ENGLISH 4 – SELF-STUDY
A. PART 1: READING COMPREHENSION
Exercise 1: Fill in the blanks. Use the words in italic.
choose choice understand goods needs
commodities manufactured
factories medicine system
Most people work to earn a living, and produce goods and services. Goods are either
agricultural or
(1) ………………. Services are such things as education,
(2) ……………….
and commerce. The work people do is called economic activity. All economic activities taken
together make up the economic system of a town, a city, a country
or the world Such an
economic
(3) ………………. is the sum total of what people do and what they want. The
work people do either provides what they need or provides the money with which they can
buy essential commodities. Of course, most people hope to have enough money to buy
(4)
………………. and services which are non-essential but which provides some particular
personal satisfaction, such as toys for children, cinema and books. The science of economics
is concerned with all our
(5) ………………. with the desire to go on a picnic as well as the
basic necessity of having enough food to eat.
Economists study our everyday lives and general life of our communities in order to
(6) ………………. the whole economic system of which we are part. They try to describe the
facts of
the economy in which we live, and to explain how it works. The economist’s
methods should of course be strictly objective and scientific.
What we want to have is unlimited but what we have to satisfy those wants is not only
scarce, they can also be used for alternative purposes. For example, we would all like a big
house but land is scarce and can be used not only to build houses but also
(7) ……………….
. Our unlimited wants will always outstrip the resources available to satisfy them. There are
very few free goods. Most are economics
(8) ………………. which have an opportunity cost.
As a result, choice is necessary. Since we cannot have everything, we have to choose what
we need. Since we do not have unlimited resources, we have to
(9) ………………. how to
get what we want, Economics not only studies human behavior
as a relationship between
unlimited wants and limited resources, but also
helps us to make a good (10) ……………….