TENSE EXERCISES FROM THE BOOK

1)

a) Ian McEwan is a British writer who , according to many writers , has written some of the bast novel of recent years.
b) Burn in 1948, he spent much of his childhood abroad as his father was an army officer.
c) He studied English literature and creating writing at the university of Sussex and East Anglia.
d) He has written a number of succesful collections of short stories and novels.
e) His novel The Child in Time won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1987.
f) His later novels including Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday have been very succesful.
g) Amsterdam received the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1998.
h) Atonement and Saturday has also won literary prizes.
i) However, McEvan has always been a controversial writer.
j) Some writers accused him of stealing details in Atonement from the work of another auther, Lucilla Andrews.
k) However he pointed out the acknowledgement made to Lucilla Andrews in an author's note in the book.
l) During this controversy, the American author Thomas I'ynchon wrote a defence of McEwan in a British newspaper.



4) The Aging Population

   The number of men and women in the US aged 60 or over still in work has been rising for more than a decade. Economists have given a number of reasons for this trend. First, since 1985, the US economy has been expanding so there has been an inreased demand for labour,. At the same time, the cost of some services, such as health care, has increased so workers need to earn more money in later life. In addition, changes in social securety benefits and rules have had a considerable effect on labour patterns. First, in 1977 and 1983 changes to the Social Security Act raised the full-benefit age from 65 to 67 and introduce other changes that make delaying retirement more attravtive. Then, in 1986 the Age Discrimination Act ended cumposary retirement for all workers, allowing them to work later in life. Changes to pension laws have encouraged workers to stay in employment longer, as this gives them more chances of a larger pension when they retire.