Lesson 7

7.1. Before reading the text discuss these questions with other students:

a) Which countries can you name in these continents or areas?

North America

Europe

Asia

The Middle East

Africa

Australasia

Latin America

The Far East

b) Have you visited these areas?

c) Which of the countries would you prefer to visit? Put them in order of preference.

d) What do you know about the USA?

The usa

The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.

There are 50 stars (for the 50 states) and 13 red and white stripes (for the original 13 founding colonies) in "The Stars and Stripes," the flag of the United States. At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with more than 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with a nominal 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$13 trillion (over 25% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 20% by purchasing power parity).

The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.^[94] The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to immigrate to the U.S.

During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers. The U.S. largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, the bulk of research and development funding, 64%, comes from the private sector. The U.S. leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor. Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods, and almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet access. The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food; more than half of the world's land planted with biotech crops is in the U.S

American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through 12th grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen. About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled. The U.S. has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees. The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%. The United Nations assigns the U.S. an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world

English is the national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws - such as U.S. naturalization requirements standardize English. In 2005, about 216 million, or 81% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states. Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law

7.2. After reading the text answer these questions: