Comprehension Practice

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

1. When did Jane Sadler open her account with the Medway Bank?

2. What type of account did she open?

3. Where did the cheque she wrote on 15^th February appear on the bank statement?

4. Did she write a cheque for f60 on 22^nd February?

5. Why did the bank debit her account by f33.50 the following day?

6. What appeared as a credit for f802.20 on 26^th February?

7. Did Jane Sadler finish the month with a credit or with a debit?

8. What was Jane Sadler’s bank balance at the end of the month?

9. What other transactions were there on her account?

10. What is the statement of account needed for?

Vocabulary Practice

Exercise 1. Match the words with their corresponding definitions:

balance	a sum of money exchanged for goods or services
transaction	the cost of sending letters, parcels etc. by mail
purchase	to buy
payment	a movement of money into or out of an account
free of charge	to place money in a bank account
postage	without cost
interest	the amount of money in a bank account at a particular time
deposit	money paid to someone who invests money

Text 4. An Overdraft Comprehension Practice

Exercise 1. Listen to the dialogue and answer the following questions:

1. Who are the participants of the dialogue?

2. Why did Anne sound upset?

3. What was wrong with her account?

4. How did she know that her account was overdrawn?

5. Did Sandra understand what Anne had said? Why?

6. How did Anne explain the expression “to be in the red”?

7. What did Anne have to do about the overdraft?

8. Was it expensive?

9. When was Anne going to pay interest on the overdrawn amount?

10. What, do you think, is the expression that means your account is in credit?

Exercise 2. Act out the dialogue with your partner.

Exercise 3. Give a reported version of the dialogue.

Exercise 4. Make up a dialogue by analogy.

Vocabulary Practice

Exercise 1. Give antonyms to the following expressions:

To have an overdraft To pay money into an account

To be in the red To earn interest Cheap

Text 5. A Letter of Complaint

Charles Colwell

24 Dundas Street

London SWI 9FZ

Nov. 6th

Mr Smith

Branch Manager

National Savings Bank

509 Wellington Street

London SWIV 9AW

Dear Mr Smith

Following the recent telephone conversation that I had with Ms Henry, I am confirming in writing the complaint that I made to her concerning the f30 overdraft charge that your bank has mistakenly debited from my account.

As you may remember, approximately one month ago I arranged for the transfer of f500 from my savings account to my current account. Unfortunately your bank gave exactly the opposite instructions, transferring instead f500 from my current account to my savings account, with the result that my current account became overdrawn. When I realised that mistake had been made I contacted you personally and you assured me that the situation would be rectified immediately and that no overdraft charge would be made.

On receiving my latest statement I was therefore most surprised to see that my current account had indeed been debited by f30 for overdraft charges. Although the transfer of the funds has now been credited to the correct account, I see no reason why I should pay a penalty as a result of a mistake made by your bank, especially as I had your personal guarantee that this would not be the case.

I have been a customer of your bank for several years now and have had, to date, no reason to complain about the quality of the services provided. However, I feel that in the present circumstances this situation should be clarified immediately and I expect a full explanation of these mistakes. Failing this, I will have no alternative but to consider transferring my accounts to another bank.

Yours sincerely,

Charles Colwell