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Look at the statements below and at the five extracts about different mergers from newspaper articles on the opposite page.
Which extract(A, B, C, D or E)does each statement(1-8)refer to?
For each statement(1-8), mark one letter(A, B, C, D or E)on your Answer Sheet.
You will need to use some qf these letters more than once.
There is an example at the beginning(0).
Example:
0 A small store horizontally merges with another one, the effect on the market may be little.
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A
You probably need to reduce the number of people. Cost savings through combining redundant tasks is a common goal for mergers. The trick is to release the individuals least well equipped to contribute in the new organisation and to hold on to the best people. Make sure the evaluation of “best“ looks at both companies’ people equally. After all, you don’t want to lose a great person from Company B so you can keep a mediocre person from Company A.
B
But signing a deal to join forces is only the beginning. The crucial next step requires knowing how to merge fast and well. In the Internet economy, that means more than changing a logo or reconciling two chief executives’ egos to the fact that they can’t both be boss. A successful merger requires an unflinching commitment to what the new strategy will be, along with a focus on making sure that vital but fragile assets-customer lists, engineering-talent pools, and so on—don’t get trampled by the deal.
C
A horizontal merger is when two companies competing in the same market merge or join together. This type of merger can either have a very large effect or little to no effect on the market. When two extremely small companies combine, or horizontally merge, the results of the merger are less noticeable. These smaller horizontal mergers are very common. If a small local drug store were to horizontally merge with another local drugstore, the effect of this merger on the drugstore market would be minimal. In a large horizontal merger, however, the resulting ripple effects can be felt throughout the market sector and sometimes throughout the whole economy.
D
Impact of mergers and acquisitions on top level management may actually involve a “clash of the egos“. There might be variations in the cultures of the two organisations. Under the new set-up the manager may be asked to implement such policies or strategies, which may not be quite approved by him. When such a situation arises, the main focus of the organisation gets diverted and executives become busy either settling matters among themselves or moving on. If however, the manager is well equipped with a degree or has sufficient qualification, the migration to another company may not be troublesome at all.
E
How your company deals with merger issues such as communication, employee retention and/ or layoffs, customer notification and reassurance, consolidation of staff and integration of systems will play a huge role in determining the overall success or failure of the merger or acquisition. Don’t wait until the deal is finalized to think about these issues. Assemble a team of stakeholders and experts to analyse the challenges and risks of integrating the two companies and have an action plan in place long before the official merger date.
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Read this text about the job creation cutting by private employers.
Choose the best sentence form the opposite page to fill each of the gaps.
For each gap(9-14), mark one letter(A-H)on your Answer Sheet.
Do not use any letter more than once.
There is an example at theibeginning(0).
Private Employers Drastically Cut Job Creation
Private employers drastically cut job creation during May 2010, according to a government report released on Friday.
Initially, the report appeared to show positive trends in the job market, with 431, 000 job; being added across the US—the highest figure since March 2000.(0)___B___ Within the private sector, only 41, 000 jobs were created. 【P1】______ Although the 411, 000 people hired by the Census did help to boost the economy and drive down unemployment rates, these jobs will no longer exist after the Census has been completed.【P2】______
The survey also revealed that the number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons declined by 343, 000 in May to 8. 8 million. 【P3】______And now that private employers have cut job creation so severely, it seems this trend is set to continue for some time.
Statistics also reinforced the lasting effects of the recession and the long road to recovery that the US labour market is still slowly travailing. 【P4】______And there are still approximately 15 million people who want to be working but cannot find a job.
【P5】______ Construction employers, for example, added 41,000 jobs in March and April after months of decline, but then eliminated 35,000 of these jobs in May. Wall Street viewed the latest figures as extremely disappointing.【P6】______
In fact, industry analysts believe that unemployment will remain high for at least two years and, according to an Associated Press-GFK Poll, only one in five members of the American public considers the economy in good condition.
Example:[*]
A Some sectors that were growing are now shrinking again.
B On the surface the employment figures lock great, but that beauty was only skin-deep.
C Therefore 431,000 jobs being added do nothing to improve the nation’s economy in the long run.
D However, all of these jobs were in fact created merely for the purpose of the nationwide census that takes place once every 10 years.
E The national unemployment rate, which is calculated using a separate household survey, fell only moderately, to 9. 7 percent in May from 9.9 percent in April.
F It is far less than the 218, 000 added in April, and the 180,000 jobs private sector employers had anticipated.
G These individuals were working part-time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
H It is a possible indicator that recovery from the recession has come to a standstill.
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Read the following article about responsibility for the natural environment and the questions on the opposite page.
For each question(15-20), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet.
The difficulty of balancing profits and social responsibility is very apparent when you consider environmental issues. Consumers value the goods and services that business produces, but businesses cannot produce goods and services without polluting to some degree. Businesses strive to lower their costs in order to offer products to consumers more efficiently and to make profits for investors, but sometimes it is necessary for businesses to spend more in order to pollute less. When such situations arise, whose interests should be served first—those of society, the consumer, or the investor? Clearly, this question has no easy answer, but examining how businesses pollute may provide some perspectives.
Economic progress threatens our air, water, and land because these elements can so easily be tainted by pollution. Moreover, the pollution in any one element can easily taint the others. This problem is pervasive in industrialised and developing nations alike. In fact, the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America have built much of their growth on very loose environmental standards. But Mexico, Malaysia, and other countries are realising that their prosperity can be sustained only if their citizens can enjoy a quality of life that comes with a clean environment. At the same time, the countries of Eastern Europe are scrambling to reverse the decade of environmental neglect that occurred around the middle of the 20th century. As you can imagine, this is no easy task.
The most noticeable form of air pollution, smog, is produced by the interaction of sunlight and hydrocarbons(gases released when fossil fuels are burned). We need only look at the smog that hangs over many major cities of the world to know that air pollution is a problem that businesses, consumers, and governments must address together. Another damaging air pollutant is acid rain, created when emissions from coal-burning factories and electric utility plants react with air. In addition, emissions from factories and cars pollute the air and contribute to global wanning through the greenhouse effect, in which heated gases form a layer of unusually warm air around the earth, trapping the sun’s heat and preventing the earth’s surface from cooling.
Experts worry about airborne toxins that are emitted during some manufacturing processes. Large and small companies together release millions of pounds of chemical wastes into the air each year. Although the effects of many of these substances are unknown, some are known to be cancer causers. Of special concern in recent years are microscopic particulates in the air that may be responsible for more than 150, 000 deaths each year.
Our air is not the only part of our environment to suffer. Water pollution has damaged many U. S. lakes, rivers, stream, harbours and coastal waters. This pollution comes from a variety of sources: manufacturing facilities, mining and construction sites, farms, and city sewage systems. The main threat is the careless day-to-day disposal of wastes from thousands of individual sources. Even if all wastewater were purified before being discharged, our groundwater would still be endangered by leakage from the millions of tons of hazardous substances that have been buried underground or dumped in improper storage sites. Much of this pollution was created years ago by companies that carelessly—but legally—disposed of substances now known to be unhealthy. Cleaning up these wastes is extremely difficult and expensive.
In addition, companies and individuals generate enormous amounts of solid waste—over 200 million tons in the United States each year. Much of this waste ends up in landfills. A large part of the problem is consumer demands for convenience and fashion. These demands lead to creating disposable items, manufacturing products with excess packaging, and discarding useful items that are no longer the hot style or colour. Fortunately, recent efforts to conserve and recycle resources are helping to combat the land pollution problem.
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Read the article below about how capital controls and monetary policy are important adoptable in developing countries.
Choose the correct word or words to fill each gap from A, B, C or D on the opposite page.
For each question(21—30), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet.
There is an example at the beginning(0).
Capital Controls and Monetary Policy in Developing Countries
This paper -looks at both the theoretical and empirical literature on capital controls and finds that (0). D.....controls can play an important role in developing countries by helping to insulate them from some of the harmful【C1】______of volatile and short-term capital flows.
The authors look at controls on capital inflows in Malaysia(1989-1995); Colombia(1993-1998); Chile(1989-1998); and Brazil(1992-1998), and also consider the【C2】______of Malaysia’s controls on outflows in 1998-2001. They conclude that there is sufficient backing in both economic theory and empirical evidence to consider more widespread【C3】______ of capital controls in order to 【C4】______some of the macroeconomic problems【C5】______with short-term capital flows, to enable certain development strategies, and to allow policymakers more flexibility with regard to crucial monetary and exchange rate policies.
The paper follows what appears to be a shift in the position of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)towards such controls. In a February paper, the IMF concluded that “there may be【C6】______ in which capital controls are a legitimate【C7】______of the policy【C8】______to surges in capital inflows.“ The Fund’s Global Financial Stability Report【C9】______ in April 2010 was less sanguine about capital controls, but the net result is that the IMF appears more open to【C10】______capital controls than in the past.
Example:
A these B those C economic D capital
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Read the article below about staff recruitment.
For each question(31-40), write one word in CAPITAL LETTERS on your Answer Sheet.
There is an example at the beginning(0).
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Staff Recruitment
Recruitment refers to the process of screening, and selecting qualified people(0). a job at an organisation or firm, or for a vacancy in a volunteer-based organisation or community group. While generalist managers or administrators can undertake【B1】______ components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organisations and companies often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process【B2】______ recruitment agencies. External recruitment is the process of attracting and selecting employees from【B3】______ the organisation.
The recruitment industry has four main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, “headhunters“ for executive and professional recruitment, and in-house【B4】______Recruiters aim to channel candidates【B5】______the hiring organisations application process. As a general rule, the agencies are paid by the companies,【B6】______by the candidates.
Known as employment agencies, recruitment agencies have historically had a physical location. A candidate visits a local branch for a short interview and an assessment before【B7】______ taken onto the agency’s books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their clients’ open positions. Suitable candidates are short-listed and put forward for an interview with potential employers on a temporary or【B8】______basis.
A “headhunter“ is industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates, often 【B9】______ normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have preexisting industry experience and contacts. Larger employers tend to undertake their own in-house recruitment, using their human resources department. In addition to coordinating with the agencies mentioned【B10】______, in-house recruiters may advertise job vacancies on their own websites, coordinate internal employee referrals, work with external associations, trade groups or focus on campus graduate recruitment.
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Read the text below about strategic recruiting.
In most of the lines(41-52), there is one extra word. It either is grammatically incorrect or does not fit in with the sense 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).
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0 The desire to become more strategic that has been espoused by recruiting
00 leaders for more than over a decade, and yet, year after year, newly introduced
【M1】______initiatives seem more tactical and administrative than it ever. Recruiting processes
【M2】______have nearly doubled in size when you look at the steps involved in , but no one
【M3】______seems to think or can prove that output has changed all of that much. When you
【M4】______look at what the typical recruiting organisation actually does , the plain truth of
【M5】______the matter is that 90 percent of the work is administrative or tactical at its best. There’s
【M6】______nothing wrong with tactical work; it does for the most part generate a
【M7】______positive return in the short term. But let there be no doubt on that a truly strategic
【M8】______recruiting function would do a fraction of what typically gets done and a lot more
【M9】______of what hasn’t been getting done. Strategic actions have a broader, long-term
【M10】______impacts on that manifest themselves by fundamentally altering an organisation’s
【M11】______capability or capacity to compete with. Little of what gets billed as being these days
【M12】______is actually strategic. In fact, it seems that the word “strategic“ in conjunction with recruiting is
most often used by vendors selling goods and services that have absolutely no strategic impact.
