>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía
This is not a story of rich western countries helping the developing third-world, but an idea from a banker in Bangladesh to help underprivileged people have access to credits. This idea was first created by Muhammad Yunus, who noticed the prohibitively high interest rates paid by the poor to the banks. Then, Yunus founded the ‘Grameen Bank’, a new category of banking, by giving millions of small loans or “micro-credits” to poor people with no guarantee. His aim was to develop alternative financial institutions to help economic development in areas not usually served by the big banks. The bank is built on Yunus’ conviction that poor people can be both reliable borrowers and enthusiastic entrepreneurs.
When Yunus created the Grameen Bank, he wanted to change the traditional idea of banking. One of his first moves was to focus on women as main borrowers because they are most likely to think about the family’s needs rather than their own. This was a radical step in a traditional Muslim society, and it took Yunus six years to reach his initial goal of a 50-50 gender distribution among borrowers. Today, 96% of Grameen’s borrowers are women. “If banks made large loans, he made small loans. If banks required paperwork, his loans were for the illiterate. Whatever banks did, he did the opposite,” says D. Harris, director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. “He’s a genius.”
According to a recent report, the Grameen project has spread the idea of microcredit throughout Bangladesh, Southern Asia and the rest of the developing world with more than 3,000 microcredit institutions which reach more than 100 million clients worldwide nowadays. Almost 73% of them were living in extreme poverty at the time of their first loan. Now that giving loans to poor people has proven to be a success story, the whole world is being urged to develop small-scale lending initiatives as well. In 2006 Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his efforts to create economic and social benefit to the poorest.”
RESPUESTAS
I. READING COMPREHENSION
ANSWER QUESTIONS 1-3 ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION GIVEN IN THE TEXT. USE YOUR OWN WORDS.
1 Why did Muhammad Yunus create the “Grameen Bank”?
2 Why were men not the main target of the Grameen project?
3 How different from commercial banks are Grameen’s methods?
ARE THESE STATEMENTS TRUE OR FALSE? JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWERS WITH THE PRECISE WORDS OR PHRASES FROM THE TEXT, OR USE YOUR OWN WORDS.
4 The text is one more story about western countries helping poorer ones.
5 The influence of the Grameen project has been very limited.
6 FIND IN THE TEXT ONE WORD MEANING “objective” (NOUN).
7 FIND IN THE TEXT ONE OPPOSITE FOR “uninterested, apathetic” (ADJECTIVE).
8 WHICH WORD DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME MEANING?:
- Prohibitively / excessively / modestly / exorbitantly.
9 FIND IN THE TEXT THE WORD WHICH HAS THE FOLLOWING DEFINITION: “someone who receives something on the promise to return it or its equivalent”.
10 TURN THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE INTO THE ACTIVE VOICE: “M. Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize”.
11 TURN THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE INTO REPORTED SPEECH:
“Betty asked me: ‘When did you arrive?’”
“Betty asked me: ‘When did you arrive?’”
12 FILL IN THE GAP WITH A CORRECT FORM OF THE VERB IN BRACKETS:
- “I would have been exhausted if I had swum (swim) such a long distance”.
13 JOIN THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES USING A RELATIVE. MAKE CHANGES IF NECESSARY:
“I met a girl. Her father is a London banker”.
“I met a girl. Her father is a London banker”.
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