INTERMEDIATE PROGRESS TEST TWO

READING

A Read the article and decide if these statements are true or false.
1 TV advertising in Spain and France costs more than in the UK. F

2 Even if a campaign is successful, returns on TV advertising are decreasing. F

3 Hovis had a successful relaunch last year. T

4 The public voted the Hovis advert best of last year. F

5 TV advertising was a very important part of the Hovis campaign. T

BREAD AND CHOCOLATE: LAST YEAR’S BEST ADS

The UK is now the cheapest western market for TV advertising, according to analysts
at Citigroup.

Advertising here is 30 per cent cheaper than the next cheapest market,
France, and well below much weaker economies such as Spain.

‘For successful campaigns, the return on investment for advertisers is

therefore getting much, much better,’ says Marc Sugarman, media analyst at
Citigroup.

Hovis, the bread-maker which relaunched with a TV campaign last year, has
benefited from the low cost of advertising.

Developed for Hovis by advertising agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy,

the advert was voted best of last year by Campaign, the trade magazine.

Hovis invested £15m in the relaunch, which included a new recipe and
packaging, although the 122-second TV ad was the key element.

The extra costs will put last year’s profits at Hovis below the previous year’s,
Premier Foods, its owner, said in a trading statement this month, but added: ‘We
believe we have built a platform for sustainable future profit development.’
 Hovis sales had fallen 11 per cent two years ago as it lost ground to
Warburtons. But Premier now expects Hovis sales to be up 13 per cent for last year.
Market share rose 2 percentage points to 24.3 per cent after the relaunch.

Whatever the successes of the Hovis campaign, however, the prize for the
best-known campaign of the year has to go to Cadbury’s Gorilla ad, winner of the
television Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions, which the company says turned around
years of declining sales and delivered sales growth. FT

B Complete the sentences with the words in the box.

decline down fell increase recover

6 From the previous year to last year, Hovis’s profts ___fell ____________.

7 Hovis believes that they will ____recover___________the advertising costs as

profts increase.

8 Hovis sales were ____down___________ 11 per cent two years ago.

9 The relaunch led to a small ___increase____________ in market share.

10 The Gorilla ad stopped the ______decline_________ in Cadbury’s sales.

SKILLS

A Complete the dialogue with the phrases (a–e).

a) could help us

b) mention your name

c) are very interested

d) give you my business card

e) have his contact details

A We _are very intersted ______________11 in finding a distributor in China. Do

you know anyone who _______could help us________?12
B I was out there last year at a conference and I met a guy who’s with a distributor
in Beijing. He seemed to know a lot of people, too.

A Could you let me ___have his contact details____________13? I’d like to get in
touch with him.

B I don’t have them with me but I can e-mail them to you.

A Great. Could I call him and _mention your name______________ 14

B No problem. I’m sure he’d remember me if you mention that I’m with ABX
Electronics.

A Thanks. Let me give my business card_______________15. My e-mail address is

on there.

B Put the sentences into a logical order to introduce a presentation.

a) Secondly, I’ll discuss the details of the new structure.

b) Hi, everyone, I’m Simone Arbuckle. Good to see you all.

c) Finally, I’ll talk you through the timeline for the changes. I’d be grateful if you
could leave any questions to the end.

d) Firstly, I’ll give you the background to the reorganisation.

e) This morning, I’d like to outline the reorganisation we’re planning for later this
year. I’ve divided my presentation into three parts.

16 _b______________

17 ___e____________

18 __d_____________

19 _a______________

20 __c_____________

C Choose the correct word or number to complete each sentence.

21 A billion is written as (1,000,000,000 / 1,000,000).
22 The new office cost (millions / million) of euros.

23 We spent over three (thousands / thousand) dollars on taxis last quarter.

24 You say £6.25 as ‘(six point two five pounds / six pounds twenty-five)’.

25 2/3 is usually said as (three seconds / two thirds).

SKILLS: DEALING WITH FIGURES

3 Write the underlined numbers in these sentences in words or as numbers. For
example:
They acquired Santol in 1999. nineteen ninety-nine
Food prices increased by three percent. 3%
26 A third of the population lives near the poverty line.
_______1/3_____________

27 About 3/4 of the shareholders agreed. ______three quarters

______________

28 Inflation is up by only 0.28%. zero point two eight percent

____________________

29 They cost £380 each. Three hundred and eighty

____________________

30 Five hundred and fifteen people visited the trade show yesterday.
_515___________________

31 Profit increased by 18.5%. Eighteen point five per cent

____________________

32 They lost one million three hundred and seventy-five thousand euros.
__1375000__________________

33 Their debts amount to $3.5bn. __three point five billions

dollar__________________

34 They’ve postponed the project till 2015. Two thousand and

fifteen ____________________

35 It costs exactly $4.99. ___four dollar ninety

nine________________

LANGUAGE REVIEW: ARTICLES

2 The text below is about ‘kuchikomi’, or word-of-mouth advertising in Japan.
Write in the articles a, an or the where appropriate. Write 0 where no article is
needed.
Advertisers everywhere know that personal recommendation carries great weight.
Normally, word-of-mouth (36)_____ promotion is free, but impossible to arrange. In
(37)____ Japan, it can be arranged – at a price.
There are agencies with hundreds of teenagers on their books who receive new
products and tell their friends about them; others are paid to queue up for
(38)___a__ launch of (39)___the__ new product or opening of a new store, creating
(40)__the___ artificial ‘buzz’ about it.
Halfway between Shibuya and Harajuku is (41)__the___ office of Hiroaki Morita,
who set up Teens’ Network Ship on leaving (42)_____ school. The agency is
(43)__the___ longest-established specialist in (44)_____ teenage market, and often
uses informal marketing methods. It has (45)__the___ register of thousands of
senior high school pupils in (46)_____ Tokyo area alone.
As Mr Morita describes it, (47)__the___ logic is simple: selected teenagers are given
(48)_____ information or samples of a new product. Feeling superior for knowing
something ahead of (49)___the__ crowd, they tell on average 50 of their friends and
classmates about their ‘discovery’, so that with (50)__the___ core group of 1,000,
word can spread to 50,000 or more.

WRITING

NB DO NOT EXCEED THE NUMBER OF WORDS

A You work in the finance department of a sports clothing chain. A colleague has
asked you for information about the company’s turnover during the previous
year. Write a brief summary (40–50 words). Use the graph to help you.

Over the last year we hadn’t a good one. At the three first months we stood at 2
million, we rocket to 4 million in april and from april constantly dropped until 1
million in june, stood there until September and we gradually increased up to 2
million in dezember

B You work for ColourColour, a paint manufacturer. the company has not yet
received payment from a retail customer for the invoice below. the finance
manager, Ms Speers, asks you to write a letter (120–140 words) to Myron
Jenkins, the manager of the retail business. Include the following points.

Maputo

Colour colour ltd

6 th june 2020

Dear Myron Jenkins Finance Manager

RE: Delayed Payment

I am writing to inform you, that your company has an invoice without payment so it is creating an
imbalance in our finance, a retail customer from your company made the purchase, unfortunately
your payment is delayed about one month from the date of acquisition and we did not notice
anything from your side. We would be delight if you regularise it within a week, in order to maintain
the business relationship established along the time, otherwise we could take legal actions against the
payment delayed, of course it will not end up good for each side however I would appreciate if we
deal with it friendly.

I am looking forward to receive your feedback as soon as possible.

Yours Faithfully

Ms Speers colour colour company

 The subject of the letter

 Remind the customer what the order was

 Explain to Mr Jenkins that the payment is overdue

 Explain that if payment is not received within seven days, the company will take
further action