- •Астраханский государственный технический университет
- •Contents
- •Unit 1. Appearance.
- •General appearance
- •How Important Is Your Appearance?
- •Checkmate.
- •Unit 2. Character and disposition.
- •Character
- •Intellectual ability
- •8. Reveal your attitude to the types of people described.
- •Intelligence.
- •Revealing Faces.
- •Unit 3. Family life topical vicabulary
- •Mr Know-It-All
- •Unit 4. Parents and children
- •The Bell Family Charter
- •The abc’s of Happiness (by r. Vallet)
- •11. Points to ponder.
- •The Sitting of the Teachers’ Council.
- •Unit 5. Friends and friendship
- •Unit 6. Customs and traditions
- •The Field of Folklore
- •2. Discuss the following problem questions.
- •3. Read the short passages and answer the questions giving your impressions to the point.
- •Problems for Discussion.
- •Unit 7. Choosing a career. Jobs and employment.
- •3. Say what job these can belong to. Continue the list.
- •Imagine you are Andrew Foster (ex. 14) and you are looking for a new position. Fill in the job application form below. Job application form Private and Confidential
- •Unit 8. Crime and punishment
- •3. Read the text and comment on it. Methods and Measures.
- •4. Answer the following questions.
- •5.Comment on the following quotations.
- •6. Use the following proverbs in situations of your own. Give Russian equivalents if possible.
- •Unit 9. Man and arts
- •Man and arts. Painting.
- •Impression and judgement
- •Genre paintingis a painting, which represents scenes from everyday life in a more or less realistic way.
- •Man and arts. Music.
- •For or Against Pop Music
- •Man and arts. Theatre.
- •Imagine that you are in London and you have a free evening. You’d like to go to the theatre. Study the information how to book your theatre tickets in London. How to Book Your Theatre Tickets
- •The Green Table.
- •Unit 10. Women and their role in the society.
- •1.Use the proper word.
- •2. Which is the odd word out.
- •3. Complete the following.
- •Sex Roles In America
- •Imagine the life of women in the following century.
- •Unit 11. Mass media
- •Mass media. Television.
- •Major British and American Broadcasting Companies, Networks, News Agencies
- •Television Questionnaire.
- •Mass media. Press.
- •The British and American Press
- •4. Fill in the gaps.
- •Mass media. Internet.
- •The Internet – a Brilliant Source of Information or a Menace to Our Health?
- •Unit 12. Man and nature. Environmental protection.
- •What Must We Care About to Prevent Disaster?
- •Supplement conversational expressions
- •Sources
3. Read the text and comment on it. Methods and Measures.
(from “Studying Crime by Studying its Victims”)
Everyone of us has heard, probably in the recent past, about the rising rate of crime. But what is the crime rate in America today? Oddly enough, nobody really knows. Police statistics are our primary source of information about crime. But what do those statistics actually mean? When a police department reports that the crime rate is up, people in the community often react with fear and dismay. But such reports may not reflect an actual increase in crime. Instead they may mean that more criminals are being caught – or they may indicate that more people are reporting crimes.
At present we have no truly reliable measures of criminal activity. Many crimes go unreported – rape victims, for example, often are ashamed to talk to the police. The statistics don’t include detected crimes like bribery of customs officials. And since many crimes are never solved, the number of arrests does not tell us much. For many other crimes, however, arrest seldom leads to conviction. For example, only about one-quarter of all burglaries and auto thefts are “cleared” when a suspect is brought in. Obviously, the official figures conceal a vast reservoir of undetected, unreported, and unrecorded crimes.
According to the most conservative estimate, one in every ten people is a victim of a crime each year – a figure 400 per cent higher than that reported by the police.
Dramatic as these estimates are, they’re probably still too low. Surveys of victims are valuable – both in theory and in practice. From theoretical standpoint, improved surveys will make it possible to relate the experience of being a victim to various sociological factors – such as income, education, and race – as well as to such psychological factors as fear of crime and attitude towards law enforcement. In other words, it should be possible to get a good picture of the victim. And perhaps we’ll find out whether some people are more likely than others to be the targets of crime.
From a practical standpoint, the survey should give some accurate information on crime rates. When an increase in crime is reported, the average citizen often concludes that the police aren’t doing their job. In fact, the opposite is often true. A low crime rate may simply mean that the police aren’t overlooking a good deal of criminal activity. Surveys on victimization could give the public a better picture of what the police are actually doing about crime.
4. Answer the following questions.
What types of crime do you know? Have you ever been a victim of a crime? 2) Do the accused always get a fair sentence? 3) Have you ever been a witness of a crime? 4) Did you ever have to give evidence in court? 5) What minor crimes can bring you to court trail? 6) What are the motives of kidnapping? 7) What are the reasons for the increase in violence among teenagers in our country? 8) Do you think that people who have served in prison or penitentiary come out morally improved and uncapable of commiting a crime? 9) Are you in favour or against capital punishment? Do you think it may lower crime rates? 10) What measures can the state take to prevent crimes?