Study Shows Money Makes Us Worry

1.Pre-listening task

1. What springs to your mind when hear the word “money”?
2. Do you have any money worries?
3. Is it easy to look after money?

 

2. Listen and read the article and fill in the gaps

A new (1) _______ from the BBC shows that looking after money is not easy. Over 109,000 people took (2) ________ in the BBC’s Big Money Test. It was one of the biggest ever studies on psychology of money. One of the biggest findings is that money makes many people feel bad. (3) _________say over 40 per cent of us always worry about spending money; a third of us (4) _________worry about money; and the same percentage feel guilty when spending money on themselves. The study found that women like to go shopping to make themselves feel better about life, while men are more to save their cash. Women are more generous with their money and are also more (5) ________ to suffer from money problems.

The researchers also looked at (6) ________ shops try and make us spend our money. It showed how stores are (7) _________looking at new ways to make us buy things on impulse. It asks why candies and chocolate are always by the checkout in supermarkets; why “everyday essentials like bread and milk are at the back of the shop so you have to walk through as many (8) ________ as possible to reach them”; and why the perfume and jewelry sections are always at the front of the department store. The test says that buying (9) ________ on impulse can be bad for our finances: “People who bought goods impulsively were three times more likely to go bankrupt, and four times more likely to run out of money by the end of the week”.

 

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk

 

3. Comprehension questions:
4. Is it easy to look after money according to a new study?
5. What is the biggest finding?
6. Why do women like to go shopping?
7. How do stores and shops to make consumers buy things on impulse?
8. Who is more likely to go bankrupt?
9. How many people constantly worry about money?
10. Why do stores put bread and milk at the back?
11. How many people took part in the study?
12. Vocabulary work. Match the words and definitions.

 

1. psychology	a. purchasing of goods
2.finding	b. a thing that is discovered
3. guilty	c. till
4. shopping	d. at fault
5. cash	e. study of human mind
6. generous	f. a sudden strong desire
7. constantly	g. readiness to give
8. checkout	h. all the time
9. essential	i. bank notes
10. impulse	j. absolutely necessary

 

5. Writing

Write an essay (not more than 150 words) to the theme “A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart”

Jonathan Swift

 

6. Grammar Spot. Multi-word verbs

Meaning and use

A multi-word verb is a verb plus a word such as in, on, out, up, away, off and down. We often think of these words as prepositions, but here they behave like adverbs. The adverb sometimes extends the meaning of the verb on its own.

It’s so annoying. Jason keeps phoning me all the time.

It’s so annoying. Jason keeps on phoning me all the time.

Here, the phrasal verb keeps on means continues. It has the same meaning as keeps but is slightly stronger.

However, you can often put an object pronoun in the middle of a phrasal verb, between the verb and the adverb.

“Guess what! Rob asked me out yesterday!”

Some verbs have three parts to them, an adverb and a preposition.

“Ah! I’ve seen you talking to Rob a lot recently. You seem to get on with him really well.”

 

Form

No object

My car broke down.

 

Noun object

Mark broke out of prison.

 

Object pronoun after the verb

Last week Ismail broke up with her.

 

Object pronoun in the middle

They were engaged, but they broke it off.

 

Take note: phrasal verbs with direct objects

With phrasal verbs, (but not prepositional verbs), the noun object can usually go before or after the adverb.

I broke off our engagement. / I broke our engagement off.

 

Source: https://www.bbc.com/learningenglish/english/intermediate-grammar-guide