Vocabulary

entertainment – развлечение

illegal – незаконный

military – военный

punishment – наказание

steal (stole-stolen) – воровать, красть

crime – преступление

trick – обманывать

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

1. Who are hackers?

2. How do they spend their time?

3. Which of their activities are dangerous?

4. In what way do they trick people?

5. Where do they usually meet?

6. Will this kind of crime increase or decrease in future years?

5. Britain’s first prime minister margaret thatcher

Britain’s first woman Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher earned degrees at Oxford University, and then worked as a research chemist. After her marriage to Denis Thatcher (1951), she read for the bar and specialized in tax law.

She was elected to Parliament in 1959 and served as a secretary of state for education and science in 1970-1974. As a member of the Conservative Party’s newly energetic right wing, she succeeded Edward Heath as a party leader in 1975.

From the start, her autocratic style earned her the nickname of the “Iron Lady”, and she soon acquired a reputation for speaking her mind boldly and even brusquely. In 1979, she became Britain’s first woman prime minister. She was the longest serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century.

Her style and her views appealed to many British people who had lost confidence in the welfare state and in the direction, the nations had taken. In some ways, she was the first genuine leader the nation had had since Winston Churchill, the politician on whom she consciously modeled herself.

She promoted individual initiative, confronted the labor unions, privatized national industries and utilities and attempted to privatize organizations of health care and education. She pursued a strong monetarist policy, and declared a firm commitment to NATO. Her convincing victory at the elections in 1983 was partly due to her decisive leadership in the Falkland Islands War. A split in party ranks over European monetary and political integration led to her resignation in 1990.

Vocabulary

boldly – смело

brusquely – резко, бесцеремонно

the bar – адвокатура

to succeed – зд. быть преемником

to appeal – нравиться

split – раскол

resignation – отставка

welfare state – социальное государство

utilities – коммунальные службы

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

1. What was M. Thatcher’s style of leadership?

2. What initiatives and ideas did she promote?

3. Who was a standard for her in politics?

6. Travel agents service

Today, travel agents offer all kinds of holidays to all types of people, as nearly everybody can afford some sort of holiday. Travel agents think that there are different types of people. For each type they try to offer the “right” kind of holiday, at the “right” price in the “right” country. All this has to be planned very carefully.

So, while most people are still busy buying Christmas presents, the travel agents have already decided where their customers will be going next summer, what kind of things they will be doing there and how much money they will be spending on their holidays.

In spite of the many advantages which travel agents can offer, there are still quite a few people who “go it alone”, choosing their own destination and booking their tickets and accommodation themselves.

Travel agencies started long ago. Thomas Cook was one of the first travel agents. He started to organize excursions by train in the middle of the 19^th century. Later on, he also organized excursions from England to the European continent. Then he began to sell travel tickets to places in England.

Sometimes the agents are right (people will be doing exactly what the travel agents have planned for them) but sometimes they are wrong. All this makes their business rather risky, because if they make mistakes, they can lose a lot of money.