Key Test 1

Part 3 staying on as President. From the start, I disagreed Now listen to the recording again.
knowledge about not only the ;anguage skill,
with the new owners, and things did not go well.
but also the culture and business practise 23 C 24 B 25 A 26 B 27B [pause]
Then the sky fell in. In February nineteen ninety-
among different countries. It benefit our 28 B 29 C 30 C
one, the bank called in the company's loans. There That is the end of Part One. You now have 20
company to expand aboard market and study
was no cash at the time. In fact, the company's seconds to check your answers.
management skill and techno lege from other
balance sheet gave a net worth of minus two point
countries. The course also help us to build an Tapescrlpt [pause]
five million dollars for nineteen ninety-one, the
international brand
Listening Test 1 company having lost that much the previous year Part Two. Questions 13 to 22.
Recommend on sales of eleven point five million dollars.
This is the Business English Certificate Higher 4, You will hear five different people talking about
Avoiding the problem cansed by the employee's I made a personal loan to the company of sixty-
Listening Test 1. the Master of Business Administration courses
absence, our company can implement the five thousand dollars to stave off the bank for one
(MBAs) which they have taken.
flexsible work time. We let someone work Part One. Questions 1 to 12. week so I could start to negotiate with three senior
through the internet, who enter the course. The managers at Hinde interested in buying the For each extract, there are two tasks. Loo]: at Task
You will hear Jack Lester, founder of Hinde
staffs can do the work anytime and anyplace. It company. It worked, and Arntex agreed to sell us One. For each question, 13-17, decide why each
Instruments Corporation, a telescope
save the time and money spend in traveling to one hundred per cent of the company's stock, along person decided to take that particular course, from
manufacturer, giving a tall" about the development
the company. The written lesson produce VCD with all its liabilities, for one thousand dollars. As the list A-H. Now look at Task Two. For each
of his company.
that staffs can watch them in home, if they the key investor, I purchased fifty-one per cent of question, 18-22, decide what the main benefit of
must work. If we push these policy, we must As you listen, for questions 1 to 12, complete the the company for five hundred and ten dollars. the course has been for each speaker, from the list
ensure all staffs have good quality internet and notes, using up to three words or a number. The four of us managed to put together two A-H.
build supervision system to check every staff million dollars, and we decided this was to be used
After you have listened once, replay the recording. After you have listened once, replay the recording.
work performent. totally on product development. Amtex hadn't
You now have 45 seconds to read through the moved on any new products, so we had the luxury You now have 30 seconds to read the two lists.
Thank you for reading notes. of engineering and of proof-of-concept waiting for
[pause]
us. We published a new catalogue of high-tech
[pause]
prod nets and took out advertising in leading Now listen, and do the two tasks.
Band 2 Now listen, and complete the notes. astronomy magazines. Just twelve months after
Errors are basic and numerous, and [pause]
our purchase, we managed to get the company into
communication is obscure; therefore, this is [pause]
the black. For the first two years, we all took very Speaker One
awarded a lower hand 2. In addition, content My name is Jack Lester and I'm here to talk about modest salaries. But it was an exciting time, and
points are omitted (no individual is specified), but Woman: I'm glad I did the course I did, and I
the company I originally founded in nineteen progress was being made.
no penalty is given, as this is already a lower band would, taken as a whole, recommend it to
seventy-two, Hinde Instruments. Today, the We develop products the market wants to buy.
2 answer. company, with factories in Nevada and Texas and others. The prospectus went on about the fact
We rely on our instincts and have frank discussions
that the university had world-class computer
its headquarters in California, is one of the world's with dealers. We do this rather than run marketing
largest manufacturers of telescopes. Sales have and library facilities and so forth, but that's not
studies, because we think they can be a waste of
what really attracted me so much as the big-
grown at a rate of thirty-six per cent for the last time. It sounds simple, and it works for us. And
ten years and in two thousand and two, reached name lecturers. And I have to say, they were very
Part 1 while the advanced telescopes are clearly the
good, though when I look back on it now, I
one hundred and twenty-six million dollars. But company's brand strength, a major reason for our
1 HEADQUARTERS; HQ this hasn't always been the case. In fact, in realise that the people I learned most from were
success with consumers is our ability to apply
2 BANKRUPTCY nineteen ninety-one, the threat of bankruptcy was my fellow students. Tbey carne from all over the
sophisticated technology to mass-market models.
3 (AN) ENGINEER hanging over tbe company. world, and I've really valued the insights they
We offer a range of telescopes costing from eighty-
4 MAIL ORDER I've always been an amateur astronomer and gave me into being on the receiving end of multi-
nine dollars to fifteen thousand dollars, but fifty
5 FEATURES national marketing. It was those insights that I
started building my own telescopes when I was ten. per cent of sales are generated by telescopes sold
6 LOANS feel bave been of real value since I came back
After working as an engineer at VIAC, it seemed for under five hundred dollars.
7 STOCK into the workplace.
quite natural to start my own telescope company, In the future, I see Hinde creating more
8 TWELVE MONTHS; 12 MONTHS; ONE Hinde Instruments. To start with, the company telescopes for amateur astronomers. But the Speaker Two
YEAR; A YEAR imported telescopes and sold them by mail order, company is also looking for ways to broaden into
9 DEALERS Man: Doing the MBA has made me much more
but by nineteen seventy-seven, the company was new markets. We believe that our core
10 BRAND making its own telescopes. Almost overnight, we marketable, I think. My particular area of
com petencies are in demand and will achieve that
11 CORE COMPETENCIES; COMPETENCES interest - c-comn1erce management - was
took a huge portion of the market, amateur breakthrough for us. For the last year, for example,
12 (OPTICAL) COMPONENTS astronomers being keen to buy our telescopes becoming very popular, but I wasn't likely to get
the company has supplied optical components to
because of the features they offered. By nineteen a good job without the added value of the higher
HNT Networks in Seattle, a wireless-
Part :2 eighty-three, sales reached two million dollars. qualification. The reason for choosing this
communications company.
In nineteen eighty-six, I sold the company for course is obvious; with my family commitments,
BE 14 F 15 H Thank you. If you have any ...
16 G 17 A I wouldn't have been able to do a masters if the
six point five million dollars to the Amtex Group,
18 E 19 B 20 F 21C 22 H [pause] college had been miles away, but I was

98 99
Key
pleasantly surprised when I started just how
strong the course was on the legal side of
business, which helped me in the work I now do
in staff recruitment and support. And I think a
good grounding in law is of great benefit to most
people, at whatever level of management they
find themselves.
Speaker Three
\Voman: In the first term of my MBA, I was a bit
disappointed by the number of general lectures
rather than smaller-scale seminars, even though
I'd been warned in advance that this would be
the case. I had a choice between a course
specialising in law and one which offered lots of
modules on finance. I opted for the latter. It was
really a matter of self-discipline - I was always
bad at it, so I thought I'd better do something
about that. We spent far less time on personnel
matters, but ironically, I've got a lot more out of
those sessions. I suppose what I'm saying is that
the course has helped me to be more realistic
about where my strengths and weaknesses lie.
I seldom have anything to do with the financial
side of things now.
Speaker Four
Man: I remember I was feeling rather under-
challenged at that time - a lowly admin officer -
and I was fascinated by all the opportunities
opening up with internet business, you know, so
Ichose an MBA which was offering lots of
innovative sessions in that area. And I have to
say, the course did me a great deal of good all
round. I'd always been something of a loner, but
since coming off the course, I've thrived in a
more co-operative environment. I don't think I
would ever have managed that without having
done the course. I'm thinking of changing johs
again - moving from purchasing into customer-
service management and I'm looking forward
to another challenge. The MBA has given me the
confidence to do that without worrying.
Speaker Five
Woman: I decided against doing the MBA at the
college down the road, because although they
had an excellent reputation, they seemed to me
to be too traditional for my particular needs.
I plumped for a course at UCDA, even though it
was such a long way away, because it had a
good track record dealing with changes to the
statute book. And I don't regret it: I think the
fact that I did my thesis on this - European
100
Business Regulation - helped me to get my
current job. It's significant, though, that I
haven't actually had to apply much of my legal
knowledge in the job. Instead, I've ended up
working in product standardisation and
monitoring - which, of course, my MBA studies
helped with, too.
[pause]
Man: Well, they then had to decide which market
Now listen to the recording again.
[pause]
That is the end of Part Two.
Part Three. Questions 23 to 30.
You will hear a Business Studies tutor and a
student, Martin, discussing Ralcona, a UK-based
soft-drinks company.
For each question, 23-30, mark one letter (A, B or
Woman: Right, and a key factor here was deciding
C) for the correct answer.
After you have listened once, replay the recording.
You now have 45 seconds to read through the
questions.
[pause]
Now listen, and mark A, B or C.
[pause]
Woman: OK, Martin, I asked you to prepare the
case study of Ralcona, the soft-drinks
manufacturer. Let's work through the main
issues together. Now, I assume you've looked
at the background? Can you give me a
Man: Um ... an over-worked marketing
snmmary?
Man: Errn, yeah, er - well, urn, Ralcona are a UK
company who had one very famous drink
Jista - which was selling well world-wide. But
two years ago, when the new Chairman arrived,
he decided to exploit that popularity to expand
the product range. Ralcona had introduced Jista
into markets in Japan, Australia and several
South-East Asian countries. But there's recently
been a slide in sales, despite the fact that Jista is
still holding up reasonably well against some
Woman: Yes ... and hoping to exploit this still
stiff competition from other multinationals.
Woman: OK, stop there, because I want to fill you
in on the discussions that took place in the
planning of this new product range - they were
very interesting. Inevitably, the various interested
parties in the company all had very different
Man: Well, they discovered that the drinks were
ideas - but they all advocated caution. So, for
example, the finance department wanted to test
the markets closer to home first, while the
marketing team were worried any new drinks
would dilute the image of the core brand and so
were looking at new names. But across the
board, the people at the top favoured launching
each product separately at different times to get
maximum impact for each product. So that's
what happened. All right, go on ...
to aim for. Did they just replicate other drinks
on the market and try to eat into those markets?
Should they focus solely on the youth market,
which was rapidly expanding? Or should they
be daring and go for an older, more
sophisticated age group with more expensive
products? Riskily, they plumped for the latter.
Then, having decided where they were going, the
Rand D department hegan developing the
products.
on the all-important design of the packaging.
Now, designers tend to have a track record of
success - or not - so the safest option would
have been to employ a team of consultants who
specialised in this. But, driven by the focus on
innovation from the new chairman, they trawled
the market for recent graduates, thinking their
enthusiasm would make up for their lack of
experience. They were also approached by
designers from other companies, but thought
they'd be too set in their ways. So the industry
was waiting eagerly to see what Ralcona had to
offer, but at the last minute, the company halted
the launch for three months. Why was that?
department had pulled out all the stops to get
everything ready. And the retailers, who had
been geared up for getting the products in the
shops, took a pretty poor view of the decision.
But Ralcona's chairman had heard, correctly,
that their main rivals intended to attack the
la unch with an aggressive promotion, so he
intervened at the last minute. Eventually, the
delayed launch went ahead, and the new
products were brilliantly successful.
further, Ralcona did some research into why the
products had struck such a chord, expecting to
find positive results for their advertising
campaign or design. But they were taken aback.
Why?
being drunk as mixers with other products - so
much so that sales had almost reached the level
Test 1
of Jista, the core product. 50 Ralcona had
targeted the market accurately, but had failed to
see how wide the applications for the products
were.
Woman: And this taught Ralcona some valuable
lessons that have now put them at the forefront
of the industry.
Man: Yes, it seems they have now established a
good creative team who constantly come up
with new ideas, and the marketing division has
rethought its mission and now focuses on getting
copious feedback from supermarkets, clubs and
cafes to find out what consumers are looking for.
Woman: So other businesses, not just the drinks
industry, have looked to Ralcona as a model and
as a warning. What were your conclusions?
Man: Their experiences prove what we already
know - that successful companies must be
prepared to go out on a limb, and finely targeted
markets can be more profitable than making
products with more general appeal. But what it
uniq uely demonstrates is that, in any husiness,
you should never assume that you know what's
going on - the consumers have a lot to tell us -
but they won't if they're not asked, and your
products can live or die by getting the right
information.
Woman: OK, now can you write all that up for
me ... ?
[pause]
Now listen to the recording again.
[pause]
That is the end of Part Three. You now have ten
minutes to transfer your answers to your Answer
Sheet.
[pause]
Note: Teacher, stop the recording here and time
ten minutes. Remind students when there is one
minute remaining.
[pause]
That is the end of the test.
101