II. Put the verbs in brackets into the Present Perfect

or the Present Perfect Continuous Tense:

1. We (walk) ten kilometres. 2. We (walk) for three hours. 3. I (look) for mushrooms but I (not find) any. 4. That boy (eat) seven ice-creams. 5. He (not stop) eating since he arrived. 6. The students (work) very well this term. 7. He (teach) in this school for five years. 8. I (teach) hundreds of students but I never (meet) such a hopeless class as this. 9. I (sleep) on every bed in this house and I don’t like any of them. 10. He (sleep) since ten o’clock. It’s time he woke up. 11.They (play) tennis since lunch time. 12. She (talk) to him on the phone for a quarter of an hour. 13. I (know) David since childhood. 14. He (work) with this company since 1990.

III. Put the verbs in brackets into the Perfect Continuous tense forms:

1. He said he (work) since five o’clock. 2. By the end of the next term we (study) English for three years already. 3. What you (do) for the past two weeks? 4. For the past few minutes I (try) to explain to you that you can’t make me go there. 5. He (paint) this picture for two years and I don’t know when he is going to finish it. 6. I (live) in Germany for five years before I came to Ukraine. 7. He (drive) all day, so he was very tired when he arrived. 8. The child (sleep) for an hour before we came. 9. By the time she comes, he (stay) at the hotel for two days. 10. Suddenly she understood that she (speak) for a long time and it was time to stop. 11. The students (write) a test for two hours. 12. He (look) through the documents for half an hour when the phone rang. 13. Ukraine (be) independent since 1991.

4. Fill in the blanks with many, much, more, less, little, a little, few, a few:

1. He had very ... friends (hardly any friends). 2. He drank ... water and felt much better. 3. Hurry up! We have very ... time. 4. He had ... friends (some friends). 5. ... people understood what he said (hardly any people). 6. It’s no use asking him about it. He has ... knowledge of the subject. 7. May I have ... wine, please? 8. He had ... friends (some friends). 9. How ... English words do you know? 10. Does he read ...? — It’s a pity but he reads too ... . 11. I don’t drink ... coffee. 12. Please, try to make ... noise. 13. Some ... tea, please. 14. I have something to say. May I have ... words with you?

U N I T 9

TOPIC: MARKETS and MARKET STRUCTURES TEXT A TEXT B TEXT C GRAMMAR: Modal Verbs and their Equivalents. Indefinite Pronoun: one Indefinite-Personal Sentences

Reading drills

1. Practise the pronunciation of the following words:

a) stress the first syllable:

market, classify, influence, similar, pure, separate, real, raise;

b) stress the second syllable:

economist, according, condition, prevail, involve, compete, competitive, competitively, competitiveness, competitor, exactly, determine, exist, monopoly, monopolist, monopolize, degree, unique, depend, attract, except, imaginary;

c) stress the third syllable:

economic, economical, economically, economics, situation, competition, conversation, independent, independently, oligopoly.

Text A

Economists classify markets according to conditions that prevail in them. They ask questions like the following: How many supplies are there? How large are they? Do they have any influence over price? How much competition is there between firms? What kind of economic product is involved? Are all firms in the market selling exactly the same product, or simply similar one? Is it easy or difficult for new firms to enter the market? The answer to these questions helps to determine market structure, or the nature and degree of competition among firms operating in the same market. For example, one market may be highly competitive because a large number of firms produce similar products. Another may be less competitive because of fewer firms, or because the products made by each are different or unique.

In short, markets can be classified according to certain structural characteristics that are shared by most firms in the market. Economists have names for these different market structures: pure competition¹, monopolistic competition², oligopoly, and monopoly.

An important category of economic markets is pure competition. This is a market situation in which there are many independent and well-informed buyers and sellers of exactly the same economic products. Each buyer and seller acts independently. They depend on forces in the market to determine price. If they are not willing to accept this price, they do not have to do business.

To monopolize means to keep something for oneself³. A person who monopolized a conversation, for example, generally is trying to stand out from⁴ everyone else and thus attract attention⁵.

A situation much like this often exists in economic markets. For example, all the conditions of pure competition may be met except that the products for sale are not exactly the same. By making its product a little different, a firm may try to attract more customers and take over the economic market⁶. When this happens, the market situation is called monopolistic competition.

The one thing that separates monopolistic competition from pure competition is product differentiation⁷. The differences among the products may be real, or imaginary. If the seller can differentiate a product, the price may be raised a little above the market price, but not too much.