Answer the questions after the text.

6. When you give information about past work experience and achievements in a CV, use verbs in the past simple without a personal pronoun: Chaired weekly meetings (not I chaired weekly team meetings). Look at the following table of action verbs commonly associated with professional experience. Select five verbs and write sentences suitable for your CV that are true for you.

Text THE NO-RULES GENERATION (adapted)

Words and word combinations to be remembered:

Once upon a time, the family was a life-long nest and safety net. Taking into account that life itself was a chancy business, couples tended to stick together for better or for worse. If for worse, at least it wasn’t for long. Thanks to late marriages and early deaths, especially deaths of women in childbirth, marital co-existence in the middle of the 19^th century was only 15 years on average.

A Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep then and woke up today would hardly be able to believe his luck. We are on the whole far more prosperous and healthy and have a much longer life expectancy than our ancestors. A Mrs Rip Van Winkle would be even more surprised. Women’s opportunities have been transformed by education and domestic technology.

Grandparents, more hale and hearty than ever, and increasingly numerous in today’s reconstituted families, are still a vital part of the composite family, supporting their children with more or less welcome advice, child minding, babysitting, finance, furniture and accommodation. Nearly two-thirds of child care in Britain is undertaken by relatives, most of them are grandparents and friends.

Children’s lives have also changed. Young children have to learn how to control their behavior, their appetites and their selfishness. They spend much less time in the home than they used to. That is why they grow up without rules and think only of themselves. They develop into adults who can’t accept discipline of any kind, tolerate orders or accept criticism. All too often their relationships break up because they can’t compromise. Parents need to provide a firm and protective framework which makes children feel safe and loved. Of course education has its advantages but life skills need to be instilled somewhere, somehow.

Finally, we need to recognize that real homes cannot be bought off the shelf. Despite the vacuum cleaner and the microwave oven, the home demands constant attention, thought and adjustment to the constant needs of the family within.

A survey published in the Center of Family Research at Cambridge University discovered that children accept wide variations in family practice and structures. Their definitions did not center on genetic ties but they had definite ideas about the importance of grandparents and friends, as well as about parents. “A family is a group of people which all cares about each other”, wrote 13-year-old Tara. “They can all cry together, laugh together, argue together and go through all the emotions together. Some live together as well. Families are for helping each other through life.”

Newsweek

General understanding. Answer the questions:

1. How did the 19^th century family look like?

2. Why would the Winkles be even more surprised?

3. What changes have appeared in today family life?

4. What has happened to the modern children?

5. What should be done to save the nuclear family?

6. What is your definition of the word ‘family’?

WORD LIST TO PART I