Text 1. The family unit

Society in Britain and the US is traditionally based on a nuclear family living in the same house and closely involved in each other’s live. Fifty years ago, the typical family was a husband and wife, and two or three children. The father spends all day at work and made most of the decisions about how the money he earned was spent. The mother stayed at home (1)________________. Children were expected to obey their parents.

Many modern families live differently, and because of this some people think that the family unit is dying and society is being weakened. Many couples still get married, but other live together without getting married. A few years ago, couples living together usually got married when they wanted to start a family (=have children), but this happens less now. Another trend is for people to get married later in life (2) ______________, so the size of the average family is shrinking.

Many families are disturbed each year as a result of divorce. In the US about half of all married couples get divorced. In Britain the divorce rate has more than doubled (3)___________. Many children are brought up in single-parent families (=families in which children are looked after by their mother or father, not both) and only see the other parent occasionally. Other children have two homes (4)___________. If their parents remarry (=each marry other people) the children may have to fit into a step-family (= a family in which the parents have been married before and have children from their previous marriages). They may later have half-brothers or half-sisters (5)____________. Families in which some children are adopted (= legally and permanently made part of another family) or fostered (= looked after by another family for a period of time) because their own parents cannot take care of them are not uncommon.

1. Вставьте в пропуски (1-5) буквы (a-e), соответствующие данные ниже:

a) and divide their time between them;

b) and to have fewer children;

c) from the new marriage;

d) to manage the house and look after the children;

e) since the early 1980 s.

2. Отметьте данные ниже предложения как истинные (t) или ложные (f):

1. Fifty years ago, the typical family was a husband and wife and one child. ¨

2. Children were very naughty. ¨

3. Many couples live together unmarried. ¨

4. People usually get married later in life. ¨

5. In the USA two-thirds of married couples get divorced. ¨

6. Families with adopted children are common. ¨

Text 2. From the history of new york

1. In 1605 the first Europeans came to Manhattan from Holland. Captain Henry Hudson, searching for the famous Northwest Passage, discovered the land and reached a river to which he gave his name.

2. Later a Dutchman, Peter Minuit, bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for a barrel of rum and a few glass necklaces, worth about $26. The Americans say that this was the best business deal ever made in New York. In 1613 the Dutch founded a city there and .gave it the name ''New Amsterdam".

3. After the English had taken over the city in 1626 it was renamed New York after the Duke of York who was the commander of the English army.

During the War of Independence New York was an important political centre, and for five years from 1785 till 1790, the capital of the USA

4. Since the end of the 19th century the city began to develop at breakneck speed. In 1888 the first skyscraper was put up. It had only 13 storeys, but the next had twenty-two, the Empire State building- 102.

5. New York is carefully planned. The city has been built rectangularly. All the streets, except Broadway, run either north and south, or east and west. Only Broadway runs diagonally across the city. .

6. The Americans have not given the New York streets names of their famous men, but have called them by ordinal numbers or letters of the alphabet, e.g. Sec­ond Street, First Avenue, Avenue A, Avenue B, etc.

Подберите абзацы, содержащие ответы на следующие вопросы:

1. How are the New York streets called? ¨

2. What did Captain Hudson search for? ¨

3. Why was the city renamed and when was it the America's capital? ¨

4. What was the best New York business deal? ¨

5. How is New York planned? ¨

6. How many storeys do the first and the next skyscrapers have? ¨