Improve your English. Учебное пособие по английскому языку
.pdfAlthough modern technology has improved the methods by which pins are produced, the principles pertaining to the division of labor remain unchanged. Similarly, other sections dealing with the factors of production, money and international trade are as meaningful today as when they were first written.
Vocabulary
earn — зарабатывать; object — возражать;
depend upon — зависеть от …; combination — соединение; belief — убеждение; circumstances — обстоятельства; self-interest — личный интерес; outperform — превосходить; competitor — конкурент; invisible-hand — невидимая рука; continually — постоянно;
exert — напрягать;
advantageous employment — преимущественная работа (занятие); pursuit — преследование;
interference — вмешательство;
pin industry — производство булавок; increased output — увеличивать выпуск; meaningful — важное значение.
1.Read and translate the text.
2.Find the Russian equivalents.
Differed with the physiocrats, nation’s wealth, dependent upon production, output, pin industry, government regulation, to gain, the greatest profit, function without interference, the use of machinery, invisible hand, advantageous employment, the division of labor, the use of machinery, government regulation, favorable balance of trade.
3. Find the English Equivalents.
Влиятельная книга, отец экономики, богатство нации, более эффективно, сердце экономической философии Смита, зарабатывать большую прибыль, частная монополия, разделение труда, улучшить баланс торговли, личный интерес.
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4. Fill in the gaps with the words and expressions from the text.
1.He differed with the … who argued that land was the only sources of … .
2.In Smith’s view, a nation’s wealth was dependent upon …, not … alone.
3.The heart of Smith’s economic philosophy was his belief that the economy would work … if left to function on its own … government regulation.
4.To explain why all society benefits when the economy is free of regulation,
Smith used the metaphor of the … .
5.The “invisible hand” was Smith’s name for the … that we today would call supply and demand, or the … .
6.The “invisible hand” would … to guide the economy and … production.
7.Smith turned to the pin industry to demonstrate how the … and the use … increased output.
5. Answer the questions.
1.Which book was published in 1776?
2.Did Smith object to the principal economics beliefs?
3.What was Smith view on a national’s wealth?
4.What was the heart of Smith economic philosophy?
5.What is “invisible hand”?
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UNIT 4
MODERN TECHNOLOGIES
Text 1. What is a computer?
Computers are electronic machines that process information. They are capable of communicating with the user, of doing five kinds of arithmetic operations, and making three kinds of decisions. However, they are incapable of thinking. They accept data and instructions as input, and after processing the information, they output the results.
When talking about computers, both hardware and software need to be considered. The former refers to the actual machinery, whereas the latter to the programs that control and coordinate the activities of the hardware.
The first computer was built in 1930 but since then computer technology has evolved a great deal. There are three different kinds of computers in use today: the mainframe, the minicomputer, and the microcomputer. However, the dividing line between these has become rather blurred; a modern micro is often as powerful as a mainframe was ten years ago. All three have one thing in common — they operate quickly and accurately in solving problems.
A computer is a machine with an intricate network of electronic circuits that operate switches or magnetize tiny metal cores. The switches, like the cores, are capable of being in one of two possible states, that is, on or off; magnetized or demagnetized. The machine is capable of storing and manipulating numbers, letters and characters. The basic idea of a computer is that we can make the machine do what we want by inputting signals that turn certain switches on and turn others off, or that magnetize or do not magnetize the cores.
The basic job of computers is the processing of information. For this reason, computers can be defined as devices which accept information in the form of instructions called a program and characters called data, perform mathematical and/or logical operations on the information, and then supply results of these operations. The program, or part of it, which tells the computers what to do and the data, which provide the information needed to solve the problem, are kept inside the computer in a place called memory.
Computers are thought to have many remarkable powers. However, most computers whether large or small have three basic capabilities. First, computers have circuits for performing arithmetic operations, such as: addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and exponentiation. Second, computers have a means of communicating with the user. After all, if we couldn’t feed information in and get results back, these machines wouldn’t be of much use. However, certain computers
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(commonly minicomputers and microcomputers) are used to control directly things such as robots, aircraft navigation systems, medical instruments, etc.
Some of the most common methods of inputting information are to use punched cards, magnetic tape, disks, and terminals. The computer’s input device (which can be a card reader, a tape drive or disk drive, depending on the medium used in inputting information) reads the information into the computer. For outputting information, two common devices are a printer which prints the new information on paper, or a CRT display screen which shows the results on a TV-like screen.
Third, computers have circuits which can make decisions. The kinds of decisions which computer circuits can make are not of the type: “Who would win a war between two countries?” or “Who is the richest person in the world?”
Unfortunately, the computer can only decide three things, namely: Is one number less than another? Are two numbers equal? and, Is one number greater than another?
A computer can solve a series of problems and make hundreds, even thousands, of logical decisions without becoming tired or bored. It can find the solution to a problem in a fraction of the time it takes a human being to do the job. A computer can replace people in dull, routine tasks, but it has no originality; it works according to the instructions given to it and cannot exercise and value judgments. There are times when a computer seems to operate like a mechanical “brain”, but its achievements are limited by the minds of human beings. A computer cannot do anything unless a person tells it what to do and gives it the appropriate information; but because electric pulses can move at the speed of light, a computer can carry out vast number of arithmetic-logical operations almost instantaneously. A person can do everything a computer can do, but in many cases that person would be dead long before the job was finished.
Glossary
capable — способный, умелый, восприимчивый; accept — принимать, соглашаться;
consider — полагать, принимать во внимание; evolve — развиваться, разрабатывать;
deal — количество; intricate — сложный; circuit — схема;
switch — выключатель; core — ядро;
device — внешнее устройство; perform — выполнять;
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provide — обеспечивать, предусматривать; memory — память;
punched card — перфокарта; input device — устройство ввода;
card reader — читающее устройство;
tape drive — лентопротяжное устройство; medium — носитель (данных);
screen — экран; value — оценивать;
appropriate — соответствующий, уместный; instantaneous — мгновенный;
hardware — аппаратура, технические средства; software — программное обеспечение.
1.Read and translate the text.
2.How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1.What are computers?
2.What are computers capable of?
3.What is hardware? What is software?
4.How many kinds of computers are in use now?
5.How does a computer work?
6.What is the basic job of computers?
7.What are three basic capabilities of any computer?
8.What are computer’s input and output devices?
9.Can computers completely replace people?
3.Give Russian equivalents of the following words and make up the sentences of your own.
Monitor, screen, window, keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, floppy disk, CD-ROM, modem, printer.
4.Complete the text bellow with the following words.
Software, hardware, online memory, website, e-mail, Internet, to log on, word processing, to start up, to connect, to crash, to surf, to print.
“As soon as I get home from college I start up my computer. It’s a couple of years old now so I’ve had to expand the ____. First of all I log on to the ___ and go to Sporting Life, which is a sports news ___, to find out the latest football results.
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Then I check my ___ to see if anyone has sent me any messages. If I have a homework project, I’ll ___ the Internet to see if there is any useful information. If I find a good text that’s quite long, I’ll ___ it as it’s often easier to read on paper.
When my parents bought the computer, we got lots of free ___, including an encyclopedia and a ___ package, which is very useful for writing my projects. I sometimes get bad days when the computer seems to ___ all the time. And some days the Internet is busy, so when you dial it doesn’t ___. People say it’s because millions of users in the USA go ___ at that time. My mother is a bit worried that I’m going to run up huge bills on the Internet and that I’m going to become an Internet addict but I don’t think I will”.
5. Answer the following questions.
1.What do you think about the future of computers?
2.How can we use computers in our life?
3.Will computers be able to replace printed books in the future? Why do you think so?
4.In what school subjects can computers be especially important?
5.What do think about computerized education?
6.Do computers save our time? Why?
7.Are computers really dangerous?
8.How often do you play computer games?
9.What is your attitude towards computer addiction?
10.How can we help computer addicts?
Text 2. History of computers
Let us look at the history of the computers that we know today. The very first calculating device used was the ten fingers of a man’s hands. This, in fact, is why today we still count in tens and multiples of tens. Then the abacus was invented, a bead frame in which the beads are moved from left to right.
During the 17th and 18th centuries many people tried to find easy ways of calculating. J. Napier, a Scotsman, devised a mechanical way of multiplying and dividing, which is how the modern slide rule works. Henry Briggs and Napier produced logarithm tables which all mathematicians use today. Calculus, another branch of mathematics, was independently invented by both Sir Isaac Newton, an Englishman, and Leibnitz, a German mathematician.
The first real calculating machine appeared in 1820 as the result of several people’s experiments. This type of machine, which saves a great deal of time and reduces the possibility of making mistakes, depends on a series of ten-toothed gear
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wheels. In 1830 Charles Babbage, an Englishman, designed a machine that was called “The Analytical Engine”. This machine, which Babbage showed at the Paris
Exhibition in 1855, was an attempt to cut out the human being altogether, except for providing the machine with the necessary facts about the problem to be solved. He never finished this work, but many of his ideas were the basis for building today’s computers.
In 1930, the first analog computer was built by an American named Vannevar Bush. This device was used in World War II to help aim guns. Mark I, the name given to the first digital computer, was completed in 1944. The men responsible for this invention were Professor Howard Aiken and some people from IBM. This was the first machine that could figure out long lists of mathematical problems, all at a very fast rate. In 1946 two engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, J. Eckert and J. Mauchly, built the first digital computer using parts called vacuum tubes. They named their new invention ENIAC. Another important advancement in computers came in 1947, when John von Newmann developed the idea of keeping instructions for the computer inside the computer’s memory.
The first generations of computers, which used vacuum tubes, came out in 1950. Univac I is an example of these computers which could perform thousands of calculations per second. In 1960, the second generation of computers was developed and these could perform work ten times faster than their predecessors. The reason for this extra speed was the use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The secondgeneration computers were smaller, faster and more dependable than the firstgeneration computers. The third-generation computers appeared on the market in 1965. These computers could do a million calculations a second, which is 1000 times as many as the first-generation computers. Unlike the second-generation computers, these are controlled by tiny integrated circuits and are consequently smaller and more dependable. The fourth-generation computers have now arrived, and the integrated circuits that are being developed have been greatly reduced in size. This is due to microminiaturization, which means that the circuits are much smaller than before; as many as 1000 tiny circuits now fit onto a single chip. A chip is a square or rectangular piece of silicon, usually from 1/10 to ¼ inch, upon which several layers of an integrated circuit are etched or imprinted, after which the circuit is encapsulated in plastic, ceramic or metal. The fourth-generation computers are 50 times faster than the third-generation ones and can complete approximately 1,000,000 instructions per second.
At the rate computer technology is growing, today’s computers might be obsolete in a couple of years. It has been said that if transport technology had developed as rapidly as computer technology, a trip across the Atlantic Ocean today would take a few seconds.
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Glossary
abacus — счеты; invent — изобретать;
slide rule — счетная линейка; calculus — исчисление;
digital computer — цифровой компьютер; vacuum tube — вакуумная трубка (лампа); unlike — в отличие от;
chip — микросхема; etch — гравировать;
approximately — приблизительно; couple of years — пара лет;
take a few seconds — занимать несколько секунд.
1.Read and translate the text.
2.How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1.What was the first calculating device?
2.Who produced logarithm tables?
3.What have you known about Charles Babbage and his invention?
4.When was the first analog computer built? By whom?
5.When was the first digital computer built? By whom?
6.How do the computers of different generations differ from each other?
3. Complete the following sentences.
1.Calculus, another branch of mathematics, … .
2.… which saves a great deal of time and reduces the possibility of making mistakes … .
3.… his ideas were the basis for building today’s computers.
4.This was the first machine that could figure out … .
5.The reason for this extra speed … .
6.The fourth-generation computers have now arrived, and the integrated circuits … .
7.… a trip across the Atlantic Ocean today would take a few seconds.
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Text 3. The Internet: pros and cons
Just ten years ago very few people heard about the Internet. Now it is nearly as common and useful as the telephone. As more and more people use the Internet, as it becomes cheaper and faster and easier to use, there will be new things on the Internet that we cannot imagine today.
On the one hand, the development of the Internet will bring new opportunities to many people. Now, with the Internet, the place where you live may become less important than who you are and what you can do. In the future we’ll be able to find a job in any part of the world. What is more, the Internet will allow a lot of talented people to show the world their achievements.
Today most operating systems are the work of hundreds of programmers and they cost thousands of dollars. In 1991 Linus Torvalds wrote an operating system alone, and he gave it away. Now, with the help of many programmers who work together on the Internet, his Linux system has grown into a serious rival to the products of the industry leader, Microsoft.
It costs almost nothing to deliver software over the Internet. If programmers are willing to give their work away, and if programs are as good as their commercial rivals, the days of paying for software could soon be over.
What is more, the Internet is a great opportunity for people to report on the world. Using just a cheap PC, Matt Drudge nearly ended the career of US President Bill Clinton. He wrote the story about a sexual relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and put it on the Internet. Soon a million people a day were looking at his Web site. With the Internet the future belongs not to traditional journalists, but to ordinary people with a story to tell.
But on the other hand, the possibilities of the Internet may seem frightening. For example, Vladimir Levin worked for a computer firm in St. Petersburg. From there, using the Internet, he was able to break into Citibank’s computers in the USA. He moved more than $ 10 million to other banks all over the world. Most of the world’s money is stored in computers. Clever criminals are likely to use computers and the Internet, not guns to steal it.
As the Internet become increasingly important to governments, it also becomes a stage for people who oppose them. The information wars of the future may be fought on Web sites.
Some people argue that the Internet is dangerous because it is addictive. A lot of people, and especially teenagers, spend hours chatting or plying games on-line. What is more, teenagers and even children look at sex pictures on the Internet. It is true that like photography, cinema and video before it, the Internet is growing partly because it is a way for people to find sexual material that they cannot easily obtain in any other
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way. Anyway, there are many ways for parents to prevent their children from seeing anything on the Internet that the parents do not like.
To sum up, it’s impossible to say now what the Internet will be like in the future or how it will change our lives. But we must admit that the World Wide Web offers people great opportunities, and we must try to make the best use of it.
1.Read and translate the text.
2.Let us discuss. Answer the following questions.
1.When did the Internet appear in Russia?
2.Do many people use the Internet nowadays? What for?
3.What does the Internet allow us to do?
4.Does the Internet save our time?
5.What are the disadvantages of the Internet?
6.How do you think the Internet will change our life?
7.Do you use the Internet? How?
8.What is your personal attitude towards the Internet?
SOME INTERESTING INFORMATION
Julian Paul Assange (born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist. He is best known as the editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks, which publishes submissions of secret information, news leaks and classified media from anonymous news sources and whistleblowers.
Assange was a hacker as a teenager, then a computer programmer before becoming internationally known for his work with WikiLeaks and making public appearances around the world speaking about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism.
WikiLeaks became internationally well known in 2010 when, with its partners in the news media, it began to publish U.S. military and diplomatic documents. Bradley Manning has since been arrested on suspicion of supplying the cables to WikiLeaks, Assange and WikiLeaks have been formally designated as "enemies of the United States" by the U.S. Department of Defense, and the United States Department of Justice reportedly has considered prosecuting Assange for several offenses. During the trial of Manning prosecutors presented evidence that they claim reveals that Manning and Assange collaborated to steal and publish U.S. military and diplomatic documents. Since December 2010, Assange has been subject to a European Arrest Warrant in response to a Swedish police request for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation. In June 2012, following final dismissal by the Supreme
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