Государственное образовательное учреждение

высшего профессионального образования

«Арзамасский государственный педагогический

институт имени А.П. Гайдара»

Учебно-методическое пособие по дисциплине

«Практика устной и письменной речи»

Путь к совершенству – 3

Арзамас

АГПИ

2009

УДК 420(075.8)

ББК 81.432.1 – 923

П90

Печатается по решению редакционно-издательского совета

ГОУ ВПО «Арзамасский государственный педагогический институт

им. А. П. Гайдара»

Рецензенты:

кандидат филологических наук, доцент .;

доктор культурологических наук, профессор АГПИ Н.А. Кубанёв

«ПУТЬ К СОВЕРШЕНСТВУ 3». Учебно-методическое пособие по практике устной и письменной речи /Сост.: Л.Н. Набилкина, С.С. Суслова. – Арзамас: АГПИ, 2009.- 112 с.

В работе представлены тексты, задания и глоссарий по темам «Great Britain», «The United States of America», «Court and Trial», «Mass Media», «Environmental Problems», а также художественные тексты для интерпретаций по курсу «Практика устной и письменной речи» для студентов филологического факультета очной и заочной форм обучения по специальности 033200 – иностранный язык.

Данное пособие может быть также рекомендовано студентам исторического факультета, изучающих английский язык в профессиональных целях.

УДК 420(075.8)

ББК 81.432.1 – 923

© Набилкина Л.Н.,

© Суслова С.С., 2009

© Арзамасский государственный

педагогический институт

им. А.П. Гайдара, 2009

Great Britain. Economic Outline.

Pre-reading activity

Look up the words in the dictionary and memorize their pronunciation:

Deposit, enginery, spinning, weaving, meadows, favourable.

The climate of the British Isles being mild and rainy, the fields and meadows there are always kept green and fresh. But it appears to be more favourable to cattle and sheepraising than to agriculture, because the temperature and rainfall favour the growing of grass rather than that of grain. Therefore for centuries Great Britain has been famous for its cattle and sheep and still remains a leading country in wool production.

A small per cent of the population is engaged in farming nowadays. Farms are rather small in size and the island depends mainly on other countries for its food supplies. The chief crops are wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, hay, flax, potatoes, vegetables, and fruits. Among other important farming products are cattle, meat and dairy products.

The shallow waters surrounding the island are also important for the country's economy - they provide excellent fishing grounds and large quantities of fish are caught every year.

Great Britain is an old naval and highly developed industrial power. It is rich in mineral resources, the most important of them being coal and iron. The British coal fields are much greater in area than those of the rest of Western Europe.

Next to coal and iron the chief minerals found on the British Isles are the building stone, marble, granite, slate, lead, tin, copper, zinc, salt and china-clay (i. e. clay suitable for manufacturing china).

Coal was necessary to the life and development of the British industry and it is practically the main and the only power basis of it. Of course it was a matter of great advantage for the British industry at the beginning of its development that rich deposits of coal lay near those of iron ore. The nearness of the mines to the seacoast was also an advantage that caused the development of coal mining because coal could be easily carried to every part of the world.

Having found rich deposits of iron and ore in the same regions, Britain was able to create a powerful heavy industry earlier than any other country in the world. The presence of large quanti­ties of coal in some regions caused the growth of different branches of industry in these regions.

In the Midland (to the north-west of London) we find the largest coal and iron fields in Britain. The centre of this district is Birmingham called "the Black Country".

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The presence of large quantities of coal in the Midland was also one of the reasons for the growth of the cotton and woollen industries here and the iron and steel works in Sheffield. In the same way the coal fields in Wales caused the manufacture of pot­tery, and the coal fields of Scotland gave rise to the shipbuilding which is largely concentrated in Newcastle and Glasgow, the latter being the largest city in Scotland, a great port with numerous docks and a trading centre.

Britain is famous for its steel manufacture, tool industry, heavy and light engineering. It supplies many countries with certain classes of machinery, iron and steel goods. But the textile industry proved to be one of the most extensive industries in England; large quantities of cotton and woollen goods and artificial silk are produced and exported.

The spinning and weaving of wool is known to be one of the oldest industries in Great Britain. Leeds is the centre of the chief woolen manufacturing district situated on the eastern side of the Pennines and it is also the first in manufacture of clothing.

Manchester is the centre of cotton industry situated on the western side of the Pennines. It is connected with Liverpool, the second largest port in Britain, by means of a canal through which ocean-going ships carry raw cotton to the cotton mills of Manchester and finished products to every part of the world.