1、
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.
2、
Questions 8-12
·Read the text below about career planning.
·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.
Career Planning
For many employees, automatic promotion up the ranks of a company is becoming increasingly rare. A new study suggests that, in response, employers need to consider how they can help staff develop their careers.
Employers need to rethink their approach to career management completely, according to the latest research by the Institute of Employment Studies. The new study finds that in fact there is little opportunity for individual career development in many large organisations. (example)____.The Institute of Employment Studies makes it clear that it is not good practice for companies to hand over career development to individual employees and then simply leave them to get on with it. (8) ____.
So how should employers help their staff develop a career? Most employees have come to accept that career development is not always the same thing as upward promotion and a higher salary. (9) ____.They must also ensure that these opportunities are extended to all their staff and not just to selected individuals.
Nick Bridges, who is Director of Human Resources Policy at the Bank of Eastern England, believes there is more talk than action in this area. (10) ____. One way, he believes, for companies to show how serious they are about individual learning is to make it an official part of company practice, as the Bank of Eastern England has done. (11)____. This document, he points out, has made the role of managers clear, and the company has also invested huge amounts of money educating managers so that they can then train their staff.
Another company, British Chemicals, has contracted an independent organisation to help staff with confidential career advice. According to John Yates, the head of Individual Learning and Development at British Chemicals, there is an important role for outside agencies to play in the career management process. He adds that it is company policy for managers to give all staff ‘roadmaps’ which show possible career routes within the company structure. (12)____. This has worked especially well, he says, for staff who are used to depending on their line managers for guidance.
Many large organisations now recognise that career development cannot be regarded in isolation, and must be part of an overall business strategy. Human Resources has a real role to play in building a strong workforce which meets a company’s long-term business needs and makes it more competitive.
A Its policy statement says that by 2006, eighty per cent of its staff will have a professional qualification.
B His recommendations go even further than that, and he has called for a national debate on the issue of what should be regarded as a career in the future.
C This change of attitude means employers need to place more emphasis on giving staff the chance to develop a range of skills through horizontal job moves.
D It points out that employees need to know what the overall company vision is in order to achieve many of these.
E The problem that often arises is that, while they are increasingly encouraged to manage their own careers, they are not provided with the knowledge and training to do this.
F They are able to see that, contrary to expectations, jobs in different fields are similar, and they can also see how it is possible to cross over to other areas.
G Its employees are no longer motivated by these factors alone, and the problem today is matching a person’s motivation with the right job.
H He argues that while Human Resources managers are saying the way forward is through self-managed learning and self-development, they are still failing to provide adequate learning resources.
I The main reasons for this, it concludes, are the recent cuts in the number of middle-management posts, and the changes that have taken place in the responsibilities of personnel departments.
3、
Questions 8 – 12
·Read the following text.
·Choose the best sentence from the list on page 36 to fill each of the gaps.
·For each gap 8 – 12 mark one letter A – I on your Answer Sheet.
·Do not mark any letter twice.
Marketing
In the past, the concept of marketing emphasised sales. The producer or manufacturer made a product he wanted to sell. ____ example ____ . Basically, selling the product would be accomplished by sales promotion, which included advertising and personal selling ____ (8) ____ Distribution consisted of transportation, storage, and related services such as financing, standardisation and grading, and the related risks.
The modern marketing concept encompasses all of the activities mentioned, but it is based on a different set of principles ____ (9) ____ In other words, goods should be produced only if they can be sold. Therefore, the producer should consider who is going to buy the product ------ or what the market for the product is ---- before production begins.
Marketing now involves first deciding what the customer wants, and designing and producing a product that satisfies these wants at a profit to the company ____(11)____ This is much more difficult since it involves human behaviour. ____(12)____ Thus, demand and market forces are still an important aspect of modern marketing, but they are considered prior to the production process.
Example: C
A. It subscribes to the notion that production can be economically justified only by consumption.
B. Marketing was the task of figuring out how to sell the product.
C. Marketing is as important in today’s economy as the production of goods and services.
D. Production, on the other hand, is mostly an engineering problem.
E. Such markets must be created and stimulated by managers.
F. This is very different from making a product and then thinking about how to sell it.
G. More than half the cost of consumer goods can be traced to marketing activities.
H. In addition to sales promotion, marketing also involved the physical distribution of the product to the places where it was actually sold.
I. Instead of concentrating solely on production, the company must consider the desires of the consumer.
4、
Questions 8-12
·Read this text on Dave’s dream.
·Choose the best sentence from the Opposite page 68 to fill each of the gaps.
·For each gap 8-12, mark one letter A - I on your Answer Sheet.
·Do not mark any letter twice.
Icon Acoustics: Bypassing Tradition
Like most entrepreneurs, Dave Fokos dreams a lot. He imagines customers eagerly phoning Icon Acoustics in Billerica, Massachusetts, to order his latest, custom-made stereo peakers ____example____
Like most entrepreneurs, Dave has taken a long time to develop his dream. ____(8)____ Dave discovered that he had a strong interest in studio engineering, He took independent-study courses in this area and by graduation had designed and built a pair of marketable stereo speakers. Following graduation, Dave pursued his interest in audio engineering. He landed a job as a loudspeaker designer with Conrad-Johnson, a high-end audio-equipment manufacturer headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia ____(9)____
Dave identified a market niche that he felt other speaker firms had overlooked ____(10)____These affluent, well-educated customers are genuinely obsessed with their stereo equipment. ‘They’d rather buy a new set of speakers than eat,’ Dave observes.
Dave faced one major problem---how to distribute Icon’s products. He had learned from experience at Conrad-Johnson that most manufacturers distribute their equipment primarily through stereo dealers. Dave did not hold a high opinion of most such dealers; he felt that they too often played hardball with manufacturers, forcing them to accept thin margins. ____(11)____This kept those firms that offered more customized products from gaining access to the market. Perhaps most disturbing, Dave felt that the established dealers often sold not what was best for customers, but whatever they had in inventory that month.
Dave dreamed of offering high-end stereo loudspeakers directly to the audio-obsessed, bypassing the established dealer network. ____(12)____ “My vision for the future is one where all manufacturers sell their products directly to end user. In this way, even the audiophiles in Dead Horse, Alaska, can have access to all that the audio-manufacturing community has to offer.”
Example: I.
A. At the age of 28, Dave set out to turn his dreams into reality.
B. Furthermore, the dealers concentrated on only a handful of well-known producers
C. Who provided mass-produced models.
D. The firms tend to plow their money in to developing their products and have little left over to market them.
E. Within four years, Dave had designed 13 speaker models and decided to start his own company.
F. To serve the audio-addicts segment, Dave offers only the highest-quality speakers.
G. It all began while majoring in electrical engineering at Cornell.
By going directly to the customers, Dave could avoid the dealer markups and offer top-quality products and service at reasonable price.
H. This niche consisted of “audio-addicts”----people who love to listen to music and appreciate first-rate stereo equipment.
I. He sees sales climbing , cash flowing, and hundreds of happy workers
Striving to produce top-quality products that delight Icon’s customers.
5、Questions 8-12
·Read the text below about the management of documents.
·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.
The power of personal computers has increased dramatically, and the uses of software have expanded too. Companies both large and small have spent large sums of money on improving office computer facilities.(8) ________.It seems that business has failed to apply the developments in technology to greater effect, to increase the amount of time which office workers have available for non-routine tasks. To do this, we need to understand how information is processed in business ventures.
Typically, information is first gathered, then processed, and finally produced in its changed form as output.(9) ________. Increasingly complex programs have been invented, to feed ever more powerful processing systems.
But what about output? A recent study by an American management institute shows that the processing of documents takes up 60% of office workers’ time, 40% of labour costs and up to 10% of business income.(10) ________. In fact, the international companies studied for the research show that this breakdown is true world-wide, wherever the company operates.
Taking these findings into account, the management of documents has become extremely important. Documents support nearly all business transactions. They are increasingly the way to communicate with customers, suppliers and employees. It is therefore upon document output and distribution that we should focus. (11) ________
Unfortunately, technological developments in equipment for document management seem more impressive than they really are.(12) ________ New technological solutions are needed to tackle the problem, to help drive businesses forward to improve their productivity and output.
Only now are we beginning to study business objectives and to structure technology to suit them. Our company is attempting to understand how people use technology and how it can be applied to business problems.
A. These new methods of handling paperwork have already greatly improved efficiency.
B. This would be a key way of improving white collar productivity.
C. It will help them to make better use of all office employees.
D. However, this enormous investment has not improved productivity as expected.
E. Laser printers have many limitations, and photocopiers have few applications.
F. Most technology has concentrated its attention on the first two of these stages.
G. These figures are hardly surprising since documents convey nine-tenths of all information.
H. Nevertheless, it is an important way to improve business processes and workflow.
I. Since then, these machines have caused a revolution in the way we work in the office.
6、
Banks and Banking : Other Bank Services
A modern bank provides many services other than checking accounts. ____1____
If you went to a bank to open a savings account, you would go through almost the same procedures followed in applying for a checking account. ____2____ Then you would be given a passbook in which your initial deposit would be recorded. All deposits and withdrawals from your account are entered into your passbook. ____3____ With a regular passbook savings account, you would be able to withdraw money wherever you needed it. All you would have to do is fill out a withdrawal order and present it, along with your passbook to the teller.
All banks pay interest on savings accounts. ____4____ Banks also pay interest at different times. ____5____ Suppose, for example, that on January 1, you deposited $ 1,000 in a bank that paid 4 1/2 percent interest semiannually. By July 1,you would have earned $ 22.50 interest. This interest would automatically be credited to your account; and of you left it in the bank, along with your original deposit, you would receive interest on $ 1,022.50 for the next six-month period. That is, your interest would be compounded.
A. But the majority of them pay semiannually, that is, every six months.
B. The interest rate varies from bank to bank, but the general range is from 4 1/2 to 6 percent.
C. This means that passbook contains an actual record of all transactions made and that you know the exact amount of savings you have at any one time.
D. One of these is checking accounts.
E. First you would be asked to fill out a signature card.
F. But most banks pay interest at the end of a year.
G. One of the most important of these is regular passbook savings.
H. One can withdraw money whenever necessary.
7、PART ONE
Questions 1-7
Look at the sentences below and the job advertisements on the opposite page.
Which job does each sentence 1-7 refer to?
For each sentence, 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 This post involves some secretarial duties.
0 A B C D
1 You will be responsible for the operation of a computer system.
2 You must be able to forecast what people will want to wear.
3 You will be able to work with people from many different countries and backgrounds.
4 You will have a qualification which covers two subject areas.
5 It is necessary to have worked in this sector before.
6 You will need to keep in contact with the headquarters of the organization.
7 The advertisement emphasises the need to have a suitable approach to important people.
A
BUSINESS MANAGERYou will be responsible for our global business within specific countries and will have a good understanding of international distribution, possibly based on previous experience, plus the ability to work in markets that are highly varied in their culture. You will be fluent in a second language, be willing to travel extensively, and preferably have a degree.
B
DEPARTMENT STORE BUYERBased at our head office in London, you will select and order stock from our suppliers in Italy. You will need to predict fashion trends and build a strong relationship with our Italian office. You will have gained your buying experience in women's fashion and will hold a degree in design with a business studies component.
C
LEGAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATORAs head of the legal office, your work will include managing the office IT network, typing reports, diary maintenance and supervision of another staff member. You will need good organizational skills in order to keep ahead of a varied workload. You will be dealing with senior executives and government officials, so a mature and efficient manner is essential.
D
REGIONAL LEISURE SITES MANAGERYou will be responsible for budgetary planning, contract negotiations, local marketing and effective administration. You will communicate frequently with our main office using the latest technology. Your experience could be from any business sector but you should enjoy outdoor life and will ideally possess an estate management qualification.
簡(jiǎn)答題
8、Part One
Your company has just opened a new office in the United States. You have agreed to go and work there for six months.
Write a memo of 30-40 words to all your colleagues:
Explaining why you will be absent;
Saying when you are leaving the office;
Expressing your wish to keep in touch;
Write on your answer sheet.
Part Two
You work for RCT, a company which sells business stationery. RCT is interested in becoming an agent for Novestat, a company which manufactures paper products.
Read Novestat’s advertisement below, on which you have made some notes.
Then, using all your notes, write a letter to James Dowling at Novestat.
Do not include postal addresses.
Write 100-120 words.
Write on your answer sheet.
9、• Read the article below about the winner of a business award .
• In most of the lines 34-45 there is one extra word . It is either grammatically incorrect or
doesn’t fit in the meaning of the text . Some lines, however, are correct .
• If a line is correct , write CORRECT on your Answer Sheet .
• If there is a extra word in the line , write the extra word in CAPITAL LETTER on your Answer Sheet.
• The exercises begins with two examples , (0) and (00) .
Examples
|
0 |
T |
H |
A |
T |
|
|
|
|
|
|
00 |
C |
O |
R |
R |
E |
C |
T |
|
|
|
THE COST OF NOT TRAINING |
|
0 Training is not a cost . It’s an investment . It really doesn’t matter that what we pay 00 for an investment . What is relevant is what we get in return . One of the easiest 34 ways is to put an organization’s future at risk would be to view training primarily as 35 a cost , and therefore provide with substandard training that operates only as a 36 temporary solution . Many companies attempt to quantify as the results of training. For 37 example , a person paid $50,000 a year who wastes just one hour a day costs the 38 organization between $6,250 per year . So if the organization sends 25 people for 39 training and they all receive the same benefit , this would equal from $156,250 40 savings per year . A few of years ago , training , apart from showing employees 41 what the basics of doing the job , was an optional extra for most organizations . 42 Today this is no longer than the case . If we continue doing what we do in the same way , 43 most of us and our organizations will become obsolete within the five years . This is 44 because of our competitors are helping their staff to become more effective through 45 training . They understand that if the real price of not training is the company falling behind as a result . |
10、• Read the article below about the winner of a business award .
• In most of the lines 34-45 there is one extra word . It is either grammatically incorrect or
doesn’t fit in the meaning of the text . Some lines, however, are correct .
• If a line is correct , write CORRECT on your Answer Sheet .
• If there is a extra word in the line , write the extra word in CAPITAL LETTER on your Answer Sheet.
• The exercises begins with two examples , (0) and (00) .
Examples
|
0 |
C |
O |
R |
R |
E |
C |
T |
|
|
|
00 |
M |
E |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PERSONAL ASSISTANT OF THE YEAR |
|
0 Anne-Marie Garrard was shocked when it was announced that she had won the 00 Personal Assistant of the Year award . “The other candidates seemed me 34 to be very strong , and I have to say I found that the selection procedure really 35 hard.” she says. “I don’t think I had any of chance of winning. When I heard my 36 name , my legs were so weak I could only hardly stand up .”she laughs. So 37 how is “the best” personal assistant chosen from a group of so extremely good 38 and very different from individuals ? The final decision was reached after 39 day-long session of tests , interviews and exercises . Garrard believes of 40 the skills she uses in her job helped her how to perform well. For instance ,although 41 most of her work is for her company’s Managing Director , she works for six bosses 42 in all , so she always tried out to be prepared for anything that might happen. 43 As for the future , her firm has close up for its summer break ; as soon as 44 they will open again , there is a pay rise waiting for her . But Garrard is 45 going to be relax . She says , “There’s always room for personal development. You must keep trying to improve. |