练习1. Problems at Southford Plant

Dear MR Ballard,
You asked for a brief report concerning the recent events at the Southford Plant.
We have consulted the files and spoken to relevant members of the higher management and thus are able to provide an explanation for the breakdown reported in the press on 17 May of this year.
____1____ The handling equipment used to deliver the components to the assembly line has been known to be in need of an overhaul for the past six months. The plant has been working to full capacity to finish the American orders according to schedule.
As you know, we had commissioned a study by Industrial Research Consultants. ____2____ In it they warned that there was not enough space available to store sufficient components ____3____
We had decided to install fully automated robot system. However, at the same time it was clear to our production director that given the present maintenance staff, we would not have sufficient staff available if big problems were to arise____4____But we were still only working a two-shift system so the machines were not getting the necessary cover.
We all agree that the breakdown was extremely unfortunate and yet we must admit that, under the circumstance, it was not entirely unexpected.
We now believe that we have managed to sort out the major problems which we had been having with the conveyor equipment ____5____ Added to this is the fact that personnel department has been successful in recruiting some highly qualified maintenance staff who makes us confident that a repetition of the 16 May now seems entirely unlikely.

A. They also recommended expanding the present two-shift system to a three-shift one.
B. And also when the new robots are installed in September, we feel certain that such problems will become a thing of the past.
C. Unfortunately, as you know, there has been a major problem with recognizing the maintenance schedule.
D. The wide range of machine we operate is not fully supervised at all times.
E. The cause of the breakdown was very simple.
F. They submitted their report on April 5.
G. There have been a number of delays and breakdowns in production recently which have been reported in the press.
H. The firm has been advertising for maintenance engineers for some weeks.
I. All the facilities in the plant will be coordinated to enable the workers to step up production of the new range of machines.

答案：1. E；2. F；3. A；4. H；5.B
试题 14

PART TWO
Questions 8-12
 Read the article below about job interviews.
 Choose the best sentence from the list on the opposite page to fill each of the gaps.
 For each gap 8-12 mark one letter (A-I) on your Answer Sheet.
 Do not use any letter more than once.

How to Succeed at Interviews
The aim of a job interview is to establish whether you are likely to do well in a particular job in a specific organisation. This is not only a matter of having the necessary technical knowledge and skills. You must also have the motivation, the ability to adapt to new ways of working and to a new work environment, and the personality to do the job and fit into a new team. (example)____. These include getting on with people, oral and written communication, teamworking, problem solving and good time management.
Most people think that interviewers know what they are looking for and will recognise it when they see it. (8) ____. This applies to recruiters as much as anyone else. In fact a former head of selection at one big firm used to say that “some interviewers are so poor they would do better to rely on chance”.
In companies which recognise this, various methods are used to try to find the right person (9) ____. Research has shown that this approach is more reliable than the ordinary job interview, though not as effective as using personality tests or assessment centres.
In a structured interview the interviewer groups the qualities listed in the job specification under various headings. There are two well-established structures for this: the National Institute of Industrial Psychology’s Seven-Point Plan and the Five-Fold Grading System. Both these systems cover factors such as physical appearance, qualifications, general intelligence, motivation and previous experience.(10) ____.
However, they should not give equal weight to each one. Some factors are more important in one job than another. For example, physical appearance and manner will be more important in a sales position than in a researcher who works behind the scenes. It is also a fact that the impact the candidate makes in the first three of four minutes of an interview is of major importance.(11) ____.A decision not to hire is often made during those first few minutes.
It is not always possible to tell whether structured interview techniques are being used. If interviewers ask questions systematically, using some kind of checklist, and occasionally make a brief note, they probably are. On the other hand, if the interviewer goes through your application form to confirm what you have already said, or asks irrelevant questions, or jumps from one topic to another the interview is unlikely to be structured. Before you attend any interview, look again at the job description and the personal specification. (12) ____. If you already have a mental list of the key points that you need to mention, you are unlikely to waste time giving irrelevant information or to omit important points in your favour.
A Study them closely and assess what your interviewer will be looking for.
B However, people are actually not very good at assessing one another.
C A number of skills are common to most of these interviewing situations.
D Although a favourable impression may be reversed later in the interview, a negative impression is rarely changed.
E The most common is the structured interview.
F The effectiveness of the interviewer can be improved by training.
G For each of these areas the interviewers score candidates against how well they fit the job specification.
H The ability to cope with stress and get on with people is essential.
I But there are other personal skills that affect your success in a job.

答案：8.B 9.E 10.G 11.D 12.A Finding the right people

When a small company grows, managers must take on many new roles. Besides the day-to-day running of the business, they find themselves responsible for, among other things, relations with outside investors, increased levels of cashflow and, hardest of all, recruitment.
For most managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, the job of searching for, interviewing and selecting staff is difficult and time-consuming. ___(0) G___. Interviewing, for example, is a highly skilled activity in itself.
“We have found the whole process very hard,” says Dan Baker, founding partner of a PR company. “In seven years we have grown from five to eighteen staff, but we have not found it easy to locate and recruit the right people.” ___(8)___. As Dan Baker explains, “We went to one for out first recruitment drive, but they took a lot of money in advance and didn’t put forward anybody suitable. In the end we had to do it ourselves.”
Most recruitment decisions are based on a pile of CVs, a couple of short interviews and two cautious references. David Rowe, a business psychologist, studied how appointments were made in five small companies. He claims that selection was rarely based in clear criteria. ___(9)___. This kind of approach to recruitment often has unhappy consequences for both employers and new recruits.
Small companies often know what kind of person they are looking for. ___(10)___. According to David Rowe, this means that small company managers themselves have to devote more time and energy to recruitment. It shouldn’t be something that is left to the evenings or weekends.
Many companies start the recruitment process with over-optimistic ideas about the type of person that will fit into their team. “It’s very easy to say you must have the best people in the top positions,” says Alex Jones, managing partner of an executive recruitment company. “But someone who is excellent in one company may not do so well in another environment. ___(11)___. You can never guarantee a successful transfer of skills.”
Whatever the candidate’s qualifications, their personal qualities are just as important since they will have to integrate with existing members of staff. This is where, the recruitment industry argues, they can really help.
According to Alex Jones, “a good recruitment agency will visit your company and ask a lot of questions. ___(12)___. They can ask applicants all sorts of you with a shortlist of people who not only have the skills, but who are likely to fit in with your company’s way of doing things.”

A. A finance director in a big company, for example, will often make a terrible small company finance director because he or she is used to having a team doing the day-to-day jobs.
B. More often than not, the people making the choice prioritized different qualities in candidates or relied on guesswork.
C. Recruitment would seem an obvious task to outsource, but the company’s experience of recruitment agencies was not encouraging.
D. They need paying for that, of course, but you will have them working for you and not for the candidate.
E. They are usually in very specific markets and the problem they face is that recruitment agencies may not really understand the sector.
F. This means that companies cannot spend more than the standard ten minutes interviewing each applicant.
G. Yet few are trained and competent for all aspects of the task.

答案：8.C；9.B；10.E；11.A；12.DPart 3
作业：
Part 3

Exercise1
Questions 1-6
Read the article below about public relations.
For each question 1-6, mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet, for the answer you choose.

Public Relations
A company does not function in a vacuum, but rather as part of a society. That society consists of the people who work for it, the people and companies that do business with it, the public at large, and the government that regulates and taxes it. These groups are known as a company’s “publics.” In order for a company to deal with these publics effectively, a relationship of trust must exist. Employees will not cooperate with or put forth their best efforts for a company that they do not trust or that they feel is taking advantage of them. The public will not buy products or services from a company that, in their view, is not responsible or trustworthy. And the government, as the protector of the society it governs, is especially vigilant in dealing with a company that it regards as not operating in the public interest. Given these circumstances, every business, whether it is a giant corporation or a small factory, a five-star hotel or a roadside tavern, needs to give some thought to the relationship it has with all the various publics it interacts with. The techniques that a company uses to improve these relationships are known as “public relations”, also called PR.

The goal of public relations is usually to improve the climate or atmosphere in which a company operates. Here are some results a company might expect from a successful public relations campaign:
Its products and services are better known.
Its relationship with employees has improved.
Its public reputation has improved.

A successful public relations campaign can get people to do something that will help a company, stop them from doing something that might hurt it, or at least allow the company to proceed with a course of action without criticism. “An organization with good public relations has a favourable image or reputation, perhaps as a result of public relations activities.” Says Richard Weiner, a noted and award-winning public relations counselor. In developing and implementing public relations plans, companies often use a simple five-step process: research or fact finding, planning, action, communication, and evaluation.

A classic example of public relations at work is McDonald’s. It has always been important to McDonald’s to be known as a company that values cleanliness. Indeed, founder Ray Kroc emphasized cleanliness a long with quality, service, and value as being the four most important things in any McDonald’s operation. For that reason, Kroc instructed the first McDonald’s franchisees to pick up all litter within a two block radius of their stores, whether it was McDonald’s litter or not. The company also did many other things to help protect the environment. In 1990, it announced a program called McRecycle in which McDonald’s committed itself to buy $100 million in recycled materials for use in building and remodeling its restaurants. It is important to understand the role public relations has played in all the company’s decisions. McDonald’s has always been socially responsible and extremely concerned about its image. These two facts are part and parcel of its public relationships. To McDonald’s, public relationships activities go much deeper than simply sending out press releases and having corporate officers serve on various charitable boards. The company understands that real public relations means taking significant action first, then announcing them to the public. Without the first step, the second would be meaningless. Many companies do not understand this basic principle: If you want to make news, you must first do something newsworthy.

1. According to the passage, a company’s publics refer to
A. people in a society
B. employees and employers within a company
C. people and organization in and outside a company
D. the company and the government

2. A good public relationship is based on
A. mutual understanding
B. mutual familiarity
C. mutual attraction
D. mutual trust

3. The aim of public relations is to
A. improve a company’s operating environment
B. make a company’s products known to the public
C. make a company’s name known to the public
D. establish a good relationship with employees

4. The passage tells us that a good reputation of a company mostly comes from
A. its high quality products
B. the fame of its executives
C. its public relation activities
D. its relationship with the government

5. According to the text, how many steps are usually adopted to implement public relations plans?
A. Three.
B. Five.
C. Eight.
D. Not mentioned.

6. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A. Public relations first, business second.
B. Actions speak louder than words.
C. It is easier said than done.
D. One should seek truth from facts.

PART THREE
Questions 13-18
 Read the article below about business meetings and the questions on the opposite page.
 For each question 13-18, mark one letter (A,B,C or D) on your Answer Sheet for the answer you choose. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF MEETING
One aspect of business life which many managers are unhappy with is the need to attend meetings. Research indicates that managers will spend between a third and a half of their working lives in meetings. Although most managers would agree that it is hard to think of an alternative to meetings, as a means of considering information and making collective decisions, their length and frequency can cause problems with the workload of even the best-organised executives.

Meetings work best if they take place only when necessary and not as a matter of routine. One example of this is the discussion of personal or career matters between members of staff and their line and personnel managers. Another is during the early stages of a project when the team managing it need to learn to understand and trust one another.

Once it has been decided that a meeting is necessary, decisions need to be taken about who will attend and about the location and length of the meeting. People should only be invited to attend if they are directly involved in the matters under discussion and the agenda should be distributed well in advance. An agenda is vital because it acts as a road map to keep discussion focused and within the time limited allocated. This is also the responsibility of the person chairing the meeting, who should encourage those who say little to speak and stop those who have a great deal to say from talking too much.

At the end of a well organised meeting, people will feel that the meeting has been a success and be pleased they were invited. They will know not only what decisions were made but also the reasons for these decisions. Unfortunately, at the end of a badly organised meeting those present will leave feeling that they have wasted their time and that nothing worthwhile has been achieved.

Much together has been given over the years to ways of keeping meeting short. One man who has no intention of spending half his working life in meeting is Roland Winterson, chief executive of a large manufacturing company. He believes that meetings should be short, sharp and infrequent. “I try to hold no more than two or three meetings a week, attended by a maximum of three people for no longer than half an hour,” he says. “They are clearly aimed at achieving a specific objective, such as making a decision or planning a strategy, and are based on careful preparation. I draw up the agenda for every meeting and circulate it in advance; those attending are expected to study it carefully and should be prepared to both ask and answer questions. Managers are best employed carrying out tasks directly connected with their jobs not attending endless meetings. In business, time is money and spending it in needless meetings that don’t achieve anything can be very costly. Executives should follow the example of lawyers and put a cost on each hour of their time and then decide whether attending a long meeting really is the best way to spend their time.”

13. What do most managers think about meetings?
A. Meetings take up most of their working life.
B. Meetings allow them to monitor decision-making.
C. Meetings prevent them from establishing a routine.
D. Meetings are the only way they know of achieving certain objectives.

14. According to the writer, an example of a valuable meeting is one which
A. allows colleagues to achieve a better working relationship.
B. requires managers to discuss staffing needs with personnel.
C. selects a suitable group of people to work together as a team.
D. encourages staff to present ideas on improvements in management.

15. According to the writer the agenda is important because it
A. is seen by everybody before the meeting.
B. helps to give direction to the discussions.
C. contains items of interest to all those present.
D. shows who should speak at each stage of the meeting.

16. The writer says that people leaving a well organised meeting will understand
A. the reason for their invitation to attend.
B. how the decisions taken were relevant to them.
C. the importance of proposals under discussion.
D. why certain courses of action were agreed upon.

17. What does Roland Winterson say about the meetings that he organises?
A. He aims to hold them on a regular basis.
B. He ensures they have a definite purpose.
C. He requires his managers to draw up the agenda.
D. He uses them to make decisions about strategy.

18. What is Roland Winteson’s opinion about meetings?
A. They ban be a bad use of a manager’s time.
B. Their importance is often underestimated.
C. They frequently result in wrong decisions.
D. Their effectiveness could be improved with better planning.

答案：13.D；14.A；15.B；16.D；17.B；18.A PART THREE
Questions 13-18
 Read the article below about how to avoid working long hours and the questions on the opposite page
 For each question 13-18, mark one letter (A,B,C or D) on your Answer Sheet, for the answer you choose.

Morning, noon and night The long-hours culture at work
Working an eight-hour day is a luxury for most professional people. Nowadays, the only way to guarantee an eight-hour working day is to have the kind of job where you clock on and off. Those professionals who have managed to limit their hours to what was, 20 years ago, the average do not wish to identify themselves. “I can quite easily achieve my work within a normal day, but I don’t like to draw attention to it,” says one sales manager. “People looked at me when I left at 5 o’clock. Now, I put paperwork in my bag. People assume I’m doing extra hours at home.”

But more typical is Mark, who works as an account manager. He says, “My contract says I work from 9 until 5 with extra hours as necessary. It sounds as if the extra hours are exceptional. In fact ,my job would be enough not only for me, but also for someone else part-time. The idea of an eight-hour day makes me laugh!” He says he has thought about going freelance but realises that this doesn’t guarantee better working hours.

Professors Cary Cooper, occupational psychologist at the University of Manchester, is the author of the annual Quality of Working Life survey. The most recent survey found that 77% of managers in Britain work more than their contracted hours, and that this is having a damaging effect on their health, relationships and productivity. Professor Cooper is critical of the long-hours culture. He says that while bosses believe long hours lead to greater efficiency, there is no evidence to support this. “In fact, the evidence shows that long hours make you ill.”

There are, he says, steps that can be taken. One is to accept that the in-tray will never be empty. “There are always things to do. You just have to make the rule that on certain days you go home early.” Prioritising work and doing essential tasks first helps, he says. He also thinks it’s time to criticize bad employers and unreasonable terms of employment. “By all means, show commitment where necessary but when expectations are too high, people have to begin saying openly that they have a life outside of work.”

Personal development coach Mo Shapiro agrees that communication is important. Staff need to talk to managers about the working practices within a company. Both parties should feel that the expectations are realistic and allow them to have responsibilities and interests outside work. She recongnises, however, that in many organizations the response might well be, “If you want more interests outside work, then find another job.”

She believes that senior staff have a duty to set an example. “I recently worked for a firm of solicitors where the partners started at 7.30am. What kind of message is that to send to the staff?” She believes there is no shame in working sensible hours – in fact quite the reserve. “Some people might be in at 7.30am but will be doing very little. You can work really hard from 9 to 5 and achieve the same. If you find it difficult to achieve an eight-hour day, there is, as a last resort, the old trick of leaving your jacket on your chair and your computers switched on, even after you have left the building.”

13. What does the writer say in the first paragraph about people who work an eight-hour day?
A. They are reluctant to admit to this.
B. They are disliked by their colleagues.
C. They are limited to certain professions.
D. They often catch up on work in the evenings.

14. What does Mark say about his work?
A. His main concern is job security.
B. Too much of his time at work is wasted.
C. The terms of his contract are misleading.
D. He objects to being given other people’s work.

15. What does Cary Cooper say about recent trends in the workplace?
A. He believes that a long working day is counter-productive.
B. He has doubts about the results of the Quality of Working Life survey.
C. He says that employers should accept the link between working hours and safety.
D. He argues that further research is needed into the relationship between work and health.

16. How does Cary Cooper think people should deal with the requirements of the workplace?
A. Obtain help in negotiating terms of employment.
B. Let people know when demands are unreasonable.
C. Delegate the less important work to other staff.
D. Accept that the modern workplace is a competitive place.

17. What does Mo Shapiro see as a problem for employees today?
A. They lack the communication skills that modern business requires.
B. Many employers would not regard requests for shorter hours favourably.
C. Most employers do not want to be responsible for the professional development of staff.
D. They have difficulties adapting to the rapid changes occurring in working practices.

18. What does Mo Shapiro think about present working hours?
A. In many companies senior staff need to work a long day.
B. The best staff are efficient enough to finish their work within eight hours.
C. There are too many staff deceiving employers about their hours of work.
D. Top executives should use their influence to change the long-hours culture.

答案：13.A；14.C；15.A；16.B；17.B；18.D