Ampliación de vocabulario básico latino: léxico literario y filosófico
OBJETIVOS DE LATÍN II PRINCIPALES COMPETENCIAS QUE CONTRIBUYE A DESARROLLAR
1. rose 2. thought 3. became 4. built 5. lost 6. fell 7. saw 8. left
6 Pronunciation Word Stress
A population, generation, controversial B dramatically, environment
C suburban, according, director
Level 2
lIntermediate
1
Key words
milestone census net sunbelt myth urban impact decline ageing congestion
1. The adjective means ‘relating to towns and cities’.
2. If something has or makes an , it has an effect or influence. 3. is a situation where a place is crowded with people or vehicles. 4. A is a gradual reduction in the amount or quality of something.
5. A is a situation where government officials count the number of people in a country. 6. A is an event that marks an important stage in a process.
7. immigration is the number of people arriving minus the number of people leaving. 8. The is the southern part of the USA from California to Florida.
9. An population is one that is growing older. 10. A is a story that people wrongly believe is true.
2
Find the information
1. What is the current population of the USA?
2. In what year did the US population reach 200 million? 3. When will the US population reach 400 million?
4. What percentage of Americans live in urban or suburban areas? 5. What percentage of the world’s energy does the USA use? 6. How much farmland is covered in concrete every day in the USA?
US population passes 300 million
by Ed Pilkington in New York
A baby born in America this week took the population of the USA to 300 million. It’s highly possible that the baby was the child of a Latin American immigrant, perhaps in Los Angeles. In 1967 Life magazine identified the 200 millionth American as Robert Ken Woo, a fourth-generation Chinese-American from Atlanta. That was simply a guess too. But this story has some substance. America has reached a milestone in its population growth and this is making people reflect in the same way they do on major birthdays or anniversaries. The US census bureau calculates that one American is born every seven seconds, one dies every 13 sec- onds, and an immigrant arrives (net) every 31 seconds. Add those together and you get a net population gain of one person every 11 seconds. Over the past 100 years the US has seen the largest population growth in its history. And this trend will probably continue through this century, though the rate of growth is expected to stop rising around the year 2070. The population increased from 200 to 300 million in just 39 years and it is expected that the population will reach 400 million in just 37 years time.
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Apart from the increase in population, the composition of America, its human make-up, and even its culture and lifestyles, are changing dramatically. The first major change is where Americans live. The main population centres are slowly moving from the northeast to the south and west. The fastest-growing states are Nevada, Arizona and Texas. The population is not evenly spread across America either. More than half live in 10 of the 50 states, most of them along the coasts.
William Frey, a population expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the US was now moving towards a new sunbelt beyond Florida, Texas and California. “As the coastal areas become crowded, people have started to move further inland to places like Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Tennessee.” The other side of this trend is that the Great Plains, the cultural symbol of cowboy America, is becoming increasingly a myth. The mid-western states are emptying as the population moves to the big cities. In the past 100 years the proportion of Americans living in urban and suburban areas has doubled to 80%. The idea of the “frontier”, of existence under an open sky, still exists in movies, but fewer and fewer people live in such places.
Population change is also having an impact on the environment. According to the Centre for Environment and Population, an independent research body, the main effects of a growing population are felt around the urban areas and are increased by Americans’ belief that bigger equals better. “When I travel abroad and come back, I’m always shocked by the consumption here. Cars are bigger, people travel further distances, they build bigger houses,” the centre’s director, Victoria Markham, said. It is often said that the US has 5% of the world’s population but uses 25% of its energy. A less known fact is that each American now occupies about 20% more land for housing, schools, shops, roads and so on than he or she did 20 years ago. Almost 1,214 hectares of farmland are covered in concrete every day, and the rate is increasing.
This brings us to the most controversial change: America’s ethnic composition and the role of immigration. In 1970 the newly immigrant proportion of the American people was 5%. Today it is 12.1% and rising. The largest single national group of immigrants is Mexican, and the largest ethnic group Hispanic. By 2050 the census bureau believes that the proportion of non-Hispanic whites will have fallen from 69% in 2000 to about 50%, Hispanics will have doubled to 24%, Asians also to 8%, while the proportion of African- Americans will increase slightly to 14%. For Mr Frey, the rise of the Hispanic community, with their younger average ages and higher birth-rates, will help to stop the decline in a rapidly ageing white population. For Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a research group focusing on immigration, the long-term increase is entirely the result of immigration. “If we had zero net immigration we would never have reached 300 million; the population would be about 245 million today.” The result, he says, is more congestion, more restrictions and the decline of individualism, freedom and space. In short, America is turning into Europe.
© Guardian News & Media 2006
3
Comprehension check
Choose the best answer according to the information in the text.
1. What happens every 11 seconds in the USA? a. an immigrant arrives
b. someone dies
c. the population increases by one
2. When is the rate of growth in population expected to stop? a. around the year 2070
b. in 37 years time
c. when it reaches 400 million
3. What is happening to the mid-western states? a. their population is declining
b. their population is increasing rapidly
c. people are moving to big cities in these states
4. What does Roy Beck think the result of immigration is? a. a large increase in population
b. more congestion and less freedom and space c. a higher birth-rate
4
Vocabulary Adjectives
Match the words in the left-hand column with their opposites in the right-hand column.
1. urban a. inland 2. coastal b. minor 3. major c. long-term 4. net d. gradual 5. rapid e. rural 6. short-term f. gross
5
Vocabulary Word building
Complete the table.
Verb Noun 1. grow 2. guess 3. arrive 4. exist 5. consume 6. compose 7. decline 8. restrict
Level 2
lIntermediate
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6
Vocabulary Prepositions
Fill the gaps using an appropriate preposition. Check your answers in the text.
1. the largest population growth its history 2. this trend will continue this century
3. the population increased to 300 million just 39 years
4. apart the increase in population
5. the population is not evenly spread America
6. most people live the coasts
7. the US is moving a new sunbelt
8. existence an open sky
7
Discussion
Would you like to move to another country? If you had to move to another country, which country would you move to and why?
KEY
1 Key Words
1. urban 2. impact 3. congestion 4. decline 5. census 6. milestone 7. net 8. sunbelt 9. ageing 10. myth2 Find the information
1. 300 million 2. 1967
3. 2043 (in 37 years’ time) 4. 80% 5. 25% 6. 1214 hectares
3 Comprehension Check
1. c 2. a 3. a 4. b4 Vocabulary Adjectives
1. e 2. a 3. b 4. f 5. d 6. c5 Vocabulary Word building
1. growth 2. guess 3. arrival 4. existence 5. consumption 6. composition 7. decline 8. restriction
6 Vocabulary Prepositions
1. in 2. through 3. in 4. from 5. across 6. along 7. towards 8. underLevel 2
lIntermediate
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Fill the gaps using these key words from the text:
clogged irritability disruption boom potholed
inaugurate detour odyssey gridlock berate
1. If you ____________ something, you introduce or start something new or important.
2. ____________ is a situation in which there are so many cars on the roads that traffic cannot move. 3. If you ____________ someone, you criticise them in an angry way.
4. ____________ is a problem or situation that interrupts something and prevents it from continuing or from working properly.
5. An ____________ is a long journey during which many things happen.
6. A ____________ is a way of going from one place to another that is not the shortest or the usual way. 7. ____________ is a state where people easily become annoyed or impatient.
8. If a street or road is ____________, there are a lot of holes in it and it is difficult to drive along it. 9. If streets are ____________ with traffic, they are completely blocked.
10. A ____________ is a sudden major increase in trade or profits in a particular country or region.