You: The thirty-first of December, nineteen ninety-nine Your partner: The last day of this century
9. Make the story about the career of Margaret Thatcher. Use the dates mentioned. By analogy compose a story about another outstanding person.
Margaret Thatcher
| 1925 Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Margaret Hilda, daughter of Alfred Roberts, a grocer. Later attended Grantham Girl School. Studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford. 1847-51 Worked as a research chemist. | 1975 Elected leader of the Conservative Party. First woman to lead a British political party. 1979 Conservatives defeated Labour Party in General Election. Became Prime Minister (first woman, 52nd Prime Minister). | |||
| 1951 Married Denis Thatcher, a London-based business ex- ecutive. | 1982 Retained control of the Falk- land Islands by use of mili- tary force. | |||
| 1951-54 Studied law. Specialized in tax law. | 1984 Survived an IRA bomb at- tack at the Grand Hotel, Brighton. Visited the USA. | |||
| 1953 Had twins, a son and a daughter, Mark and Carol. | ||||
| 1986 Published a book, In Defence of Freedom. | ||||
| 1954 Became a lawyer. | ||||
| 1959 Elected Member of Parlia- ment for Finchley. | 1987 Won a third General Elec- tion. | |||
| 1970-74 Member of Cabinet- Secretary of State for Educa- tion and Science. | 1990 Replaced as Prime Minister by John Major. | |||
10. Study the graphs and complete the report on the financial results of the British finances Aerospace Group, using the phrases below.
Sales
| £ 12,000m | |
| £ 10,000m | |
| £8,000m | |
| £6,000m | |
| £4,000m | |
| £2,000m | |
| 86 87 88 89 90 |
went up from rose to fell dramatically increased by to stand at increased steadily rose sharply
Sales... between 1986 and 1988, then... in 1989. The group's pre-tax profits... in 1987 when they made a loss or over
£100 m. There was a strong recovery in the late eighties and 1990's results were very healthy.
11. Use this information to complete the company's balance sheet.
a) The amount the company owed their suppliers increased to £4,402min 1990.
The value of raw materials, work in progress, and finished goods increased by 20% to stand at £2,834m.
Investment in the business increased sharply to £2,860m.
The value of the company's investments, property and equipment rose by £289m to stand at £3,282m.
The company's short-term borrowing from the bank amounted to £223m in 1990.
The amount customers owed the company fell slightly to £l,320m.
b) Complete the sentences with a word from the list below: borrowed earned gave invest owed saved spent wasting
1. In 1990 the group... £4m from investments in overseas companies.
2. The accountants advised us to repay 15% of what we... to the banks.
3. The shareholders criticized the board for... so much money on unnecessary trips abroad.
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4. The company... £5,000 to a local school to set up a computer department.
5. My stockbroker suggested I should... in a South East Asia Unit Trust.
6. The government... £6.5 billion from the IMF for a construction project.
7. Last year we... over £3.5m on a research and development project.
8. We... £323,500 in administrative costs by reducing the number of office staff.
12. a) Look at the menu and order your own meal.
| Food | Portion Calories | Fibre | |
| Plaice, fillets, fried in | 6 oz (170g) raw weight | 435 | 1.0 |
| crumbs | |||
| Pork | |||
| chop, rilled | 7oz (200g) raw weight, fat | 315 | 0 |
| cut off after grilling | |||
| leg, roast | 3oz (85g), lean only | 155 | 0 |
| Pork sausages, grilled | 2 oz (56g), large sausage, | 135 | 0 |
| raw weight | |||
| 1 oz (28g), 1 chipolata, raw | 65 | 0 | |
| weight | |||
| Porridge | 1 oz (28g) oatmeal or por- | 110 | 2.0 |
| ridge oats made up with | |||
| water | |||
| Potato | |||
| baked | 7 oz (200g), | 170 | 5.0 |
| roast | 2 oz (56g) | 90 | 1.0 |
| instant, mashed | 1 (28g) dry weight | 90 | 4/5 |
| old, boiled and | 4oz(113g) | 90 | 1/0 |
| mashed | |||
| new | |||
| boiled | 4oz(113g) | 85 | 2.5 |
| canned | 4oz(113g) | 60 | 3.0 |
| drained weight | |||
| Prawns, shelled | 2 oz (56g) | 60 | 0 |
| Prunes, dried | |||
| with stones | 1 oz (28g) | 20 | 2.0 |
| stewed without sugar | 4oz(113g) | 85 | 8.5 |
b) Your partner wants to be fitter and healthier. Give strong suggestions and advices.
You should drink more water /play sport/.
13. Reacting to statistics. Study the following statistics about arms spending in the world, and then write a report outlining your reactions to them. Read text in part and take it as model.
A) Comparative spending of 9 countries in 1984.
Numbers = million US $
| Country | Military | % of GNP | Education | Health |
| France | 23.106 | 4.1 | 29.507 | 37.149 |
| Greece | 3.049 | 7.2 | 1.006 | 1.543 |
| Japan | 12.364 | 1.0 | 63.550 | 56.874 |
| Italy | 10.652 | 2.7 | 22.217 | 23.107 |
| Spain | 4.492 | 2.4 | 4.600 | 8.528 |
| United Kingdom | 26.525 | 5.4 | 25.260 | 26.525 |
| United States | 237.052 | 6.4 | 182.520 | 159.500 |
| USSR | 225.400 | 11.5 | 91.800 | 62.700 |
| W. Germany | 21.956 | 3.3 | 30.953 | 54.482 |
Gross National Product (World Military and Social Expenditure 1987-88, Ruth Leger Sivard)
B) Defence spending
The estimated level of spending on armaments throughout the world is about $790,000 million (£500,000 million). This rer resents £100 per person per annum, or 10 per cent of the world's total production of goods and services. In 1986 there were 27.2 million full-lime armed force regulars or conscripts plus 42.6 million reservists and 30.8 million para-militaries to total more than 100 million. The budgeted expenditure on defence by the US Government for the fiscal year 1986 was $273,369 million (£180 billion). The defence burden on the USSR has been variously estimated as a percentage of GNP (gross national product) to be between 12 and 17 per cent and thus may nearly treble of the US (6.4 per cent of GNP) (Guinness Book of Records).
14. a) Read the text. Analize the power of number "13". Give only other examples.
Number power
Some people say it makes no sense, but numbers play an important part in many lives. That's why the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre has decided not to allow the number 666 on car numberplates because it is the mark of the devil.
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Other numbers have great superstitious power - just ask triskaidekaphobics - people who fear the number 13 and Friday 13th in particular. Thanks to them, elevators all over the country jump from floor 12 to floor 14. On Concorde, you won't find Row 13, and many hotels have no floor 13.
At the Savoy Hotel, they are very careful. If there are 13 guests to dinner, the waiters bring an extra "guest" - a small black cat made of stone called Kaspar - to make the numbers up to 14. According to the story, a South African businessman, Wool Joel, went ahead with a dinner for 13 people in 1898 after the 14th guest cancelled. Joel was murdered soon afterwards.
People who study numbers say that each number relates to one of the planets and that your birthday has a special meaning. To find out what numbers are important to you, write down your birth date. The day describes your outer personality, the month is your inner self and the year is your future. Where there is more than one figure, add them together to get a single figure. For example, 1965 =1+9+6+5 which is 21. Then add 2+1 to get 3.
b) Work out your important numbers and complete the chart below.
1. Sun - a great creator, outgoing, strong
2. Moon - imaginative, sensitive
3. Jupiter - ambitious, optimistic, positive
4. Uranus - intelligent, scientific, often misunderstood
5. Mercury - good communicator, quick, thinker
6. Venus - sensual, passionate, romantic
7. Neptune - impatient, good learner
8. Saturn - caring, understanding, but susceptible to problems
9. Mars - strong, brave, passionate
1. Birthday ________Total_________Inner self_________
2. Month__________Total_________Outer self ________
3. Year ___________Total_________Future ___________
/5. Study the following information about Australia and complete the story about this country given in part B.
People
Little is known about the first Australians, except that they were black people who came to the continent thousands of years ago. About 300,000 Australians spread over nearly 8 million square kilometres and divided into 500 or so tribes speaking 300 different languages. The Aboriginal Australians lived entirely by gathering edible plants and sea-food and hunting wild animals and birds. Some scholars characterise the people of such societies as "savages" or "primitive communists". To think of them in this light is perhaps the best way to understand whv the new white Australians and the old black ones could hardly understand each other in the 18th and the 19th centuries. The ancient black society believed in the sanctity of communal and public property, while the while newcomers - society was based on the sanctity of private property.
First Europeans came to Australia in the 17th century. It was an age when any part of the world whose inhabitants couldn't fight the Europeans was considered European property English Captain James Cook announced in 1770 that the whole east coast now belonged to Great Britain and gave it the curious name of "New South Wales".
On 26 January, 1788 the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove The first settlers were mostly convicts, soldiers and government officers. The British Government decided to use the Australian land as an "open air prison". In the convict societies they tried to turn thieves into more or less honest workers.
Part B. Make a report about Australia. Use the information of both parts.
Religion:
Anglican - 26.1%, Roman Catholik - 26%, other Christian - 24%. Area:
total area: 7,686,850 km, land area - 7,617,930 km, comparative area: slightly smaller than the US. Land boundaries: 0 km. Coastline: 25,760 km.
Climate: generally arid to semiarid temperate in south and east; tropical in north.
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Terrain: mostly low plateau with deserts; fertile plain in southeast. Land use: arable land: 6%; permanent crops: 0%; meadows and pastures: 58%; forest and woodland: 14%; other 22%. Labour force: 8.63 million (Sept. 1991) by occupation: finance and services 33.8%, public and community services 22.3%, wholesale and retail trade 20.1%, manufacturing and industry 16.2%, agriculture 6.1 (1987). Unemployment rate: 11.3% (Dec. 1992). Administrative divisions: 6 states: New South Wales, Queens Land, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia and 2 territories; Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory.
16. You are going to read an article about the changing state of the family. Look at the following statements and analyse them. Discuss them with your partner:
\. Marriage is becoming less important to many young people.
2. Families are spending less time together.
3. The divorce rate is rising.
4. More parents are bringing their children up alone without a partner.
5. More women are having careers rather than starting families.
6. The average family is getting smaller as the birthrate falls.
