Вариант 4

You are going to read a text on the life of a famous person. For questions 1-15, read the text below and decide which answer (А, В, or С) best fits each gap.

O’Connor was an Irish-born Chartist leader. The Chartists were the first to build a party representing the interests of the English working classes.

During agitation for reform in (1) early 1830s, he emerged as an advocate of Irish rights and democratic political reform. In 1832, he (2) member of parliament for Cork with the help of Daniel O’Connell, leader of the Irish radicals. They (3) quarrelled and became enemies. O’Connor was an (4) critic of the Whig government’s policies in England and Ireland. In London, he allied himself with popular radicals and after losing his seat in 1835, embarked (5) a career as a leader of English popular radicalism.

O’Connor toured the country (6) for political reform, universal male suffrage and better working conditions, (7) in the industrial districts of England and Scotland. He was well-known for his charismatic and incendiary speeches, which stirred up violence, and his efforts (8) the groundwork for Chartism. This was (9) an umbrella movement of the 1830s and 1840s which drew together many strands of radical grievance. O’Connor’s newspaper ‘The Northern Star’, which he established in 1837, (10) the most effective link between these different strands. O’Connor was (11) with the more radical side of the movement and was imprisoned for libel in 1840. The same year, he attempted with (12) success to unify the Chartist movement and give it direction with the National Charter Association (1840).

From the early 1840s, O’Connor’s attention began to shift to (13) he believed was working people’s alienation from the land. He developed an idea to buy up agricultural estates, divide them into smallholdings and let these (14) individuals. This developed into the ‘National Land Company’ (1845 - 1851). The scheme was a disaster and soon went (15) .