Unit quiz: Reading Russian that was not written for learners: news reports, rule sheets, personal voice, numbers and unstated meaning

Check understanding, separately from reading

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Question 1

A short report runs: «По данным Минтранса, ремонт дороги завершат до конца года. Как сообщает издание «Дорожные вести» со ссылкой на источник в министерстве, финансирование уже согласовано.» Which sentence can the reader trace to an accountable source, which cannot, and what does the difference change for a reader who has to act on it?The first is traceable: it names Минтранс and hands the claim to a document through по данным, so the document can be requested and the institution can be asked. The second is not: it reports only that a publication cites an unnamed source inside the ministry, so nobody identifiable stands behind the funding claim. The difference changes whether the reader can contest the claim before acting, not whether it is true.Both sentences are equally traceable, because each one names the ministry; по данным and со ссылкой на are two spellings of the same attribution.

Question 2

A notice on a laboratory door reads: «Посетителям не разрешается входить в лабораторию без сопровождения. Не надо оставлять сумки в коридоре. При необходимости обратитесь к дежурному.» What does each obligation bind, and how should the second sentence be read?The second sentence means there is no obligation, so leaving bags in the corridor is permitted; не надо always marks a missing requirement.The first binds посетителям in the dative and states a prohibition with a reflexive passive; the second uses не надо, whose usual reading is a prohibition rather than 'you need not', so a careful reader treats it as a rule and looks for можно не if the text meant the action was optional. The third names no obligee at all and refers to дежурному in the dative as the person spoken to.

Question 3

In one personal passage a narrator writes «Я давно занимаюсь русским» and two sentences later «Об этих курсах я узнала давно». A reader renders both with 'long ago' and finds the next sentence, about what she still cannot do, contradictory. What has the reader done wrong?The rendering has erased a tense distinction: with a non-past imperfective verb давно means 'for a long time now', so я давно занимаюсь describes a habit still running, while with a past verb давно means 'long ago', so я узнала давно describes a finished event. Keeping the two apart removes the contradiction, because the habit is still in progress when the narrator lists what she still finds hard.Nothing is wrong: давно is an adverb of past time, so both sentences refer to the past and the narrator's later difficulty shows that her first claim was inaccurate.

Question 4

A regional release says: «Доля семей с детьми выросла с 12 до 18 процентов, рост составил 6 процентов.» A reader wants to quote the change in a summary. Recompute the figures and state what the sentence mixes up.The sentence is correct: 18 minus 12 equals 6, and a difference of six in percentage figures is six percent.The rise is 6 percentage points, not 6 percent; as a relative change it is 50 percent, because 18 divided by 12 equals 1.5. The sentence has stated a difference between two rates in the unit of the rates themselves, and a reader quoting 'рост 6 процентов' would be repeating a unit error that changes the size of the change by a factor of more than eight.

Question 5

A job advertisement reads: «Заработная плата — от шестидесяти тысяч рублей. Возможны командировки. Ищем человека, который не боится ответственности.» A reader writes to the advertiser expecting 60,000 roubles and paid travel. Which layer of meaning has the reader confused?The reader has promoted invitations and hedges into assertions: от plus a figure is a floor rather than a rate, возможны marks a possibility the writer does not promise, and 'does not fear responsibility' invites an inference about pressure that the text never asserts. Each of those can be withdrawn without contradiction, which is what distinguishes an implicature from a claim.The reader has understood correctly: от шестидесяти тысяч means the salary starts at 60,000 and will be at least that, and возможны командировки means travel is part of the job and will be reimbursed.

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