Задание 10 из ЕГЭ по английскому языку: задача 24

Установите соответствие между текстами A–G и заголовками 1–8. Запишите свои ответы. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании один заголовок лишний.

Freecycle
1. Exchange of useless things
2. Increasing popularity
3. Gifts for everyone
4. Shopping addiction
5. Site foundation
6. Simple choice
7. Easy solution
8. Satisfaction from good deals

A. The temptation to buy, buy, buy is hard to resist. A new outfit, a gadget, an item of furniture — someone is buying one right now. Now, guilty shoppers who are keen to get rid of a no-longer-needed purchase have a radical new option — simply giving it away. Second-hand technology is notoriously difficult to offload. So, on a conventional auction site, such as eBay, there would be no any takers.

B. Freecycle is one of a number of websites that aim to reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites by encouraging one of the most efficient forms of recycling — simply giving things to people who want them. As the name suggests, everything advertised on Freecycle must be free — whether it’s an old sofa, unwanted CDs or even a few hours’ help in the garden. Anyone who is interested simply replies by e-mail: deal done.

C. The site is the creation of Deron Beal, an environmentalist from the US who started it in mid-2003 as an automated e-mail list. Today Freecycle has 1.2 million members and is a cross between an Internet auction house and a global chain of charity shops. Mr Beal says his chief aim is to cut waste and help the environment. They reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites by encouraging one of the most efficient forms of recycling — simply giving things to people who want them.

D. On the London site, interest in a decrepit computer is led by Tung, who wants to get his sixty-seven-year-old mum on the net. Then there’s Kate, whose son wants it for his schoolwork. There’s also John, who wants it for his daughter, a nurse on low wage. Money isn’t involved but a kind of auction is taking place to see whose situation most deserves a free PC.

E. The people giving it away has to make a difficult choice between several ‘bidders’. Some people may suggest that dishonest individuals could make up heart-tugging stories in order to get freebies, or even to make a profit by selling them on. Freecycle embodies some of that old charitable Internet spirit by asking that before members accept a freebie, they put something up for offer. And it’s by no means all the junk, you don’t need any more.

F. They may offer nearly new toys, furniture, electrical goods, even bikes and cars. That such high-quality goods are on offer does not surprise Friends of the Earth campaigner Georgina Bloomfield. She says it reflects the fact that people are buying more than ever, but don’t want to simply throw things away when they replace them. ‘People want to feel a bit better about consuming, and so they’re happy to give things away’, she says.

G. Freecycle has grown rapidly around the world in countries as diverse as Mexico, Nepal, France and Romania and it seems to be on the cusp of breaking through into the mainstream. In the end it would be better if people simply stopped buying so much. But realistically, until people change their ways, green groups, guilty consumers and those with an eye for the ultimate bargain seem more than happy to make the most of Freecycle.