture of the Russian speech.

Orthography and punctuation

Russian spelling as a system of commonly accepted norms of writing. Role of orthography and punctuation in written communication between people. References on orthography and punctuation. Orthography as a system of rules. Sections of the Russian orthography and principles of writing. Morpheme spelling. Principle of consistent writing of morpheme – the leading principle of the Russian spelling. Cursive, hyphenated and separate writing modes. Role of semantic and grammatical analysis upon selection of the correct writing. Use of small and capital letters. Rules of word break. Punctuation as a system of rules of position of the punctuation marks. Principles of Russian punctuation. Punctuation as method for reflection of the semantic side of speech in writing, its syntax structure and punctuation properties. Separatory and intensifying punctuation marks. Sections of the Russian punctuation and system of rules included in each of them:
1) Punctuation marks at the end of sentence
2) Punctuation marks inside a simple sentence
3) Punctuation marks between parts of a complex sentence
4) Punctuation marks upon transmission of alien speech
5) Punctuation marks in textual unity

Text

Text as a verbal product. Main properties of the text. Type of texts by functional and semantic properties and by speech styles. Methods and means of relation of sentences in a text.