Unit 1
Warming Up Activity
1. Translate from Russian into English using proper prepositions:
11 ноября 1615 г., 18 марта 1066 г., (назначено) на 9 апреля 1988 г. вечером 11 сентября 2001 г., накануне 31 марта 2003 г., после 18 декабря 2019 г., до 27 октября 1963 г., в 4 утра 22 июня 1941 г., вплоть до 15 мая 1535 г., (датировано) 9 января 1905 г., о 29 февраля 1988 г.
2. Say the time in English:
08.40; 17.35; 18.03; 09.04; 20.15; 19.27; 16.54; 23.30; 0.00; 15.05; 03.55; 09.17; 06.07; 07.06; 13.41; 21.38; 22.39; 12.19; 14.26; 05.48; 04.32; 02.20.
3. Say in words:
1,7 %; 1,000,345; $475; £ 236; 圓 88; ¥ 32; 14,57 %; € 589; Rs 32,000; ₪ 56; 25,750; 45 ha; 50 mph; 20 ml; 10>9 Hz; 230 V.
Reading
4. Read the text.
The word economy comes from the Greek word oikonomos, which means “one who manages a household.” At first, this origin might seem peculiar. But in fact, households and economies have much in common.
A household faces many decisions. It must decide which members of the household do which tasks and what each member gets in return: Who cooks dinner? Who does the laundry? Who gets the extra dessert at dinner? Who gets to choose what TV show to watch? In short, the household must allocate its scarce resources among its various members, taking into account each member’s abilities, efforts, and desires.
Like a household, a society faces many decisions. A society must find some way to decide what jobs will be done and who will do them. It needs some people to grow food, other people to make clothing, and still others to design computer software. Once society has allocated people (as well as land, buildings, and machines) to various jobs, it must also allocate the output of goods and services they produce. It must decide who will eat caviar and who will eat potatoes. It must decide who will drive a Ferrari and who will take the bus. The management of society’s resources is important because resources are scarce.
Scarcity means that society has limited resources and therefore cannot produce all the goods and services people wish to have. Just as each member of a household cannot get everything he or she wants, each individual in a society cannot attain the highest standard of living to which he or she might aspire.
