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The economic infrastructure
Assignment 1. In this extract from David Lodge's novel Nice Work, Robyn Penrose a universityEnglish lecturer, is accompanying Vic Wilcox, the managing director of a manufacturing company, on a business trip to Germany. She looks out of the aeroplane window, and begins to think about the essentially English act of making a cup of tea.
What is the key point that this extract is making about economies?
Sunlight flooded the cabin as the plane changed course. It was a bright, clear morning. Robyn looked out of the window as England slid slowly by beneath them: cities and towns, their street plans like printed circuits, scattered over a mosaic of tiny fields, connected by the thin wires of railways and motorways. Hard to imagine at this height all the noise and commotion going on down there. Factories, shops, offices, schools, beginning the working day People crammed into rush hour buses and trains, or sitting at the wheels of their cars in traffic jams, or washing up breakfast things in the kitchens of pebble-dashed semis. All inhabiting their own little worlds, oblivious of how they fitted into the total picture. The housewife, switching on her electric kettle to make another cup of tea, gave no thought to the immense complex of operations that made that simple action possible: the building and maintenance of the power station that produced the electricity, the mining of coal or pumping of oil to fuel the generators, the laying of miles of cable to carry the current to her house, the digging and smelting and milling of ore or bauxite into sheets of steel or aluminium, the cutting and pressing and welding of the metal into the kettle's shell, spout and handle, the assembling of these parts with scores of other components - coils, screws, nuts, bolts, washers, rivets, wires, springs, rubber insulation, plastic trimmings; then the packaging of the kettle, the advertising of the kettle, the marketing of the kettle to wholesale and retail outlets, the transportation of the kettle to warehouses and shops, the calculation of its price, and the distribution of its added value between all the myriad people and agencies concerned in its production. The housewife gave no thought to all this as she switched on her
kettle. Neither had Robyn until this moment, and it would never have occurred to her to do so before she met Vic Wilcox.
(David Lodge: Nice Work)
Assignment 2.In the 20th century the economy was described as consisting of three sectors:
• the primary sector:agriculture, and the extraction of raw materials from the earth;
• the secondary sector:manufacturing industry, in which raw materials are turned into finished products (although of course many of the people working for manufacturing companies do not actually make anything, but provide a service-administration, law, finance, marketing, selling, computing, personnel, and so on);
• the tertiary sector:the commercial services that help industry produce and distribute goods to the final consumers, as well as activities such as education, health care, leisure, tourism, and so on.
The text lists a large number of operations belonging to the different sectors of the economy. Classify the 18 activities from the text according to which sector they belong to:
advertising products assembling building
calculating prices cutting metal digging iron ore
distributing added value laying cables maintenance
marketing products milling metal mining coal
packaging products pressing metal pumping oil
smelting iron transportation welding metal
Can you think of three important activities to add to each list (not necessarily in relation to the kettle)?
Assignment 3.Which sector do you intend to work in or do you already work in? How do you 'fit into the total picture'?
Assignment 4.How many people in the tertiary sector have you already spoken to today (travelling to institute or shopping, eating, and so on)? What about people in the other two sectors? When did you last talk to someone who grew or produced food, for example?
Assignment 5.Studythe Active vocabularyand give the Ukrainian equivalents of the words and word combinations:
1. managing director
2. manufacturing company
3. rush hour
4. maintenance of the power station
5. pumping of oil
6. mining of coal
7. laying of cable
8. smelting of ore
9. cutting and pressing of metal
10. welding of metal
11. assembling
12. wholesale and retail outlets
13. distribution of the added value
14. raw materials
15. extraction of raw materials
16. finished product
17. calculation of price
18. transportations
Assignment 6.Translate the sentences:
1. Утримання такого великого магазину потребує великих коштів.
2. Точки збуту бувають роздрібні та оптові, звичайно саме в оптових точках роздрібної торгівлі ціни нижчі.
3. На сьогоднішній день в Японії налічується 55 атомних електростанцій.
4. Євген Патон був першим у світі, хто винайшов електричне зварювання.
5. Забезпечення роботи електростанції – першочергове завдання цієї групи людей.
6. Точки роздрібної торгівлі переповнені підробленими годинниками Swatch.
7. Оман лідує за видобутком нафти у абсолютних показниках.
8. Підрахунок ціни на високотехнологічну продукцію завжди був складним процесом, який вимагав врахування багатьох факторів впливу на нього.
9. Перевезеннями у нашій компанії займається окремий відділ.
Assignment 7.Some people now describe the economy as having five sectors, consisting of information services such as computing, ICT (information and communication technologies, consultancy and R&D (research and development, particularly in scientific fields). Broader definitions add intellectual activities including culture.
Now read and discuss the text.
A nation’s economy can be divided into various sectors to define the proportion of the population engaged in the activity sector. This categorization is seen as a continuum of distance from the natural environment. The continuum starts with the primary sector, which concerns itself with the utilization of raw materials from the earth such as agriculture and mining. From there, the distance from the raw materials of the earth increases.
Primary Sector
The primary sector of the economy extracts or harvests products from the earth. The primary sector includes the production of raw material and basic foods. Activities associated with the primary sector include agriculture (both subsistence and commercial), mining, forestry, farming, grazing, hunting and gathering, fishing, and quarrying. The packaging and processing of the raw material associated with this sector is also considered to be part of this sector.
In developed and developing countries, a decreasing proportion of workers are involved in the primary sector. About 3% of the U.S. labor force is engaged in primary sector activity today, while more than two-thirds of the labor force were primary sector workers in the mid-nineteenth century.
Secondary Sector
The secondary sector of the economy manufactures finished goods. All of manufacturing, processing, and construction lies within the secondary sector. Activities associated with the secondary sector include metal working and smelting, automobile production, textile production, chemical and engineering industries, aerospace manufacturing, energy utilities, engineering, breweries and bottlers, construction, and shipbuilding.
Tertiary Sector
The tertiary sector of the economy is the service industry. This sector provides services to the general population and to businesses. Activities associated with this sector include retail and wholesale sales, transportation and distribution, entertainment (movies, television, radio, music, theater, etc.), restaurants, clerical services, media, tourism, insurance, banking, healthcare, and law.
In most developed and developing countries, a growing proportion of workers are devoted to the tertiary sector. In the U.S., more than 80% of the labor force are tertiary workers.
Quaternary Sector
The quaternary sector of the economy consists of intellectual activities. Activities associated with this sector include government, culture, libraries, scientific research, education, and information technology.
Quinary Sector
Some consider there to be a branch of the quaternary sector called the quinary sector, which includes the highest levels of decision making in a society or economy. This sector would include the top executives or officials in such fields as government, science, universities, nonprofit, healthcare, culture, and the media.
by Matt Rosenberg
Now answer the question:
What activities are associated with
1) the primary sector:
2) the secondry sector:
3) the tertiary sector:
4) the quartenary sector:
5) quinary sector ?
Part 2