Sheet glass manufacture: the float process

Glass, which has been made since the time of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, is
little more than a mixture of sand, soda ash and lime. When heated to about 1500
degrees Celsius (°C) this becomes a molten mass that hardens when slowly cooled.
The first successful method for making clear, flat glass involved spinning. This
method was very effective as the glass had not touched any surfaces between being
soft and becoming hard, so it stayed perfectly unblemished, with a 'fire finish'.
However, the process took a long time and was labour intensive.

Nevertheless, demand for flat glass was very high and glassmakers across the world
were looking for a method of making it continuously. The first continuous ribbon
process involved squeezing molten glass through two hot rollers, similar to an old
mangle. This allowed glass of virtually any thickness to be made non-stop, but the
rollers would leave both sides of the glass marked, and these would then need to be
ground and polished. This part of the process rubbed away around 20 per cent of the
glass, and the machines were very expensive.

The float process for making flat glass was invented by Alistair Pilkington. This
process allows the manufacture of clear, tinted and coated glass for buildings, and
clear and tinted glass for vehicles. Pilkington had been experimenting with improving
the melting process, and in 1952 he had the idea of using a bed of molten metal to
form the flat glass, eliminating altogether the need for rollers within the float bath.
The metal had to melt at a temperature less than the hardening point of glass (about
600°C), but could not boil at a temperature below the temperature of the molten
glass (about 1500°C). The best metal for the job was tin.
The rest of the concept relied on gravity, which guaranteed that the surface of the
molten metal was perfectly flat and horizontal. Consequently, when pouring molten
glass onto the molten tin, the underside of the glass would also be perfectly flat. If
the glass were kept hot enough, it would flow over the molten tin until the top surface
was also flat, horizontal and perfectly parallel to the bottom surface. Once the glass
cooled to 604°C or less it was too hard to mark and could be transported out of the
cooling zone by rollers. The glass settled to a thickness of six millimetres because of
surface tension interactions between the glass and the tin. By fortunate coincidence,
60 per cent of the flat glass market at that time was for six-millimetre glass.

Pilkington built a pilot plant in 1953 and by 1955 he had convinced his company to
build a full-scale plant. However, it took 14 months of non-stop production, costing
the company £100,000 a month, before the plant produced any usable glass.
Furthermore, once they succeeded in making marketable flat glass, the machine was
turned off for a service to prepare it for years of continuous production. When it
started up again it took another four months to get the process right again. They
finally succeeded in 1959 and there are now float plants all over the world , with each
able to produce around 1000 tons of glass every day, non-stop for around 15 years.

Float plants today make glass of near optical quality. Several processes - melting,
refining, homogenising - take place simultaneously in the 2000 tonnes of molten
glass in the furnace. They occur in separate zones in a complex glass flow driven by
high temperatures. It adds up to a continuous melting process, lasting as long as 50
hours, that delivers glass smoothly and continuously to the float bath, and from there
to a coating zone and finally a heat treatment zone, where stresses formed during
cooling are relieved.

The principle of float glass is unchanged since the 1950s. However, the product has
changed dramatically, from a single thickness of 6.8 mm to a range from sub-
millimetre to 25 mm, from a ribbon frequently marred by inclusions and bubbles to
almost optical perfection. To ensure the highest quality, inspection takes place at
every stage. Occasionally, a bubble is not removed during refining, a sand grain
refuses to melt, a tremor in the tin puts ripples into the glass ribbon. Automated on-
line inspection does two things. Firstly, it reveals process faults upstream that can be
corrected. Inspection technology allows more than 100 million measurements a
second to be made across the ribbon, locating flaws the unaided eye would be
unable to see. Secondly, it enables computers downstream to steer cutters around
flaws.

Float glass is sold by the square metre, and at the final stage computers translate
customer requirements into patterns of cuts designed to minimise waste.
Questions 1-8
Complete the table and diagram below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Early methods of producing flat glass

Method Advantages Disadvantages

1 Mixture
• Glass remained • Slow
[SPINNING] 
2 unblemished • 3 Labour Intensive
 

• Could produce glass sheets • Glass was 5 marked

Ribbon of varying 4 thickness • 20% of glass rubbed away
• Non-stop process • Machines were expensive

6 molten glass
7 molten tin
8 rollers

Questions 9-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE    if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE    if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN    if there is no information on this
9 True      The metal used in the float process had to have specific properties.
10 False [NOT GIVEN]     Pilkington invested some of his own money in his float plant.
11 False    Pilkington’s first full-scale plant was an instant commercial success.
12 True    The process invented by Pilkington has now been improved.
13 Not Given   [NOT GIVEN]  Computers are better than humans at detecting faults in glass.
 Snow-makers

Skiing is big business nowadays. But what can ski resort owners do if the snow
doesn't come?
A In the early to mid twentieth century, with the growing popularity of skiing, ski
slopes became extremely profitable businesses. But ski resort owners were
completely dependent on the weather: if it didn't snow, or didn’t snow enough, they
had to close everything down. Fortunately, a device called the snow gun can now
provide snow whenever it is needed. These days such machines are standard
equipment in the vast majority of ski resorts around the world, making it possible for
many resorts to stay open for months or more a year.

B Snow formed by natural weather systems comes from water vapour in the
atmosphere. The water vapour condenses into droplets, forming clouds. If the
temperature is sufficiently low, the water droplets freeze into tiny ice crystals. More
water particles then condense onto the crystal and join with it to form a snowflake.
As the snow flake grows heavier, it falls towards the Earth.

C The snow gun works very differently from a natural weather system, but it
accomplishes exactly the same thing. The device basically works by combining
water and air. Two different hoses are attached to the gun. one leading from a water
pumping station which pumps water up from a lake or reservoir, and the other
leading from an air compressor. When the compressed air passes through the hose
into the gun. it atomises the water - that is, it disrupts the stream so that the water
splits up into tiny droplets. The droplets are then blown out of the gun and if the
outside temperature is below 0°C, ice crystals will form, and will then make
snowflakes in the same way as natural snow.

D Snow-makers often talk about dry snow and wet snow. Dry snow has a relatively
low amount of water, so it is very light and powdery. This type of snow is excellent
for skiing because skis glide over it easily without getting stuck in wet slush. One of
the advantages of using a snow-maker is that this powdery snow can be produced to
give the ski slopes a level surface. However, on slopes which receive heavy use,
resort owners also use denser, wet snow underneath the dry snow. Many resorts
build up the snow depth this way once or twice a year, and then regularly coat the
trails with a layer of dry snow throughout the winter.

E The wetness of snow is dependent on the temperature and humidity outside, as

well as the size of the water droplets launched by the gun. Snow-makers have to
adjust the proportions of water and air in their snow guns to get the perfect snow
consistency for the outdoor weather conditions. Many ski slopes now do this with a
central computer system that is connected to weather-reading stations all over the
slope.

F But man-made snow makes heavy demands on the environment. It takes about
275,000 litres of water to create a blanket of snow covering a 60x60 metre area.
Most resorts pump water from one or more reservoirs located in low-lying areas. The
run-off water from the slopes feeds back into these reservoirs, so the resort can
actually use the same water over and over again. However, considerable amounts of
energy are needed to run the large air-compressing pumps, and the diesel engines
which run them also cause air pollution.

G Because of the expense of making snow, ski resorts have to balance the cost of
running the machines with the benefits of extending the ski season, making sure
they only make snow when it is really needed and when it will bring the maximum
amount of profit in return for the investment. But man-made snow has a number of
other uses as well. A layer of snow keeps a lot of the Earth’s heat from escaping into
the atmosphere, so farmers often use man-made snow to provide insulation for
winter crops. Snow-making machines have played a big part in many movie
productions. Movie producers often take several months to shoot scenes that cover
just a few days. If the movie takes place in a snowy setting, the set decorators have
to get the right amount of snow for each day of shooting either by adding man-made
snow or melting natural snow. And another important application of man-made snow
is its use in the tests that aircraft must undergo in order to ensure that they can
function safely in extreme conditions.

Questions 14-18
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number (i-x) in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

  Example Answer
  Paragraph A v
   Paragraph B x
14 ix Paragraph C  

15 iii Paragraph D  

16 ii [VIII]  Paragraph E  

17 iv [I]  Paragraph F  

18 viii
Paragraph G  
[VI] 

List of headings
i          Considering ecological costs
ii         Modifications to the design of the snow gun
iii        The need for different varieties of snow
iv        Local concern over environmental issues
v         A problem and a solution
vi        Applications beyond the ski slopes
vii       Converting wet snow to dry snow
viii      New method for calculating modifications
ix        Artificial process, natural product
x         Snow formation in nature
 

Questions 19-23
 

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.
19       Dry snow is used to give slopes a level surface, while wet snow is used to increase
the denser on busy slopes. [DEPTH] 
20     To calculate the required snow consistency, the temperature and humidity of the
atmosphere must first be measured.
21     The machinery used in the process of making the snow consumes a lot of diesel
engines which is damaging to the environment. [ENEGRY] 
22     Artificial snow is used in agriculture as a type of insulation for plants in cold conditions.
23     Artificial snow may also be used in carrying out safety checks on aircraft
 Language Strategy in Multinational Company

A. The importance of language management in multinational companies has never

been greater than today. Multinationals are becoming ever more conscious of the
importance of global coordination as a source of competitive advantage and
language remains the ultimate barrier to aspirations of international harmonization.
Before attempting to consider language management strategies, companies will
have to evaluate the magnitude of the language barrier confronting them and in
doing so they will need to examine it in three dimensions: the Language Diversity,
the Language Penetration and the Language Sophistication. Companies next need
to turn their attention to how they should best manage language. There is a range of
options from which MNCs can formulate their language strategy.

B. Lingua Franca: The simplest answer, though realistic only for English speaking
companies, is to rely on ones native tongue. As recently as 1991 a survey of British
exporting companies found that over a third used English exclusively in dealings with
foreign customers. This attitude that —one language fits alll has also been carried
through into the Internet age. A survey of the web sites of top American companies
confirmed that over half made no provision for foreign language access, and another
found that less than 10% of leading companies were able to respond adequately to
emails other than in the company‘s language. Widespread though it is however,
reliance on a single language is a strategy that is fatally flawed. It makes no
allowance for the growing trend in Linguistic Nationalism whereby buyers in Asia,
South America and the Middle East in particular are asserting their right to —work in
the language of the customer!. It also fails to recognize the increasing vitality of
languages such as Spanish, Arabic and Chinese that overtime are likely to challenge
the dominance of English as a lingua franca. In the IT arena it ignores the rapid
globalization of the Internet where the number of English-language ecommerce
transactions, emails and web sites, is rapidly diminishing as a percentage of the
total. Finally, the total reliance on a single language puts the English speaker at risk
in negotiations. Contracts, rules and legislation are invariably written in the local
language, and a company unable to operate in that language is vulnerable.

C. Functional Multilingualism: Another improvised approach to Language is to rely on

what has been termed —Functional Multilingualism!. Essentially what this means is
to muddle through, relying on a mix of languages, pidgins and gestures to
communicate by whatever means the parties have at their disposal. In a social
context such a shared effort to make one another understand might be considered
an aid to the bonding process with the frustration of communication being regularly
punctuated by moments of absurdity and humor. However, as the basis for business
negotiations it appears very hit-and-nuts. And yet Hagen‘s recent study suggests
that 16% of international business transaction; are conducted in a —cocktail of
languages.! Functional Multilingualism shares the same defects as reliance on a
lingua franca and increases the probability of cognitive divergence between the
parties engaged in the communication.

D. External Language Resources: A more rational and obvious response to the

language barrier is to employ external resources such as translators and
interpreters, and certainly there are many excellent companies specialized in these
fields. However, such a response is by no means an end to the language barrier. For
a start these services can be very expensive with a top Simultaneous Interpreter,
commanding daily rates as high as a partner in an international consulting company.
Secondly, any good translator or interpreter will insist that to be fully effective they
must understand the context of the subject matter. This is not always possible. In
some cases it is prohibited by the complexity or specialization of the topic.
Sometimes by lack of preparation time but most often the obstacle is the reluctance
of the parties to explain the wider context to an =outsiderll. Another problem is that
unless there has been considerable pre-explaining between the interpreter and his
clients it is likely that there will be ambiguity and cultural overtones in the source
messages the interpreter has to work with. They will of course endeavor to provide a
hifidelity translation but in this circumstance the interpreter has to use initiative and
guess work. This clearly injects a potential source of misunderstanding into the
proceedings. Finally while a good interpreter will attempt to convey not only the
meaning but also the spirit of any communication, there can be no doubt that there is
a loss of rhetorical power when communications go through a third party. So in
situations requiring negotiation, persuasion, humor etc. the use of an interpreter is a
poor substitute for direct communication.

E. Training: The immediate and understandable reaction to any skills shortage in a

business is to consider personnel development and certainly the language training
industry is well developed. Offering programs at almost every level and in numerous
languages. However, without doubting the value of language training no company
should be deluded into believing this to be assured of success. Training in most
companies is geared to the economic cycle. When times are good, money is
invested in training. When belts get tightened training is one of the first —luxuries! to
be pared down. In a study conducted across four European countries, nearly twice
as many companies said they needed language training in coming years as had
conducted training in past years. This disparity between —good intentions! and —
actual delivery!, underlines the problems of relying upon training for language skills.
Unless the company is totally committed to sustaining the strategy even though bad
times, it will fail.

F. One notable and committed leader in the field of language training has been the
Volkswagen Group. They have developed a language strategy over many years and
in many respects can be regarded as a model of how to manage language
professionally. However, the Volkswagen approach underlines that language training
has to be considered a strategic rather than a tactical solution. In their system to
progress from —basics! to —communications competence! in a language requires
the completion of 6 language stages each one demanding approximately 90 hours of
refresher course, supported by many more hours of self-study, spread over a 6-9
month period. The completion of each stage is marked by a post-stage achievement
test, which is a pre-requisite for continued training. So even this professionally
managed program expects a minimum of three years of fairly intensive study to
produce an accountant. Engineer, buyer or salesperson capable of working
effectively in a foreign language. Clearly companies intending to pursue this route
need to do so with realistic expectations and with the intention of sustaining the
program over many years. Except in terms of —brush-up! courses for people who
were previously fluent in a foreign language, training cannot be considered a quick
fix and hence other methods will have to be considered.

Questions 24-29
Complete the following summary of the Whole Paragraphs of Reading Passage, choosing A-
L words from the following options.
Write your answers in boxes 24-29 on your answer sheet.
MNCs often encounter language barrier in their daily strategy, then they seek several
approaches to solve such problems. First, native language gives them a realistic base in a
different language speaking country, but problem turned up when they deal with oversea 24 B.
For example, operation on translation of some key 25 F, it is inevitable to generate differences by
rules from different countries. Another way is to rely on a combination of spoken language
and 26 A, yet a report written that over one-tenth business 27 C processed in a party language
setting. Third way: hire translators. However, firstly it is 28 L, besides if they are not well-
prepared, they have to take 29 D  work.

A gestures
B clients    
C transaction
D assumption 
E accurate
F documents
G managers 
H body language
I long-term
J effective
K rivals 
L costly
 

Questions 30-36
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each
answer.
30 personal development    What understandable reaction does Training pay attention to
according to the author?

31 Luxuries [LUXURY]    In what term does the writer describe training during economy
depression?

32 developed language strategies [MODEL]    What contribution does Volkswagen Group do

for multinational companies?
33 strategic solution    What does Volkswagen Group consider language training as in their
company?
34 6 stages    How many stages are needed from basic course to advanced in training?
35 approximately 90 hours    How long does a refresher course need normally?
36 3 years    At least how long is needed for a specific professional to acquire a foreign
language?

Delivering The Goods

The vast expansion in international trade owes much to a revolution in the business
of moving freight

International trade is growing at a startling pace. While the global economy has been
expanding at a bit over 3% a year, the volume of trade has been rising at a
compound annual rate of about twice that. Foreign products, from meat to
machinery, play a more important role in almost every economy in the world, and
foreign markets now tempt businesses that never much worried about sales beyond
their nation's borders.

What lies behind this explosion in international commerce? The general worldwide
decline in trade barriers, such as customs duties and import quotas, is surely one
explanation. The economic opening of countries that have traditionally been minor
players is another. But one force behind the import-export boom has passed all but
unnoticed: the rapidly falling cost of getting goods to market. Theoretically, in the
world of trade, shipping costs do not matter. Goods, once they have been made, are
assumed to move instantly and at no cost from place to place. The real world,
however, is full of frictions. Cheap labour may make Chinese clothing competitive in
America, but if delays in shipment lie up working capital and cause winter coats to
arrive in spring, trade may lose its advantages.
C

At the turn of the 20th century, agriculture and manufacturing were the two most
important sectors almost everywhere, accounting for about 70% of total output in
Germany, Italy and France, and 40-50% in America, Britain and Japan. International
commerce was therefore dominated by raw materials, such as wheat, wood and iron
ore, or processed commodities, such as meat and steel. But these sorts of products
are heavy and bulky and the cost of transporting them relatively high.

Countries still trade disproportionately with their geographic neighbours. Over time,
however, world output has shitted into goods whose worth is unrelated to their size
and weight. Today, it is finished manufactured products that dominate the flow of
trade, and, thanks to technological advances such as lightweight components,
manufactured goods themselves have tended to become lighter and less bulky. As a
result, less transportation is required for every dollar's worth of imports or exports.

To see how this influences trade, consider the business of making disk drives for
computers. Most of the world's disk-drive manufacturing is concentrated in South-
east Asia. This is possible only because disk drives, while valuable, are small and
light and so cost little to ship. Computer manufacturers in Japan or Texas will not
face hugely bigger freight bills if they import drives from Singapore rather than
purchasing them on the domestic market. Distance therefore poses no obstacle to
the globalisation of the disk-drive industry.

This is even more true of the fast-growing information industries. Films and compact
discs cost little to transport, even by aeroplane. Computer software can be 'exported'
without ever loading it onto a ship, simply by transmitting it over telephone lines from
one country to another, so freight rates and cargo-handling schedules become
insignificant factors in deciding where to make the product. Businesses can locate
based on other considerations, such as the availability of labour, while worrying less
about the cost of delivering their output.
G

In many countries deregulation has helped to drive the process along. But, behind
the scenes, a series of technological innovations known broadly as containerisation
and intermodal transportation has led to swift productivity improvements in cargo-
handling. Forty years ago, the process of exporting or importing involved a great
many stages of handling, which risked portions of the shipment being damaged or
stolen along the way. The invention of the container crane made it possible to load
and unload containers without capsizing the ship and the adoption of standard
container sizes allowed almost any box to be transported on any ship. By 1967, dual-
purpose ships, carrying loose cargo in the hold* and containers on the deck, were
giving way to all-container vessels that moved thousands of boxes at a time.

The shipping container transformed ocean shipping into a highly efficient, intensely
competitive business. But getting the cargo to and from the dock was a different
story. National governments, by and large, kept a much firmer hand on truck and
railroad tariffs than on charges for ocean freight. This started changing, however, in
the mid-1970s, when America began to deregulate its transportation industry. First
airlines, then road hauliers and railways, were freed from restrictions on what they
could carry, where they could haul it and what price they could charge. Big
productivity gains resulted. Between 1985 and 1996, for example, America's freight
railways dramatically reduced their employment, trackage, and their fleets of
locomotives - while increasing the amount of cargo they hauled. Europe's railways
have also shown marked, albeit smaller, productivity improvements.

I
In America the period of huge productivity gains in transportation may be almost
over, but in most countries the process still has far to go. State ownership of railways
and airlines, regulation of freight rates and toleration of anti-competitive practices,
such as cargo-handling monopolies, all keep the cost of shipping unnecessarily high
and deter international trade. Bringing these barriers down would help the world’s
economies grow even closer.

* hold: ship's storage area below deck

Questions 37-40
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs, A-I.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet.
37 I    a suggestion for improving trade in the future
38 G [F]    the effects of the introduction of electronic delivery

39 B [E]    the similar cost involved in transporting a product from abroad or from a local supplier

40 B [D]    the weakening relationship between the value of goods and the cost of their delivery

CORRECT: 27
SCORE: 6.5