BEC商务英语（中级）阅读模拟试卷160

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 magazine article below about Andy Seymour, the Chief Executive of a chain of book stores called Bookroom, and the questions on the opposite page. For each question(13-18), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet. CHALLENGING TIMES AT BOOKROOM Bookroom isn’t a very successful company at the moment. It’s heavily in debt, and it’s rumoured that its owner, P&K, wouldn’t turn down a suitable offer. Even its own store managers are said to be unhappy - those who haven’t left, that is. A recent change in strategy is proving too much for many of them: they’ve been told to concentrate on giving more space to a limited number of bestsellers, advertised nationally by the company, and not to titles which sit on the shelves for weeks. The challenge of taking Bookroom back into profit falls to the Chief Executive, Andy Seymour, who was moved a year ago from P&K’s music chain, MusicWorld, with an impressive record of efficiency improvements. He increased the floor space of the more successful MusicWorld stores and closed down the loss-making ones. New computer systems gave him better stock control, and allowed him to produce up-to-date charts of the top CDs for display in the stores, with a positive impact on turnover and profits. In addition, he negotiated a pay and productivity deal with the employees. All in all, it was a period which saw the chain reach its peak. Seymour, though, doesn’t take any credit for MusicWorld’s success. ’Even before I became Chief Executive, all the stores were run by top quality people doing everything they could, at a time when the public weren’t spending much on leisure,’ he says. ’They all stayed on, and that was the decisive factor. The only things I did were to change the advertising agency - they weren’t keeping up with developments in the music industry - and make some minor innovations in the stores. Customers were coming into the shops, and it was up to us to make the most of this.’ Luck had been against him in his previous job, though, as operations director of Clarkson’s, the do-it-yourself retailer which P&K had just acquired. Soon after his move to the company, there was a recession, which meant that the market for home improvement products collapsed. Seymour was involved in endless consultations with the board, discussing ways to turn the company round. They were in a high-risk situation and, despite his efforts, Clarkson’s lost millions. But even when things were at their worst, Seymour didn’t resign, as most would have done, and he was highly thought of for that. He has a reasonable track record, certainly, but some would say not brilliant. And will he succeed at Bookroom? His first year has been disappointing, but there are signs of improvement. He’s continued the strategy of opening new shops, and although many store managers have gone, their replacements have been picked carefully. He’s also done something about one of the main reasons for the present difficulties, reducing targets to allow for the fact that the book market is still flat. Seymour is an experienced retail manager. At MusicWorld he proved himself a good manager of people with a particular gift for motivating his staff. But he’s also strong on detail, and has already improved Bookroom’s financial control. It looks as though his strategy will pay off in the long term. The only thing you could blame him for is not being strong enough in opposing all the negative talk about Bookroom, because that is what is damaging the company. And unless Seymour does something about that, he may find himself looking for a new job.

Read the article below about the UK retail sector. Choose the best word 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). The Retail Sector The retail sector is one of the UK’s biggest employment areas, accounting for one in nine of the(0)______.B______. It is also one of the fastest growing - more than a fifth of jobs【C1】______last year were in retail. Such rapid【C2】______in the tightest labour market for more than a generation should be【C3】______ up wages, but it is not.While the national【C4】______wage goes up by about 5% a year, in retail it goes up by 3.5%. The consequences of low wages and far from brilliant conditions is rapid staff turnover. About half the staff employed in retail leave every year. This【C5】______ is way above even those sectors such as nursing, which are said to be in a recruitment 【C6】______. Part of the problem is that the employers themselves are under considerable financial【C7】______.Retail is suffering a long-term slide independent of the【C8】______ and falls of the economy. One of the reasons for this is consumer expectations. With the growth of e-commerce, customers look for bigger and better bargains and insist on【C9】______for money. There are some pluses for employees, however. Low wages and high turnover make retail a youthful sector. Real managerial【C109】______ can be attained by the mid-20s, so school-leavers or recent graduates need only wait a short time before gaining promotion. And despite the problems, the retail sector does, on occasion,【C11】______ some of the more progressive career 【C12】______ programmes. The supermarket chain Robertsons, for example, has a community service scheme that trains staff in team-building through work on neighbourhood projects. And clothes retailer P & R has an impressive【C13】______when it comes to employing older people. It pursues a【C14】______of employing mature people with long【C15】______of the products, as it believes they provide better customer service. Example: A company B workforce C personnel D organisation [*]

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.