21. West

The western United States includes 13 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. It is the largest region, covering more than half the land area of the United States. It is also the most geographically diverse, including geographic regions such as the Pacific Coast, the temperate rain forests, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, prairies, plateaus, the southern forests, and all of the desert areas located in the United States. As the largest region in the United States there is variation to such an extent in the west that it is often broken down into regions. Arizona, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah or regions of those states are sometimes considered part of the Southwest, while all or part of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming can be considered part of the Northwest. The West has several long rivers: The Mississippi River, The Missouri River, The Colorado River snakes through the Mountain states, at one point forming the Grand Canyon and The Columbia River. Agriculture varies: The wheat belt produces most of the wheat and soybeans in the U.S. Irrigation in the Southwest allows the growing of great quantities of fruits, nuts, and vegetables as well as grain, hay, and flowers. Texas is a major cattle and sheep raising area. Washington is famous for its apples, and Idaho for its potatoes. The largest city in the region is Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Big port cities which have evolved into world centers for the media and technology industries. The second largest city in the nation, Los Angeles is best known as the home of the Hollywood film industry; Silicon Valley in California, Oregon and Washington have seen rapid growth with the rise of Boeing and Microsoft along with agriculture and resource based industries. The desert and mountain states have relatively low population densities, and developed as ranching and mining areas. History: Major settlement of the western territories by migrants developed rapidly in the 1840s, largely through the California Gold Rush of 1849. The image of the West is mostly assossiated with such phenomena as cowboy, country music and american movies. As foe demographics of the South – it has the highest concentration of Hispanics (25% of the population) in the south, and about 20% of the population of Alaska are American Indians.

22. Education in the usa.

Educ. in the US is provided mainly by the government, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Each state in America is divided into School Districts governed by an elected School Board. School Boards have a relatively high degree of freedom, and set educational policy within their district. Typically educ. is compulsory from first grade (usually age 6) to tenth grade (age 16), although in many states children must remain in educ until twelfth grade (age 18). Preschool There are no mandatory preschool education programs in the U S, and state funded preschool institutions are few.Elementary School For most American children, the first five or six years of educ. is spent in Elementary School. The first year of ES (optional in most states) is spent in Kindergarten, which is designed to prepare young children for First Grade. In ES children are given basic grounding in English, Mathematics, History, Science, Art and Music. Middle School The age at which children move on to MS, or “Junior High”, varies greatly among states, but is usually around grades 4 or 5 (ages 10 or 11). Here students can usually choose which subjects they study, and their school day is structured around moving from room to room for different lessons. High School The vast majority of students move on to HS after 8^th grade (age 13). The curriculum for Am HS students remains extremely diverse, and students have only a very limited ability to specialise in particular subjects. In the final year of HS most students will sit SAT exams (Scholastic Assessment Tests), which are made up of two main elements: an SAT Reasoning Test, which tests general skills in critical reading and maths & SAT Subject Tests, which are one hour multiple choice exams given in different subjects varying from languages, sciences and history. College/Higher Education Many students go on to higher education, with Colleges usually admitting students on the basis of their SAT scores and their extra-circular activities. After four years of study, students can expect to receive a Bachelor of Arts (BA) or Bachelor of Science (BS) degree. Undergraduate study is the first opportunity for many students to specialize in particular subject areas. Students can then, if they wish, move on to post-graduate study, and be awarded a range of Masters degrees. Both state and private universities are very common in the USA. The Private Universities tend to be the more prestigious, and most of the “Ivy League” schools (Harvard, Princeton and Yale among others) are private. Private schools: Although 85% of students in America attend free state-funded public schools, private schools do exist at every educational level (including preschool) in the United States.