PRE-TEXT EXERCISES

A. Reading drills

Ex.1. Practice reading the following words.

aw [ɔ:] law, draw, saw, strawberries, raw, paw, pawl, bawl

ow [au] how, power, down, town,now, plow, mow, howl, scowl

ow[əu] low, show, slow,own,know, nowt

ou[ʌ] enough, country,double,touch, young, tough, rough

ea [i:] increase, cheaply, reach, peach, please, decrease, mean, each

ea [e] heavily, health, measure, pleasure, bread, breakfast, head

er [з:] refer, prefer, term,perfect, verb,service,certain

ur[з:] purchase, turn, hurt, burn,Thursday, nurse, curtain

c [s] society, choice, price, nice, produce, decision, force, once

c [k] consumer, cost, comprise, calm, conference, cooperative

Ex. 2. Read the words in the groups below. Pay attention to the word stress.

a) words with the stress on the first syllable:

influence, merely, therefore, equal, basically, willingness, preference, weigh, heavily, household, income, maximize, possible, budget, impact, effort, concept, specify, quantity, purchase, demonstrate, upward, revenue, temporary, permanent, obviously, compromise, variable, calculus, relative, offset, volume, vertical, curve, substitute;

b) words with the stress on the second syllable:

society, allow, consume, conventional, determine, afford, demand, behavior, desire, ability, condition, affect, decision, utility, consider, significant, analogous, depending, amount, available, effective, relationship, efficient, forgo, consumption, increase, equipment, facilities, responding, impose, necessity, incentive;

c)polysyllabic words with the main and secondary stress:

economic, competition, microeconomics, combination, independently, represent, fundamental, correlation, allocation, opportunity, unexpected, equilibrium, individual, fluctuation, inelastic.

B. Word formation

Ex. 3. Make up adjectives as in the model.

Model: noun+suffix –(c)ialor –(t)ial→ adjective

e.g. society – social

Adverb, commerce, essence, face, race, finance, potency, credence, prudence, president, torrent.

Ex.4. Make up nouns as in the model.

Model: adjective+suffix–ness→noun

e.g.ready – readiness

Ill, fit, dark, awkward, lazy, hard, soft, ready, calm, dark, kind, abrupt, absurd, awful, bitter.

Model: verb+suffix –ance or -ence →noun

e.g. appear- appearance, insure- insurance

Depend, ignore, maintain, prefer, resist, insist, interfere, assure, accept, absorb, deliver, clear.

What other adjective and noun suffixes do you know?

Find in the text other adjectives and nouns and translate them.

Text a: demand and supply

All societies necessarily make economic choices. Society needs to make choices about what should be produced, how those goods and services should be produced, and who is allowed to consume those goods and services. For conventional economics, the market answers these questions by way of the operation of supply and demand. Under conditions of competition, where no one has the power to influence or set price, the market (everyone, producers and consumers together) determines the price of a product, and the price determines what is produced, and who can afford to consume it.

The terms supply and demand do not mean the amount of goods and services actually sold and bought; in any sale the amount sold is equal to the amount bought, and such supply and demand, therefore, are always equal.

Let’s have a closer look at both of them.

In microeconomics, demand refers to the buying behaviour of a household. What does this mean? Basically, micro economists want to try to explain three things:

Why do people buy what they buy?

How much are they willing to pay?

How much do they want to buy?

Demand is comprised of three things.