Vocabulary development:

6 Read and translate the text from English into Russian:

THE INSPIRING RAGS TO RICHES STORY OF MARIA DAS GRACAS SILVA FOSTER

(by Amy Lamare)

Hollywood couldn't write a better story. Maria das Gracas Foster began life in one of Rio de Janeiro's most notoriously dangerous favelas (slum). As a child she collected cans and bits of scrap metal in order to make enough money to pay for her schoolbooks. When she was a teenager she wrote letters for illiterate neighbors to help out her family, all the while steering clear of the local drug gangs. Today the 61-year old is the former CEO of Petrobras, Latin America's biggest oil company and has an estimated personal net worth of $20 million. This is her inspiring* rags to riches story**.

Maria das Gracas Silva Foster was born on August 26, 1953 in southeastern Brazil. When she was eight years old, her family moved to a favela, a Brazilian shantytown or slum. The favela was just outside of Rio de Janeiro and was crime ridden. The overpopulation, drug trafficking, malnutrition*, unsanitary conditions, pollution, and diseases contributed to a high mortality rate** in the favela and required constant occupation and monitoring by Brazilian security forces**.

Foster was a determined kid. She lived in the favela for 12 years and despite her hard work, she was never sure if she'd be able to remain in school. She did however, and Foster went on to graduate with her Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering in 1978. She earned her Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering from the Federal

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University of Rio de Janeiro, and in 1999 she received her MBA in Economics from

Getulio Vargas Foundation.

Foster started her career at Petrobras as an intern in 1978. She was promoted to chemical engineer in 1981 an over the years rose through the ranks in a number of managerial roles** in the Gas and Energy, Research and Development, and Transportation departments.

Then, in 1998, Foster was working for the Petrobras department that imported natural gas from Bolivia. During this time she met Dilma Rousseff, who in 2010, would become the first female President of Brazil. However, back in 1998, Rousseff was a relatively unknown energy official. Foster and Rousseff developed a lifelong friendly professional relationship based on their backing of the leftist* Workers Party. There political association would serve both of them when in 2002, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was named President of Brazil and Rousseff was named the head of the Board of Directors of Petrobras. Rousseff then appointed Foster as one of her top aides**.

For two years, Foster served as both the Executive Secretary of the Federal Government Program for Mobilizing Brazil's Oil and Gas Industry and the Interministerial Coordinator for the National Program for Biodiesel Production and Use. After her two-year term, Foster returned to Petrobras. In January 2003, Foster was appointed to serve as the Secretary of Oil, Natural Gas, and Renewable Fuels at the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy. She was also promoted to President of Petrobras and the Director of Investor Relations. She was simultaneously serving as the de facto head of a number of Petrobras' departments. In May 2006, she picked up the Financial Director title for Petrobras.

In 2010, Maria das Gracas Silva Foster became the first woman to serve in a management** role in the more than 50-year history of Petrobras. In February 2012, Foster was elevated to CEO of the company after a nomination by her old friend Dilma Rousseff, now the President of Brazil.

In April 2012, Time Magazine listed Foster on the Time 100 list of the most influential people** in the world. In 2014, she was named the 16th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes Magazine.

In 2015, Maria das Gracas da Silva Foster stepped down* as CEO and retired after

37years with Petrobras.

Foster had a long and illustrious career** and became a multi-millionaire, yet she

hasn't forgotten her beginnings in the favela. Maria lives with her husband Colin Foster and their two adult children in an apartment in the Copacabana neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Her building is boxed in by large, ominous* looking buildings and

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surrounded by the favelas on the hillside. Foster can afford pretty much anything she wants, and she chooses to travel by taxi, rather than her own car. It is said that she is popular with local taxi drivers, who vie* for her business.

(from The Celebritynetworth)

Vocabulary development:

7 Read and translate the text from English into Russian:

STEVE JOBS

Inventor (1955–2011)

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak. Under Jobs' guidance, the company pioneered a series of revolutionary technologies, including the iPhone and iPad.

Synopsis*

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs experimented with different pursuits** before starting Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak in 1976. Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology, with Jobs having left the company in 1985 and returning more than a decade later. He died in 2011, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Early Life

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, to Joanne Schieble (later Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for

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adoption. His father, Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor, and his mother, Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

The infant was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View, California, within the area that would later become known as Silicon Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby that instilled* confidence, tenacity* and mechanical prowess* in young Jobs.

While Jobs was always an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations* over formal schooling. Jobs was a prankster* in elementary school due to boredom, and his fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip* him ahead to high school—a proposal that his parents declined.

A few years later, while Jobs was enrolled* at Homestead High School, he was introduced to his future partner Steve Wozniak, who was attending the University of California, Berkeley. In a 2007 interview with PC World, Wozniak spoke about why he and Jobs clicked so well: "We both loved electronics and the way we used to hook up* digital chips," Wozniak said. "Very few people, especially back then, had any idea what chips were, how they worked and what they could do. I had designed many computers, so I was way ahead of him in electronics and computer design, but we still had common interests. We both had pretty much sort of an independent attitude about things in the world. ..."

Apple Computer

After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes at the school. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy developed his love of typography*.

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left the company to find spiritual enlightenment** in India, traveling further and experimenting with psychedelic drugs*. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computer. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, funding their entrepreneurial venture by Jobs selling his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak selling his beloved scientific calculator.

Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by

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