Language skills

Ex.11. Ask questions to which the following sentences may be answers.

1. The choices about an economy’s use of its factors of production, the resources available to it for the production of goods and services.

2. The value, or satisfaction, that people derive from the goods and services they consume and the activities they pursue.

3. Labour, capital, enterprise and natural resources.

4. The human effort that can be applied to the production of goods and services.

5. People who are employed or would like to be.

6. A factor of production that has been produced for use in the production of other goods and services.

7. Office buildings, machinery, and tools.

8. The activities of profit-seeking decision makers who determine which economic activities to undertake and how they should be implemented.

9. The resources of nature that can be used for the production of goods and services.

10. Information.

11. It means all natural resources and agents, with their sites (locations and extensions in space).

12. Through education and training.

13. In many important aspects.

14. The capacity of users to analyze, store and retrieve information.

15. Through the selection and compression of information into knowledge and wisdom.

Ex.12. Answer the following questions.

1. What are the choices concerning what goods and services to produce?

2. What does the term “utility” mean?

3. What are the factors of production in an economy?

4. What can be applied to the production of goods and services?

5. What does capital represent?

6. What are natural resources?

7. What does the factor of production land comprise?

8. What does economicland exclude?

9. Why is land supply fixed?

10. In what case will labour’s contribution to productive output increase?

11. What forms of labour are there?

12. What does demand for labour depend on?

13. What is the quantityof labour?

14. What forms of wages are there?

15. What are the salient characteristics of information?

Ex.13. From your local paper collect advertisements or articles for each of the factors of production. Labour should be easy - job vacancy adverts. But the others will be slightly more difficult.

Ex.14. Make a presentation of the topic “Factors of production”.

Writing

Ex.15. Write a plan of your summary based on Text A.

Ex.16. Using your plan as a base, write a brief summary (25-30 sentences) of the text.

Ex.17. Write an essay (100 – 150 words) about:

• the importance of factors of production in an economy.

DISCUSSION POINTS

Ex.18. Discuss the following.

1. How many factors of production are there in an economy?

2. Briefly define each factor of production.

3. Why are the factors interdependent? Explain.

4. What is capital?

5. What is wealth? Give an example.

6. Why is land considered a passive factor of production?

7. How do capital and labour differ from land?

8. How has the workforce changed in Ukraine for the last 25 years?

9. What factors have contributed to those changes?

10. How have those changes affect your life and culture?

11. Why is it important to understand how terms are used in different contexts?

Ex.19.Consider the factors of production that went into the making of one sheet of notebook paper. Name some of them.

Example: Suppose you go to the supermarket and buy a box of corn flakes. Each of factors of production went into the making of this cereal. For example, some of the things used in the production and distribution of the corn flakes are: box-making machinery, fertilizer, a storage warehouse, prairie or farmland, farm machinery, delivery truck and driver, wholesale middleman, retail grocery store, store clerk, etc.

Ex.20. Look through product advertisements in magazines, on the internet, innewspapers, or elsewhere. Choose any two products to investigate.

Cut out the advertisement or draw a picture of each product. Design a chart titled “Factors of Production.” Do this for each product. List all of the resources (land, labour, capital, producer) utilized to create the product. Then, label each resource on your list as land, labour, capital, or business (producer / enterprise).