C) Read this text about charities and answer questions below.

Charity once meant love or affection, but in late twentieth- century in Britain its meaning has been transformed. Today charity stands for big business. Charities employ 200,000 people, account for as much as four per cent of Britain's gross domestic product, and exceed in scale that most ancient and widespread of all industries, farming.

The influence of charities reaches everywhere. Their massive spectaculars get privileged time on the nation's television screens. Spokespersons lobby for every imaginable good cause, from the environment to the Third World, poverty to disease, religion to education, childhood to old age.

Charities run our lifeboats and provide other vital emergency services through the Red Cross and St John Ambulance Brigade. They are, too, the human guardians of the animal world, caring especially for those great British favourites, donkeys, dogs and birds.

Without charities a great many unfortunate people would be even worse off: old soldiers, battered women, the deaf, the dying, the blind, the homeless, the suicidal, sufferers from every rare and common disability.

Britain raises more money for medical research through charities than it does through the Government's Medical Research Council. One charity, the National Trust, dominates the endless task of preserving the nation’s heritage. Others are rebuilding the finances of our universities, and in a few years have raised more than £350 million for Oxford and Cambridge alone.

Charity benevolence seems to have had its origins when warrior tramped off to the Crusades, leaving their possessions in the care of a trusted friend. Trust, at any rate, remains the basis on which charities rest. Charities today raise and spend money as any business does. But there is one important difference. Unlike company directors, charity trustees must not make any profit for themselves.

Giant fund-raising events of the eighties cast charity in a glare of publicity. People began to ask questions: were the fund-raising methods legitimate? Was the money raised well spent? And why, this age of universal welfare, did we need charities at all? The questions remain to be answered.

5d) Answer the questions:

1.Where do you think the text comes from:

a) a novel;

b) a charity's publicity leaflet;

c) a newspaper.

2. What title would you give to the piece:

a) Where charity is, there love is;

b) The changing face of charity;

c) Charities? We can do without them.

3. Which charities/charitable causes does the text refer to?

E) Now read the text again and decide whether the statements below are true or false. Correct those that are false, and underline the sections in the text which show the others are true. Note that one part of a sentence may be true and the other false.

1. Charity is like big business nowadays because it involves large sums of money…

2.... and charities make a profit for the employees.

3. TV companies provide time for appeals on behalf of all kinds f causes.

4. Charities improve the position of many unfortunate people.

5. There are charities to help women who have been beaten by their husbands and people who think of killing themselves.

6. The Government provides most of the money for medical research.

7. Big charity events in recent years have brought charities to public notice...

8.... although people wondered whether the methods employed o raise money were the right ones.

Questions to the topic:

1. What role does money have in your life? What is the contribution of money to people’s sense of well-being?

2. Describe your budget: your income and your expenditures.

3. How would you describe yourself in terms of your attitude to money: extravagant, stingy, generous, mean, negligent, irresponsible?

4. Describe your relations with money. How do you economize?

5. If someone gave you a lot of money, what would you do with it?

6. Do you think money is more important than love?

7. How much money do you want to earn each month?

8. What qualities must a person have to make BIG money? Does big money change a person? in what way?

9. Should children get an allowance (pocket money) from their parents?

10. Do you ever give money to beggars on the street? Why or why not?

11. Do you ever give money to charity? Why or why not?

12. Why do people often want more money, no matter how much they have got?

13. Why are poor people in many cases more generous than rich people?

14. What are some reasons for people being poor? Can poverty be avoided?

15. Who wouldn't you lend money to?

16. Do you play the lottery? gamble? Why?

17. Do you sometimes buy things that you don't need? Can you explain why you do?

18. How much money would you have to win to be happy?

19. What are the easiest ways of getting much money?

20. What problems may arise if you suddenly went into money?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14