The Dinosaurs

The dinosaurs were around for about 150 million years altogether, but about 65 million years ago they all disappeared quite quickly, along with quite a few other land and sea animals. Now there are three main theories about why they disappeared.

Most scientists today believe that a giant meteorite from space hit the earth. They say that this caused huge dust clouds to rise up and block the sunlight. As a result, all the plants died and the dinosaurs soon starved or froze to death.

Others believe that the climate changed a lot because the continents were moving around, so that the summers got hotter and the winters colder. They think that the dinosaurs had such big problems with these changes in temperature that they died.

Some people think that a new, poisonous plant appeared which killed dinosaurs. As a result, of course, the meat-eating dinosaurs had no food either, so they died too.

There were different kinds of dinosaurs - Compsognathus stood on two strong legs and had shorter arms with two sharp claws. It had a head like a snake and a long tail. It was a lot smaller than humans, about as small as a chicken: sixty centimetres tall and weighed five and a half kilos, but it was not a gentle creature. It lived all over the world except in Antarctica. Its sharp teeth mean that it ate meat - insects and lizards. It was a very fast runner. Pteranodon was a huge flying reptile. Its giant wings were bigger than its small body. It had a long beak and its head was a very strange shape. Many years ago they lived in Europe, Asia and North America. They preferred to live near water because they ate fish. They had very small bodies - about the same size as a turkey. They were very light, too. Velociraptor had a very long tail. It used its strong legs and long arms to attack other dinosaurs. It had very sharp claws and was taller than humans. Velociraptors lived in Asia and ate small animals. They were medium-size dinosaurs and weighed about forty-five kilos. They were strong and very fast runners. They used their large claws to catch their food. Tyrannosaurus was longer than a bus and taller than a house. It ate other dinosaurs, using its sharp teeth and strong jaws to kill them. It had very short arms. It was the king of the dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus was probably scarier than any other dinosaur. They lived in North America and East Asia where they used to eat other big dinosaurs. They were tall, about six metres and very heavy too.

Додаток № 17

Youth problems in Ukraine

Ukraine, at its current transitional stage¹, is a rather dynamic society which has not been completely structured. As all the other age groups, the young Ukrainians are faced with a major problem: Choice.

There is an increasing number of young people holding more than one position or job, moonlighting,² making things for sale, rendering paid services³ to the population, starting trading businesses. In other words, our young people are getting economically active, and at the same time, more pragmatic and spiritually restrained.⁴

Another phenomenon is that a great many young people these days think less of mental work, education, research, and knowledge in general. All this takes time, and they want things done overnight.⁵ An increasing number of these people are making money in a manner far remote from hon­est and professional work.

Note some 70 percent of young people working in the public sector. On the one hand, they cannot in any way influence the development and management of production. On the other, they are in no position to start up business themselves. Hence vet another contradiction⁶: a great many young people support market reforms in Ukraine, but are opposed to the manner in which these reforms are implemented.⁷

In short, problems faced by young Ukrainians could be grouped as follows:

• employment;

• worsening conditions of young families;

• growing housing problems;

• increasing youth crime rate (20 - 25 percent annual increment);

• crisis of cultural and moral values;

• lowering public activity, etc.

1.transitional stage — перехідний етап; 2. moonlight — працювати за сумісництвом; 3. render paid services — надавати платні послуги; 4.spiritually restrained — духовно обмежений; 5. overnight — швидко; 6. contradiction — суперечність; 7. implement — здійснювати.

Додаток № 18