1.Прочитайте текст, расположите ниже приведённые утверждения в соответствии с развитием темы текста.

A. Service industries range from banking to communication.

B. Mass production of consumer goods helped to revolutionize the ways in which

Americans lived.

C. The ways of organizing work were changing.

4. Industries met the challenge of foreign competition.

Meanwhile, the ways in which businesses in the United States organized their work were changing. In 1913 the automaker Henry Ford introduced the "moving assembly line”. This was a variation on the earlier practice of continuous assembly. By improving efficiency, it made possible a major saving in labor costs. New industrial managers began the careful study of factory operations with the aim of finding the most efficient ways of organizing tasks. Their concepts of "scientific management" helped to lower the costs of production still further.

Lower costs made possible both higher wages for workers and lower prices for consumers. More and more Americans were gaining the ability to purchase products made in the United States. During the first half of the 20th century, mass production of consumer goods such as cars, refrigerators and kitchen ranges helped revolutionize the ways in which Americans lived.

The 20th century has seen the rise and decline of a succession of industries in the United States. The auto industry, long the masterpiece of the American economy, has had to struggle to meet the challenge of foreign competition. But over the years many new industries have appeared. Their products range from airplanes to television sets; from michrochips tо space satellites: from microwave ovens to ultra-high speed computers. Many of the currently rising industries are among what are Known high-technology or "high-tech" industries, because of their dependence on the latest developments in technology.

High-tech industries tend to be highly automated and thus to need fewer workers than traditional industries such as steelmaking. As high-tech industries have grown and older industries have declined in recent years. The proportion of American workers employed in manufacturing has declined. Service industries - industries that sell a service rather then make a product - now dominate the economy. Service industries range from banking to telecommunications to the provision of meals in restaurants. It is sometimes said that the United States has moved into a "post-industrial era".

2. Пользуясь словарем уточните значение и произношение слов:

Moving-assembly line, labor costs, scientific, management, to range, to challenge, provision.

Найдите в тексте предложения с данными словами, переведите их.

3. Найдите и выпишите эквиваленты слов и словосочетаний в тексте:

Между тем, с целью, таким образом, как только, по своему усмотрению.

4. Прочитайте текст, найдите ответы на вопросы:

1. What were the ways of labor costs savings?

2. What do you think scientific management is?

3. What made for (способствовало) the purchasing ability of the American people?

4. What is a peculiar (специфическая) feature of American industry development

today?

5.Разделите текст на логические части, выделите в каждой из них ключевые предложения (содержащие основную информацию). Напишите краткое содержание текста.

6. Прочитайте текст. Расскажите о возникновении новой отрасли промышленности в США. Озаглавьте текст.

Silicon Valley. Home of the hi-tech dream. Birthplace of the computer age. In the early 1980s this strip of land just south of San Francisco was compared to Florence at the height of the Renaissance. It was alive with new money, new ideas and new technology. The Valley’s young entrepreneurs truly believed that their revolutionary computers would change the world.

But, by the 1985, that dream lay in ruins. In a sensational industry shakeout thousands lost their jobs and hundreds of brilliant companies went to the wall. The story of “Apple” –a company that made it through all that slump – is a good example of tough decisions that ensured the company survival.

In the early 80^th, Apple had been the darling of Silicon Valley. The company was founded in 1977 by a young computer enthusiast, Steve Jobs. At first, Jobs and his colleagues worked out of a suburban garage, but in less than 5 years Apple had grown to be one of America’s top 500 companies and by 1983 was the computer industry’s main challenger to IBM, with a turnover of more than $1bln. But success hadn’t really changed Apple that much. It was still far from being a conventional American corporation. Apple was a company of ideas and ideals its aim was to shift the focus of computers away from institutions and onto individuals. For Apple, the personal computer was “a set of wings for the mind” –a tool which allowed people to develop their ideas and realize their true potential.

After hiring John Sculley as Apples’s chief executive officer in 1983 there began an unprecedented boom for the home computer business. Early in 1984, using some of the most innovative advertising ever seen, the new Apple Mackintosh computer was launched. The Macintosh looked set to be a runaway success. It sold 50,000 units in a mere 74 days and Apple’s revenues to the year ending in September jumped by staggering 54%. Sculley and Jobs forecast confidently a turnover of $1bln for the peak Christmas quarter.

TEXT 14. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS.