Exercise 1. Read the text and give your answers. 1) What are the functions of the Bank of England?
2) What banks are called "the Big Four"?
3) What bank is Moscow Narodniy Bank ltd.?
4) Where did the first bankers come from?
5) Why did they leave London?
6) Where is the center of British banking?
Exercise 2 Define what is true and what is false. Correct the false sentences. 1) Lloyd's Bank issues English banknotes and mints coins.
2) The Bank of England is one of the biggest commercial banks in Britain.
3) The National Westminster Bank is often referred to as "Nat West".
4) The first bankers settled down in the centre of London.
5) Lombard Street is called after the first customers of British bankers in
Lombardy.
6) The Lombards were made bankrupt because English kings did not repay their
loans to them.
7) The Lombards left London because they did not do good business there.
Task 3. Grammar Exercise 1. Complete this text about a pharmaceutical company with the correct tenses of the verbs in brackets. We like to think we are an ethical company. but we . . ' (have) a problem last
year when we . . . . . . (launch) our new product.
Let me give you the background to the problem. The new product . . . . . . ) (sell)
very well. we . . . . . . . . . . . ' (get) good feedback. and sales. . . . ' (increase) month
by month. Everyone was happy.
Then it all . . . . . . ' (go) wrong. In August. we . . . . (start) to get complaints from
some doctors about one of our salesmen. They . . . . . . . . . . . . (complain) about
the methods that the salesman . . . . . . . . . . . . (use) to persuade them to endorse
the product. He . . . (offer) them expensive gifts and . . . . . . . . . . . . n (take) them
to expensive restaurants. The doctors . . . . .. (feel) under pressure to promote the
product.
By the end of the year. we . . . . . . . . . . . (receive) over 30 complaints about that
particular salesman. In December. articles . . . . . . . . . . . ,. (start) to appear in the
press about our unethical sales methods. In the end. we . . . . . . . . . . . . (fire) the
salesman. As a result of this, we . . . . . . . . . . . " (recently issue) guidelines to all
sales staff about appropriate gifts.
