Английский разговорный язык. Практическое пособие по развитию устной речи

Exercise 2

Answer the questions:

1. What do the amount and quality of labour force depend on?

2. What is the population of the Earth now?

3. How much of the population growth were the developed countries responsible for in the years from 1950 to 1990.

4. What was the growth of the population caused by in both developed and less developed countries?

5. What was the birthrate in both developed and less developed countries?

6. What was the median age in developed countries in the end of the century?

7. What policies do governments use to withstand the population aging?

8. What fears have the economists had since the days of Robert Malthus?

9. Why were these fears poorly grounded?

10. What do hunger and malnutrition in many parts of the word result from?

11. What investments are supposed to be made so that population could be converted into labour force?

12. How does higher education affect a person\'s income?

Employment Opportunities for All

1

FBI Agent for Hire

Three men where at the FBI Building for a job interview.

The first man walked into the office.

The interviewing FBI agent said, «To be in the FBI you must be loyal, dedicated, and give us your all. Your wife is in the next room. I want you to go in there and shoot her with this gun.»

The man took the gun, hesitated, and said, "Sorry,

I can\'t do it."

The next interviewee came into the office.

The agent said, «To be in the FBI you must be loyal, dedicated, and give us your all. Your wife is in the next room. I want you to go in there and shoot her with this gun.»

The man took the gun, walked into the room, then walked out.

«Sorry,» he said.

The last man came into the office.

The inverviewer said, «To be in the FBI you must be loyal, dedicated, and give us your all. Your wife is in the next room. I want you to go in there and shoot her with this gun.»

The man took the gun and went into the room. The Agent heard six shots, silence, then a lot of screaming.

The man came out of the room and said, «Someone loaded the gun with blanks, so I beat her to death with the curtain railing!»

2

Manager: «Sorry, but I can\'t give you a job. I don\'t need much help.»

Job Applicant: «That\'s all right. In fact I\'m just the right person in this case. You see, I won\'t be of much help anyway!»

3

A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job.

The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks, «What do two plus two equal?»

The mathematician replies, «Four.» The interviewer asks, «Four, exactly?» The mathematician looks at the interviewer incredulously and says, «Yes.»

Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question, «What do two plus two equal?» The accountant says, «On average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four.»

Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question, «What do two plus two equal?» The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says, «What do you want it to equal?»

4

«So tell me, Mrs. Smith,» asked the interviewer, «have you any other skills you think might be worth mentioning?»

«Actually, yes,» said the applicant modestly. «Last year I had two short stories published in national magazines, and I finished my novel.»

«Very impressive,» he commented, «but I was thinking of skills you could apply during office hours.»

Mrs. Smith explained brightly, «Oh, that was during office hours.»