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2.1. Начальный уровень

1). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a parliamentary monarchy. The king or the queen is the head of the state. Since the VIII-th century the power of the English monarch has been limited by Parliament.

2). London is one of the most fascinating cities in the world. It is the capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the seat of the government, a great industrial and cultural centre.

3). The West End is the richest part of London, the symbol of wealth and luxury. The largest and the best hotels, cinemas, shops, restaurants, museums are to be found here. Piccadilly Circus is the heart of the West End, a meeting point of half a dozen famous London’s streets.

4). Young people get higher education at the universities. Not everybody can afford it because it is not free. There are about fifty universities in Great Britain and the most famous are Oxford and Cambridge Universities which were founded in 12-th and 13-th centuries.

5). Every nation and every country has its own customs and traditions. Englishmen are very proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up. One of the most striking features of English life is the self-discipline and courtesy of people of all classes.

6). The central problem of economics is to determine the most efficient ways to allocate the factors of production and solve the problem of scarcity created by society’s unlimited wants and limited resources.

7). An economic system is the way in which a country uses its available resources (land, workers, natural resources, machinery and etc.) to satisfy the demands of its inhabitants for goods and services.

8). The law of demand describes the relationship between prices and the quantity of goods and services that would be purchased at each price that is a consumer’s willingness and ability to buy a product or service.

9). Supply and demand schedules tell us how many items buyers would purchase and how many items sellers would offer at different prices (equilibrium or market price).

10). The World Bank is the world’s foremost intergovernmental organization concerned with the external financing of the economic growth of developing countries.

2.2. Средний уровень

1). There are many forms of economic order, ranging from the mixed private enterprise system to partially or completely controlled economies. Regardless of their form, however, economic system is the system that a society uses for allocation and distribution of scarce resources. Private enterprise means that decisions about what and how much to produce are left to the discretion of owners and managers. In controlled economies such decisions are the responsibility of some governmental agency.

2). Economic goals for a nation include price stability, full employment, economic growth, and equitable distribution of income. Price stability contributes to the efficient allocation of resources and facilitates long-term planning. Full employment means that jobs are available for those seeking work. Higher standards of living require increased output per person. An equitable distribution of income means that the fruits of the economy are divided in a way that seems fair to the majority of the people.

3). Economics is divided into two major branches: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macroeconomics is the study of behavior of the economy as a whole with emphasis on the factors that determine growth and fluctuations in output, employment, and the level of prices. Macroeconomics studies broad economic events that are largely beyond the control of individual decision makers and yet affect nearly all firms, households, and other institutions in the economy. Microeconomics is the study of behavior of individual units within the economy.

4). The study of economics would be incomplete without an understanding of the nation’s role in the world economy. The study of the world economy is known as international economics. International economics embraces two broad areas of interest: international trade and international finance. World trade has been gaining increasing significance among nations. Terms of trade are defined as the ratio of the prices of its export commodity to the price of its import commodity.

5). Economics is the scientific study of the way in which wealth is produced and used. It also studies the choices people make to satisfy their wants and needs. Contrary to popular opinion, economics does not normally include such things as personal finance, personal income, ways to start a small business, etc. The range of problems considered by economists is relatively narrow. They deal with employment, expenditure, interest rates, consumption, transportation, and trade.

6). The basic problem of economics is scarcity created by unlimited wants of society and limited resources. To achieve this goal, economists must find the most efficient ways to distribute and use these limited resources called the factors of production. They include natural resources, human resources, capital and entrepreneurship. Each factor of production has a place in economic system.

7). Economic globalization is the process of integration of markets, great changes in trade and finance and the establishment of the global economy. The aim of economic globalization is to change the world into one market which has the same characteristics in different countries. Globalization should lead to a free mobility of capital and privatization. Globalization means wide advertising of new consumer products all over the world, low taxes for producers both domestic and foreign and similar life-styles for people of different nationalities.

8). Competition is the economic rivalry among businesses when producers in some industry try to get a larger share of the market. Perfect competition and pure monopoly are the opposite extremes of the market structure continuum. Perfect competition has many sellers of the same product, while pure monopoly has only one. Perfect competition exists when there are many buyers and sellers, none of whom control prices. In contrast, pure monopoly exists when a single firm controls the total production or sale of a good or service.

9). Money is a medium of exchange in economy. It is means of payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. Money is also a standard of value for measuring the relative economic worth of different goods and services. The price of the commodity is the number of units of money required to buy this commodity. The main functions of money are a medium of exchange and the measure of value. Without the use of money, trade would be reduced to barter, that is to direct exchange of one commodity to another.

10). Consumer credit provides cash, goods, or services now, while spreading repayment into the future. In this way credit enables you to enjoy your purchase even before you have paid for it. But there are two important things attached to every credit purchase: credit costs something, and the principal, the original amount borrowed, must be paid back. The finance charge is the total amount you pay to use the credit. It includes interest costs and any other fees, such as service charges and insurance.