More and more often, the term global village is used to describe the world and its people. In a typical village, however, everyone knows everyone else and the people face the same kind of problems. How can the world be a village, when it is the home to almost 7.5 billion people? Technological changes in the past century have made the global village possible.
With the help of technological achievements people now are communicating by means of satellites and computers. These high-tech communications allow news and ideas to travel quickly from country to country. People in one country now know about their neighbours around the globe in dramatic new ways. Through the Internet, we can get information from computers anywhere and carry on electronic conversations with people everywhere. Through television programs transmitted by satellite, we can learn much about many cultures.
What will happen as we move into the middle of twenty-first century and beyond? Almost certainly the development of the global village will continue. Not only is this possible, but the challenges that the world faces - for example, global warming, pollution, population growth, etc. - will make it necessary.
(Adapted from “Interchange Student’s Book 3” by Jack C. Richards, CambridgeUniversityPress)

Hello, my name (24) ________ Joe Hayden, and I am twelve years old. My eldest brother, David, is sixteen and Michael is fourteen. I have three younger brothers. My little sister, who is called Naomi, is only two.
David, Michael and I all enjoy (25) ________ to music. David plays the drums and Michael plays the guitar. I (26) ________ on well with David but not so much with my younger brothers Jacob and Sam. We go to a school that is far, far away and we are only at home during the holidays. It’s good being in a big family. You can play games like football and cricket with everyone. In smaller families, this is not (27) ________.
The bad things are that you always get little kids bugging you. They can be so noisy! Everything around you is very busy and really messy, and there’s lots of washing up (28) ________ laundry to do. It also costs much more to go anywhere. But I prefer being in a big family.