Read the article below about careers in children’s book publishing and the questions on the opposite page. For each question(13-18), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet. Leading from the top Catherine Bauer looks at career development in children’s book publishing To get on in the world of children’s book publishing one needs to be ’bright, nice and not ambitious’. Those are the words of a 37-year-old manager thinking about leaving the industry. Managers in other industries would, by that age, be striving towards greater leadership challenges and rewards, while Human Resources departments would be doing all they could to prevent hungry competitors from getting hold of experienced and talented employees. Maintaining successful corporations and happy shareholders is, after all, dependent on using the talents and experience of one’s staff, not on being nice. Career progression in the children’s sector of publishing seems to be determined almost by luck rather than a proper career structure or assessment of employees’ competencies. Sarah Carter, for example, started her career as an assistant in the customer service department at William Davis Publishing. She only became aware of a vacancy in public relations because her department was on the same floor as the publicity office. ’I had already been promoted to manager in my department, but realised that any career development there would be limited. I decided to move sideways into PR, which was also where I felt my skills were more suited. I was lucky a position came up within the company.’ Across the publishing houses, staff training or development is generally dependent on the approach taken by your immediate boss. Virginia Coutts, editorial director at Prodigy Publications, says, ’This is fine, if you happen to have one who is effective. When I started at Prodigy I worked for Roger Gibbons. I was in children’s fiction, but he also gave me some work on picture books and non-fiction, and that meant I gained experience in a range of areas. He also made sure that new people didn’t come in, train and then move on. And it wasn’t a question of being here for three years or so before you got promoted.’ Not everyone has a similar experience with their manager, but this is not surprising when one considers that few managers have themselves had any structured training. Mark Harlock, marketing manager at T R Publishers, says, ’My job change into management was completely unsupported - my requests for training took months, and by the time they were approved the need had passed. Yes, you learn on the job, but how much more constructive for all involved if it happens in a structured way. Surely this would speed up the learning curve?’ However, there are changes in the air. At Little Feet Publications, Barbara Foster has been overhauling the company’s training and career structure so that all employees have regular appraisals. ’We are ahead of our competitors here at Little Feet, but even we are only beginning to scratch the surface. So far there’s been little opposition to the appraisals, but there’s still loads to do and the results will not become clear for a few years yet.’ Perhaps the industry should consider itself lucky to have so many dedicated managers who have, through a combination of chance and determination, successfully developed their careers in publishing. Clearly it now needs to review what is being done to develop, train and reward the next generation of bosses. Above all, the industry has to find more people with entrepreneurial spirit and push them into demanding roles rather than make them serve their time at a junior level. But such changes can only come from the very top.

Look at the statements below and the article about meetings on the opposite page. Which section(A, B, C or D)does each statement(1-7)refer to? For each statement(1-7), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet. You will need to use some of these letters more than once. Example: 0 a policy of not allowing people in meetings to become comfortable and relaxed [*] Business Meetings A Many organisations are developing ways of minimising the time workers spend sitting in meetings in order to give them more hours working at their desks. They realise that reducing the number of meetings is problematic, but some are using a device called a Meeting Meter to determine how much money is wasted through the widespread practice of over-populated and time-inefficient meetings. A general meeting in a big company can cost ￡9000 an hour. Even staff in UK government departments have been told to make less elaborate presentations and to get through them more quickly. B A solution has often been to take things at breakneck speed or abolish meetings altogether. Olivia Dacourt, CEO of a retail chain, makes a point of not letting anyone sit down in her meetings. ’We cover more material in a 15-minute meeting than you’d see in a two-hour sit-down meeting,’ she says. She drills her employees to shout ’pass’ if they have no comment to make, thereby saving a hastily mumbled agreement with the previous speaker. In this way, her last staff meeting clocked in at six minutes. C Website designer Barry Hare has gone so far as to charge his clients a meeting ’tax’. If they ask for a meeting, he doubles his design fee of ￡85 an hour. ’Everyone I talk to hates meetings, but they don’t know what to do about them/ he says. ’Well, I’ve actually done something.’ Similarly, at JP Products, managers have instigated a No Meetings Day every Friday. The scheme was devised by in-house industrial psychologist Ada Pearson after hearing employees joke about the need for a ’meeting-free day’. D But abolishing meetings is not as simple as clearing them from your diary. At JP Products some workers have felt the need to get round the No Meetings Day directive by holding spontaneous ’huddles’ and ’nice to knows’ to update each other on progress. After her success in reducing the meetings quota, Pearson is under pressure from meeting-weary managers to implement days that are free of emails and telephone calls. But unfortunately she has other priorities -thanks to a lengthy meeting with the chief executive.

Read the text below about a company’s approach to social responsibility. In most of the lines(34-45), there is one extra word. It is either grammatically incorrect or does not fit in with the meaning of the text. Some lines, however, are correct. If a line is correct, write CORRECT on your Answer Sheet. If there is an extra word in the line, write the extra word in CAPITAL LETTERS on your Answer Sheet. The exercise begins with two examples(0 and 00). Examples:[*] Elco and social responsibility 0 Elco is a leading electrical retailer based in France. The company has been involved in 00 issues of social responsibility for many years and has always aimed to achieve as a 【M1】positive social impact while tackling the environmental issues are raised by electrical 【M2】retailing. As a consequence, Elco has been an integrated approach to social and environmental 【M3】issues and is particularly involved it in community schemes and recycling projects. As 【M4】part of this commitment, Elco helps to run like a two-year programme that trains 【M5】people with learning difficulties to make repair domestic electrical appliances. These 【M6】appliances are collected by Elco from customers’ homes so when new products are 【M7】delivered. About 10% of them are suitable for repair, leaving the other 90% to be dismantled 【M8】and sold them for appropriate industrial treatment. The repaired appliances are then sold on 【M9】the second-hand market at a low price and with a one-year guarantee. Elco is also 【M10】currently working to reduce in the impact its own transport system has on the 【M11】environment. Drivers attend training sessions, which offered in partnership with car suppliers 【M12】and transport companies, to learn from how to drive in a way that respects the environment.

Read the article below about goods returned by customers to mail order companies. Choose the best word or phrase to fill each gap from A, B, C or D on the opposite page. For each question(19-33), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet. There is an example at the beginning(0). Unwanted Goods Increased sales is always good news for mail order companies. But more sales also(0)___ A___more items are returned. Most companies have a full returns policy, but as Meg Powell, Managing Director of mail order company Go First, explains, this usually【C1】______a lot of extra work. ’If an item comes back, we have to【C2】______with refunds, apology mailings and stock control. This is a complex process and each returned item undergoes close【C3】______for defects. If goods are in a fit【C4】______ for stock, they need repacking and putting back in the warehouse. If not, we’ll look at why. Anything【C5】______ to the quality of returned goods is【C6】______information. In some instances we can identify a fault in production and do something about it.’ Estimates of the number of returns for the sector【C7】______ In the 【C8】______of Go First, which delivers 100 million packages a year, 26 million come back. Reducing this number is an important【C9】______for the company. One way it aims to do this is by making the initial order-taking process as accurate as possible, and by closely【C10】______ the packing of goods. 【C11】______ the reasons for returns also helps. Go First telephones a 【C12】______of people returning goods to establish their reasons for doing so. Clearly, a customer-focused returns process is essential for fostering trust in the company. ’It is standard【C13】______in this business,’ says Meg Powell. ’It attracts customers, gives them a greater【C14】______of security and encourages them to buy. We realise that making the return of goods a smooth, fast process can only【C15】______customer satisfaction.’ Example: A means B leads C proposes D gives [*]

The writer says that in comparison to publishing, other companies

Sarah Carter changed her job within William Davis Publishing because

Virginia Courts says that when she first started at Prodigy Publications

What does Mark Harlock say about formal training?

In using the words ’scratch the surface’(line 30), Barbara Foster means that her actions

In the final paragraph, the writer recommends that the publishing industry should