Few people would argue that life has improved greatly for the average person since the turn of the last century, but if our Victorian ancestors were still alive they would probably view the last 100 years very differently.

To mark the end of the 20th century, the Office for National Statistics charted the changes in the 20th century and concluded that the Victorians would not have been amused. "At the beginning of the century, the BritishUnion Jack flag flew over a fifth of the world's people and territory. At the end, it was confined to one hundredth of the world's population," said Professor A H Halsey, an emeritus fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, writing in the introduction. "Accordingly, the story might be interpreted as one of rapid decline, especially if nothing else had changed to offset our 19th-century notions and means of empire."

Professor Halsey, an expert on British social history in the 20th century and author of several books on the subject, also noted that many of the traditional figures of authority are less respected than 100 years ago. "It can be argued that all forms of traditional authoritative power declined in the second half of the century - parents, politicians, priests and police as well as scoutmasters and schoolteachers - all became less trusted and less popularly admired as the century wore on," he wrote.

But Carol Summerfield, who edited the report, pointed out that most things had changed for the better. "There are now more of us, we live longer, we live in smaller households, we are better educated, the lives of women have changed dramatically, we live in a more ethnically diverse society and technological developments have opened the world up to us." In 1900, there was an average of 4.6 people per household, now there are 2.4 people per household. Infant mortality rates were high, and married women were unlikely to have a paid job and had no say in the political process.

Among men, manual work was the norm and many children left school at the age of 12 to go out to work. Cars were rare and foreign holidays were only for the rich. Now, most teenagers stay in full-time education beyond the age of 16, seven in 10 households have at least one car and holidays abroad are more common than domestic ones. Women have contributed greatly to the growth of office work and now feature among those in power.

Professor Halsey concluded: "It has been an exciting century of progress and barbarism... For the aristocrat perhaps a century of dispossession, culminating in the last days of the century in the removal of the right of hereditary peers... For the old and the ill, perhaps a rather more comfortable hundred years. For the homeless and dispossessed, a time of persistent degradation accentuated by surrounding opulence. For women, the young and the fit and ordinary citizens, perhaps the greatest century in the whole history of mankind."


Part one: reading comprehension

Answer the following questions according to the information in the text "The century that put an end to icons of authority". (1 point each correct answer).

1. What does Professor Halsey say has happened to people in authority in the 20th century?

2. According to Carol Summerfield, how have women's lives improved in the last 100 years?

3. Whose lives have improved most in the twentieth century, according to Professor Halsey?

4. Which of the following sentences (a, b, c) summarises the text best?

a) Britain still important at the end of the twentieth century.
b) Decline in authority in the twentieth century leads to social problems.
c) Winners and a few losers in the twentieth century.

Part two: vocabulary

Explain next words in English, write the phonetics and also an example: to improve, decline, foreign, homeless

Part three: writing

"Life today is better than it was 100 years ago." Write a letter to a newspaper expressing your opinion on this subject.