Fill in the blanks with the verb “to be” using in the suitable form in Present Indefinite.

1. He … a good student. 2. They … old friends. 3. I … a teacher. 4. John … absent from class today. 5. The weather … good today. 6. The sky … clear. 7. We … both students. 8. Mr. Smith … sick today. 9. She and I … cousins.

 

Exercise 2.

Fill in the blanks with the verb “to be” in Past Simple.

1. Ann … absent from school yesterday. 2. The exercises in the last lesson … difficult. 3. We … tired after our long walk. 4. She … in the same class as Nick last year. 5. The weather yesterday … very warm. 6. There … a lot of students absent from class yesterday. 7. I … hungry after so many exercises. 8. I … busy all day yesterday. 9. We … good friends for many years.

Exercise 3 Fill in the blanks with the verb “to be” in Future Simple

1. She … our new teacher. 2. These exercises … very difficult for you. 3. They … glad to see their old friends. 4. There … many examinations next term. 5. There … a new club in our town next year. 6. We … very tired after the long walk. 7. I … happy to be here again. 8. We … interested in his progress.

Exercise 4.

Fill in the blanks with the verb “to be” in Present, Past or Future Simple.

1. My father … a teacher. 2. He … a pupil twenty years ago. 3. I … a doctor when I grow up. 4. My sister … not … at home tomorrow. 5. She … at school tomorrow. 6. … you … at home tomorrow? 7. … your father at work yesterday? 8. My sister … ill last week. 9. She … not ill now. 10. Yesterday we … at the theatre. 11. Where … your mother now? – She … in the kitchen. 12. Where … you yesterday? – I … at the cinema. 13. When I come home tomorrow, all my family … at home. 14. … your little sister in bed now? - Yes, she …. 15. … you … at school tomorrow? – Yes, I …. 16. When my granny … young, she … an actress. 17. My friend … in Moscow now. 18. He … in St.Petersburg tomorrow. 19. Where … your books now? – They … in my bag.

 

Exercise 5. Fill in the gaps with am/am not, is /is not, are/are not to complete the story.

Our family... a big one, we... four: my father, my mother, my elder brother and I. My father... a tall broad-shouldered man of 49. My mother... a pleasant woman of 47. My parents... economists and they... fond of their profession. They... always very busy and when they... at home I... ready to do everything about the house. My elder brother... an economist, he... a doctor, so he... as busy as my parents. In the evening when we... at home we... glad to see each other. Our personal hobbies... the same. My mother... fond of music, my elder brother... a football-fan, my father and I... interested in playing chess. But we... all keen on making films. It... our family hobby and useful for all of us.

“to have”.

I have... We have...

He has... You have...

She has.. They have...

 

Как самостоятельный глагол to have в настоящем времени (Simple Present) имеет 2 формы: have для всех лиц, кроме 3-го лица единственного числа, и has для 3-го лица единственного числа, в прошедшем времени (Simple Past) - had, в будущем (Simple Future) - shall have, will have.

 

to have	(иметь)
I have	We have
You have	You have
He has She has It has	They have

 

+	-	?
Не has a book. Не has got a book. Не has a book.	Не doesn't have a book. Не hasn't got a book. He has no book.	Does he have a book? Has lie not a book? Has he a book?

 

Exercise 6. Give the right variant of the verb “to have”.

1. I … a brother. 2. … you a family? 3. He … a very nice flat. 4. His parents … have a car. 5. My sister and I … english books. 6. She … not red pencil. 7. … you a telephone? 8. We … a lot of friends in Moscow.

About myself.

This is John Brown. He is thirty-nine years old. He is a teacher of literature. He lives and works in Liverpool. He is an Englishman. He isn't exactly a handsome man, but he is nice. He has a wife, whose name is Mary, and two children — Susan and George. Mary is thirty-four years old. She is a beautiful young Englishwoman. She is a designer, but she doesn't work now. She runs the house and looks after the children. Their children are healthy and beautiful.

The family is at home. John is reading a book and Mary is cooking. She is in the kitchen. Their children are watching video. George is fourteen years old and Susan is eight. They love each other very much and are fond of playing together.

It is seven o'clock now. It is dark and gloomy outside, because it is late autumn now. It often rains and the air is cold and damp. The nights are long and the days are short.

 

Week 2.

Text 2. “Economics as a Science ”.

Grammar. There is / There are.

Communicative practice: “My family”.

TEXT 2.

Economics as a science

Although the content and character of economics cannot be described briefly, numerous writers have attempted that. An especially useless, though once popular, examples is: “Economics is what economists do.”

Similarly, a notable economist of the last century Alfred Marshall called economics “a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.” Lionel Robbins in the 1930s described economics as “the science of choice among scarc e means to accomplish unlimited ends.”

During much of modern history, especially in the nineteenth century, economics was called simply “the science of wealth.” Less seriously, George Bernard Shaw was credited in the early 1900s with the witticism that “economics is the science whose practitioners, even if all were laid end to end, would not reach agreement.”

We may make better progress by comparing economics with other subjects. Like every other discipline that attempts to explain observed facts (e.g., physics, astronomy, meteorology), economics comprises a vast collection of descriptive material organized around a central core of theoretical principles. The manner in which theoretical principles are formulated and used in application varies greatly from one science to another. Like psychology, economics draw much of its theoretical core from intuition, casual observation, and “common knowledge about human nature.” Like astronomy, economics is largely nonexperimental. Like meteorology, economics is relatively inexact, as is weather forecasting. Like participle physics and molecular biology, economics deals with an array of closely interrelated phenomena (as do sociology and social psychology). Like such disciplines as art, fantasy writing, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, and the like, economics attracts different people for different reasons: “One person’s meat is another person’s poison.” Though all disciplines differ, all are remarkably similar in one respect: all are meant to convey an interesting, persuasive, and intellectually satisfying story about selected aspects of experience. As Einstein once put it: “Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.”

Economics deals with data on income, employment, expenditure, interest rates, prices and individual activities of production, consumption, transportation, and trade. Economics deals directly with only a tiny fraction of the whole spectrum of human behavior, and so the range of problems considered by economists is relatively narrow. Contrary to popular opinion, economics does not normally include such things as personal finance, ways to start a small business, etc.; in relation to everyday life, the economist is more like an astronomer than a weather forecaster, more like a physical chemist than a pharmacist, more like a professor of hydrodynamics than a plumber.

In principle almost any conceivable problem, from: marriage, suicide, capital punishment, and religious observance to tooth brushing, drug abuse, extramarital affairs, and mall shopping, might serve (and, in the case of each of these examples has served) as an object for some economist’s attention. There is, after all, no clear division between “economic” and “noneconomic” phenomena. In practice, however, economists have generally found it expedient to leave the physical and life sciences to those groups that first claimed them, though not always. In recent years economists have invaded territory once claimed exclusively by political scientists and sociologists, not to mention territories claimed by physical anthropologists, experimental psychologists, and paleontologists.

 

2.Пояснение к тексту.

numerous – многочисленный

to attempt – попытаться

notable – примечательный

scarce – скудный

witticism [′witisizm] – острота, шутка

practitioner – [præk′tiònə] - терапевт

to comprise – включать в себя

vast – обширный, громадный

core – ядро

casual observations – зд. повседневныенаблюдения

weather forecasting – прогноз погоды

array – массив, масса, множество

closely interrelated – тесно взаимосвязанные

phenomena – явления

to convey – передавать

income – доход

employment – занятость

expenditure – затраты, издержки, расход(ы)

interest rate – процентная ставка

range – ряд

pharmacist – фармацевт

plumber – водопроводчик

conceivable – мыслимый, вероятный, возможный

expedient – целесообразный соответствующий,

подходящий, надлежащий

to claim – приписывать себе, претендовать

to invade – вторгаться

 

Grammar

Оборот there is / there are используют для указания на наличие или соответствие какого – либо предмета или предметов в определенном месте:

There is a book on the table. На столе лежит книга.

There are pens on the desk. На парте лежат ручки.

 

 

Exercise 1. Complete the sentences using the necessary form of there is/there are.

1. … a train to Manchester?

2. … no water on the moon?

3. How many boys and girls … in his family?

4. There … no disco near the college.

5. I’m afraid … no time to see Granny.

6. … no snow on the hill in summer.

7. … many children in the pool?

8. … tourists in your town?

9. There... a big tree in the garden

10. There … many desks in the classroom

 

Week 3.