Практический курс английского языка - Practical Course of English for Students of Economics

368 Pages·00.93 MB·368\368

by  Бедрицкая Л. В. [и др.]

ПРАКТИЧЕСКИЙ КУРС
АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА
PRACTICAL COURSE
OF ENGLISH FOR STUDENTS
OF ECONOMICS
Допущено Министерством образования Республики Беларусь
в качестве учебного пособия для студентов учреждений
высшего образования по экономическим специальностям
Под редакцией В. С. Слеповича
Минск
«ТетраСистемс»
УДК 811.111(075.8)
ББК 81.2Англ-923
П69
Авторы:
старший преподаватель Л. В. Бедрицкая; старший преподаватель
Т. К. Глазкова; старший преподаватель Г. И. Сидоренко (кафедра делового
английского языка Белорусского государственного экономического
университета); кандидат филологических наук, доцент, зав. кафедрой
теории и практики английской речи Белорусского государственного
экономического университета Т. Ф. Солонович
Рецензенты:
кафедра английского языка экономических специальностей факультета
международных отношений Белорусского государственного университета;
кандидат филологических наук, доцент, зав. кафедрой иностранных
языков Института государственной службы Академии управления
при Президенте Республики Беларусь А. Г. Храмченков
Практический курс английского языка = Practical Course of
П69 English for Students of Economics : учеб. пособие для студентов
экон. специальностей вузов / Л. В. Бедрицкая [и др.] ; под ред.
В. С. Слеповича. – Минск : ТетраСистемс, 2012. – 368 с.
ISBN 978-985-536-306-5.
Пособие состоит из двух частей, дополнительных текстов для чтения, клю-
чей к заданиям. Первая и вторая части представляют собой комплекс текстов,
подобранных из оригинальных английских и американских источников, и за-
даний, целью которых является выработка лексических, грамматических навы-
ков, а также навыков устной и письменной речи. Дополнительные тексты для
чтения могут быть использованы как в работе по основным разделам, так и для
самостоятельной работы.
Пособие предназначено для студентов экономических специальностей
вузов и лиц, желающих расширить свои знания английского языка в области
экономики и бизнеса.
УДК 811.111(075.8)
ББК 81.2Англ-923
ISBN 978-985-536-306-5 © Оформление. НТООО «ТетраСистемс», 2012
2
ÏÐÅÄÈÑËÎÂÈÅ
Данное учебное пособие предназначено для студентов эконо-
мических специальностей вузов. Структура пособия определяется
профессиональными аспектами деятельности специалиста в об-
ласти экономики и бизнеса и представлена следующими темами:
Economics, Goods and Services, Finance, Business Law (Л. В. Бедрицкая)
Business Organization, Management, Marketing, Advertising (Г. И. Си-
доренко), Women in Business, Employment, Banking (Т. К. Глазкова),
Accounting, Small Business. Entrepreneurship (Т. Ф. Солонович).
Все разделы учебного пособия имеют единую структуру и
включают следующие блоки: Lead-in (введение), Reading (тексты
по специальности), Language (формально-тренировочные упраж-
нения), Speaking (коммуникативно-содержательные упражнения),
Writing (задания, направленные на формирования навыков пись-
менной речи), Key Vocabulary (базовая лексика каждого раздела).
Базовые тексты представлены аутентичными описательными
текстами, которые тематически связаны друг с другом и касают-
ся различных сторон темы или расширяют ее. При подборе текс-
тов авторы исходили из методической концепции неразрывности
процесса познания и развития навыков работы с текстовым мате-
риалом и навыков устной и письменной речи, а также опирались
на принцип реализации междисциплинарных связей, когда сту-
денты параллельно получают базовые экономические знания в лек-
ционных курсах по экономическим дисциплинам.
Текстовый материал, предтекстовые и послетекстовые задания
направлены на совершенствование речевых навыков студентов
неязыковых специальностей путем обучения восприятию и ос-
мыслению прочитанного текста, активизации словарного запа-
са и речевых структур в процессе репродукции информативного
содержания текста, что не исключает дополнительных заданий,
которые могут быть составлены преподавателями, работающими
с данным учебным пособием.
Лексические, грамматические и фонетические задания даны
в блоке Language, но задания по формированию фонетических
и лексических навыков могут использоваться в качестве пред-
текстовых. Все задания построены на активной лексике раздела,
часть заданий построена на связных текстах небольшого объема,
которые являются дополнительным источником информации по
теме раздела. В связи с этим, помимо языковых заданий, даются
задания на развитие навыков устной речи. Учитывая достаточно
3
серьезную грамматическую подготовку абитуриентов и наличие
большого количества грамматических справочников, авторы ог-
раничились включением лишь небольшого количества грамма-
тических заданий, представляющих определенную трудность для
студентов неязыковых вузов. Задания, отмеченные значком *,
являются заданиями повышенной трудности и выполняются по
усмотрению преподавателя в зависимости от уровня подготовки
студентов.
Задания, предлагаемые в блоке Speaking, носят творческий ха-
рактер и направлены на формирование коммуникативных навы-
ков в условно-заданных речевых ситуациях, а также творческого
мышления и умения формулировать собственное мнение. Особое
внимание уделяется обучению всем видам пересказа, формиро-
ванию навыков диалогической речи, выражению своей позиции
через согласие/несогласие, а также умений аргументированно до-
казывать или опровергать предложенный тезис.
Целью заданий блока Writing является формирование навыков
академического письма и такой важнейшей компетенции студен-
та экономического вуза, как умение составлять целевые и обзор-
ные рефераты, аннотации, эссе, отзывы.
Раздел Supplementary Reading содержит аутентичные тексты, даю-
щие дополнительную информацию по темам основных разделов.
Тексты данного раздела могут быть использованы как для фор-
мирования навыков различных видов чтения, так и для развития
речевых навыков при выполнении заданий из блока Discussion. Эти
тексты могут также служить материалом для обучения студентов
реферированию и аннотированию текстов. Краткое руководство по
составлению реферата и аннотации дано в Приложении (Appendix).
Кроме того, эти тексты дают возможность дифференцировать обу-
чение в зависимости от языковой компетенции студентов.
Учитывая увеличение времени, отводимого на самостоятель-
ную работу студентов в учебном процессе, авторы снабдили часть
заданий ключами, что позволит снять часть нагрузки с аудитор-
ных занятий.
4
PART I
Unit 1
ECONOMICS
(cid:59)
Lead-in
Economics is exciting and important. Anyone who thinks other-
wise has failed to realize that economic ideas and practices have
moved people to rebellion, and nations to war. Many of the great
issues that confront us today – among them unemployment,
inflation, ecological decay – have economic roots. In order to
diagnose and remedy these ailments, we must first understand
their complex nature.
Milton H. Spencer
1. Do you share the opinion that economics is exciting and impor-
tant? Give your reasons.
2. How can economics help understand the nature of such ailments
as unemployment, inflation, etc.?
3. List the main economic problems affecting the world today. How
can the knowledge of economics help solve them?
4. Why are Rembrandts expensive while water is cheap – especially
since everyone needs water more than Rembrandts?
5. Why are some luxury apartments vacant while there is shortage of
low-cost housing?
6. Why do the prices of some commodities fluctuate while the prices
of others remain stable?
(cid:59)
Reading
Text 1
Read the text. Be ready to answer the following questions: 1. Why is it important to
learn economic terminology? 2. What is an economic institution? 3. How can cultural
norms affect economies? 4. What is meant by ‘economic reasoning’?
Introduction
Economists have developed the terminology to describe economic is-
sues. This terminology is important because if you are going to talk about
the state of the economy, you need the terminology to do it. Shareholder,
GDP, GNP, capital, supply and demand, costs, benefits, exchange rate are
just a few of the terms the meaning of which any educated person in
5
modern society needs to know. Two terms to be introduced to you im-
mediately are the economy and economics. The economy is the institu-
tional structure through which individuals in a society coordinate their
diverse wants or desires. Economics is the study of the economy. That
is, economics is the study of how human beings in a society coordinate
their wants and desires.
An economic institution is a physical or mental structure that signifi-
cantly influences economic decisions. Corporations, governments, and
cultural norms are all economic institutions. Many economic institu-
tions have social, political, and religious dimensions. For example, your
job often influences your social standing. In addition, many social in-
stitutions, such as family, have economic functions. If any institution
significantly affects economic decisions, it can be considered as an eco-
nomic institution. Even cultural norms can affect economies. A cultural
norm is a standard people use when they determine whether a particular
activity or behaviour is acceptable.
Learning economic reasoning means learning how to think as an
economist. People trained in economics think in a certain way. They
analyze everything critically. Having put their emotions aside, they com-
pare the costs and the benefits of every issue and make decisions based
on those costs and benefits.
Text 2
Read the text. Be ready to answer the questions below it and explain the key terms of
the text given both in bold and italics.
Economics
Understanding how various economies work is the basic purpose of
studying economics. We seek to know how an economy is organized,
how it behaves, and how successfully it achieves its basic objectives.
Economics is concerned with production, distribution, and con-
sumption of goods and services. There are two branches of economics.
Macroeconomics (macro derives from the Greek word for “large”) in-
vestigates how scarce resources are allocated within the economy as a
whole or within an entire industry. Scarcity occurs because human wants
exceed the production possible with our limited time and resources.
Scarcity implies that every decision involves opportunity costs. Opportu-
nity costs exist in all situations where available resources are not abun-
dant enough to satisfy all our desires. You can select only a few of all
available alternatives. For example, a little boy goes into a toy store with
$10. Many different toys tempt him, but he finally narrows his choice
to a Monopoly game and a magic set, each costing $10. If he decides to
6
buy the Monopoly game, the opportunity cost is the magic set. And if
he buys the magic set, the opportunity cost is the Monopoly game. If a
town hires an extra police officer instead of repaving several streets, the
opportunity cost of hiring the officer is not repaving the streets. Oppor-
tunity cost is the cost of giving up the next best alternative. Thus scarcity
forces us to choose. This idea is reflected in the following definition of
economics: Economics is the study of how people, individually or col-
lectively, allocate their limited resources to try to satisfy their unlimited
wants. Commonly agreed-upon goals of macro policy include:
1. High employment. People suffer when many workers cannot find
job and manufacturing plants and much machinery are idle.
2. Price stability. If average prices are volatile, people may be uncer-
tain about how much their wages will buy or whether to consume now or
invest in hopes of future returns.
3. Economic growth. People want higher incomes each year and most
hope their children will be even more prosperous than they are.
Microeconomics (micro derives from the Greek word for “small”)
studies the economic behavior of individual firms. Three major goals
dominate micro policy:
1. Efficiency. An inefficient economy wastes resources and fails to
provide the highest possible standard of living for consumers.
2. Equity. Huge gaps between the rich and the poor leave most people
impoverished while a privileged few live luxuriously.
3. Freedom. Maximum freedom requires people to have the widest
possible range of choices available.
In order to produce anything, we need resources, or factors of pro-
duction. Factors of production are the inputs – land, labour, and capital
(buildings and machinery) – we use to produce final goods and services
(output). From an economist’s standpoint, resources refer to anything
that can be used to produce products, that is, either goods or services.
Every society, from a tiny island nation in the Pacific to the most
complex industrial giants, needs these resources: land, labour, capital
and entrepreneurial ability. Land and capital are referred to as material
resources. Labour and entrepreneurship are referred to as human re-
sources. These are resources for the economy as a whole.
As a resource, land has a much more general meaning than our nor-
mal understanding of the word. Economists use the term land in a broad
sense to include not only agricultural land and land for building sites but
also other natural resources like minerals, water, and timber. The basic
payment made to the owners of land is rent.
Capital. In economic terms, capital is ”man-made” goods used to
produce other goods or services. Equipment, buildings, tools as well as
the money that buys other resources are capital goods.
7
Labour. The efforts of a factory worker, a lawyer, a sales representa-
tive, or anyone who works for a business are defined as labour.
Entrepreneurial ability is the least familiar of four basic resources. The
entrepreneur sets up a business, assembles the needed resources, risks
his or her own money, and reaps the profits or absorbs the losses of this
enterprise.
Although all economies rely on the same basic factors of produc-
tion, not all are blessed with the same quantity and quality of resources.
Besides each economic system reflects the country’s history, traditions,
aspirations, and politics. What works for one culture might not work as
well for another, and vice versa.
1. What is economics concerned with?
2. What does macroeconomics investigate?
3. Why does scarcity occur?
4. What are the main goals of macro policy?
5. What does microeconomics study?
6. What do resources refer to?
7. How many factors of production does the economic system use?
What are they?
Text 3
Read the text. Ask 5-7 questions about the text.
Adam Smith’s Market Economy
The former Scottish professor of philosophy at the University of
Glasgow published a monumental book entitled An Inquiry into the Na-
ture and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Usually known simply as The
Wealth of Nations, it is an eloquent statement expounding a doctrine of
economic freedom.
The book earned Smith the epithet “the founder of economics” be-
cause it was the first complete and systematic study of the subject. Smith
argued that individuals know best what is good for them. If unrestricted
by government controls or private monopolies, people will be motivated
by the quest for profit to turn out the goods and services that society
wants, people (businesses) will be led as though by an “invisible hand”
to attain the greatest economic good for society. In other words, if each
person (or business) is free to work at maximizing his or her economic
rewards, the economy will prosper. Consequently, through free trade and
free markets, self-interest will be harnessed to the common good.
Adam Smith’s theory that the government should not interfere with
business is known as laissez-faire capitalism. This French term came
about when a French businessman responded laissez nous faire (“leave
8
us alone”) after being asked how government could help business. This
principle of pure capitalism as Smith saw it has been modified within
most modern economies
Through his approach to economic questions and his organization
of the science, Smith cast a mold for the main body of nineteenth-
century economic thought. His views on public policy, which became
the semiofficial doctrine of the British government, left their imprint
on parliamentary debates and governmental reports. For these reasons,
and because of his enormous influence upon succeeding generations of
scholars, Smith’s unique position in the history of economic thought is
forever ensured.
Reading The Wealth of Nations today, one can see why the influence
of this book reached out beyond the borders of economics. Like the Bi-
ble, Smith’s treatise contains familiar concepts and well-worn truths on
almost every page. As a result, “the shy and absent-minded scholar,”
as Smith was affectionately called, became the apostle of classical eco-
nomic liberalism—meaning laissez-faire in his time. Today we tend to
refer to such ideas as “conservatism.”
Smith’s version of the economic system as a naturally self-organizing
and self-adjusting “social mechanism” – known as classical economic
doctrine was never confirmed by factual evidence, as Newton’s laws
of motion were; all the same, classical doctrine dominated economic
thinking and national economic policy in all advanced economies for
the next 150 years, and it plays its role in many countries to this day.
Text 4
Read the text. Be ready to answer the following questions: 1. What is demand? 2. What
is supply? 3. What does the demand (supply) curve represent? 4. What does the inter-
section of the industry supply and demand curves establish?
How the Market Economy Works
The central function of every economic system is to allocate its limit-
ed resources to satisfy the needs and desires of its people. The amount of
goods produced depends upon the amount of resources available and on
many other factors. At the same time, the people in a society have a great
variety of needs and wants. Some of these, such as the need for food and
shelter, always exist. Others, such as the desire to own particular style
or clothing, continually change. Economies generally try to maintain a
balance between the goods and services available from their producers
(supply) and the needs and wants of their customers ( demand).
Demand is the quantity of goods or services consumers are willing
and able to buy at a given price. Usually the quantity demanded chang-
9
es as price changes, and we can use a demand curve to represent this
change. The demand curve is a graphic representation of the relation-
ship between various prices sellers charge for goods or services and the
amount of those goods or services buyers will desire to buy at a certain
price. Each point along the curve represents a different price—quantity
combination. A demand curve slopes downward from left to right, re-
flecting the fact that the quantity of a product demanded varies inversely
with the price. This is called the law of demand. (See fig. 1)
Fig. 1. Demand curve
Supply is the quantity of goods or services marketers are willing and
able to sell at a given price at a given period of time. The supply curve,
or schedule of supply, graphically represents the amount of goods or ser-
vices marketers will supply at various prices. A supply curve shows that
as prices become more attractive to suppliers (marketers), those suppli-
ers will try to provide more of the good or service. Each point along the
curve represents a different price-quantity combination. A supply curve
slopes upward from left to right, reflecting the fact that the quantity of a
product supplied varies directly with the price. This is called the law of
supply. (See fig. 2)
The intersection of the supply and demand curves determines the
equilibrium price and the equilibrium quantity. Thus, at any price above
the equilibrium price, the quantity supplied exceeds the quantity de-
manded and the price tends to fall. At any price below the equilibrium
price, the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied and the
price tends to rise. At the equilibrium price, the quantity supplied pre-
cisely equals the quantity demanded, and hence there is no tendency for
the price to change. (See fig. 3)
10