剑桥商务英语高级真题集听力原文十二篇05

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-14 19:16:37

TEST 5 This is the Business English Certificate Higher 3, Listening Test 1.
Part One. Questions 1 to 12.You will hear the founder of a company called Manshee talking to business students about its development.
As you listen, for questions 1 to 12, complete the notes, using up to three words or a number.
After you have listened once, replay the recording.
You now have forty-five seconds to read through the notes.
[pause]
Now listen, and complete the notes.
[pause]
Man:       Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m honoured to have this opportunity to talk to you.
            Eight years ago, I bought my first computer, but I soon discovered that where I lived, it was difficult to find accessories for that particular make. That made me realise that other people must have the same problem.
            Then I found that foreign magazines contained plenty of advertisements of mail order companies, so I started buying spare parts and things that way and selling them on to my friends at a small profit. That was how my company, Manshee, was born.
            Four years later, Manshee was making a profit and had reached a turnover of six million pounds. We had four directors - myself and three of my friends - plus a staff of seventeen. The culture was young and the working environment didn’t have any structure. The company just grew and grew with its own momentum, and everything we did seemed to strike lucky. If we needed to buy some equipment or redecorate the sales office, we decided yes or no in isolation, only taking the short term - usually the cash flow for that month - into account.
            However, the market became increasingly cut throat, and that led to falling margins. We realised, rather unwillingly, that the time had come to structure our future, but we didn’t really have much idea how to set about it. So we went to a firm of consultants who specialise in helping small businesses, and it proved a turning point. They insisted that we four directors sit down and rank our investments in order of importance for the coming years. It seems obvious now, but we’d never realised the value of doing it before.
            Initially, we set out strategic and financial targets for the next three years, and now we’re pleased with just how many of those objectives we’ve met.
            The value of bringing in outside expertise was that it gave us objectivity. It’s so easy to take things for granted, and to go on in the same mindset. Using consultants meant we received invaluable advice on our business priorities.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-14 19:16:38

Planning has allowed us to make notable improvements. For instance, by segmenting our customer base, we realised that we could put our customers, currently in excess of a thousand, into four distinct groups, according to established a good joint venture there, which is a better bet than going it alone, or slashing costs all over the place and laying people off in a panic.</p>[pause]
Now listen to the recording again.
[pause]
That is the end of Part One. You now have 20 seconds to check your answers.
[pause]

Part Two. Questions 13 to 22.You will hear five different people talking about problems, and responses to them in the companies where they work.
For each extract, there are two tasks. Look at Task One. For each question, 13-17, decide which problem each speaker mentions, from the list 18-22, decide which response the company made to the problem, from the list A-H.
After you have listened once, replay the recording. You now have 30 seconds to read the two lists.
[pause]
Now listen, and do the two tasks.
[pause]
Speaker One
Woman: Well, now it’s all over, I can only hope we’ve learnt the right lessons from the experience. Although the consultants at the time urged caution, the board were sure of the plan – after all, it was the sort of thing they’d pulled off before – and ploughed ahead with the launch of the new division. But the board wouldn’t accept that the predicted boom in these new overseas markets was bound to be unstable because of likely fluctuations in currency rates and share prices, and that’s where it all came unstuck. They reacted sensibly, though, and now we have established a good joint venture there, which is a better bet than going it alone, or slashing costs all over the place and laying people off in a panic.
Speaker Two
Man: In the end, you’d have to say we had a lucky escape - I mean, it could have been a lot worse. It’s very difficult to know where your brand is really positioned.., we’ve always accepted that our research almost inevitably will be running a bit behind. Consumer tastes change so quickly these days, and that’s where we suffered, and lost market share. The directors, once it was clear what was happening, attacked the problem and looked at various options. They could have looked to generate revenues with a share issue, but I think they were right to go for clipping back by reducing expenditure wherever possible - you’re better placed to re- group with a tight ship. The plans to develop higher quality products for the future look pretty plausible now.
Speaker Three
Woman: Well, I now know to take all this talk about the importance of communication skills seriously... I used to think it was all rather woolly, but when you’ve seen the damage misunderstandings can do... I suppose the board was a grouping of people with such strong backgrounds individually that each of them expected to be top dog, and that it was perhaps inevitable that they’d clash over what direction the company should go in. Anyhow, it looked very grim for a while but, in the end, two of them took the pretty sizeable payoffs they were offered and moved on. From our point of view, at least it saved us from the prospect of the group being split up and the shares sold off.
Speaker Four
Man: We were all extremely glad to see the back of that particular episode in the company’s history. I know there’s quite a trend to constantly reviewing your sourcing in the search for cost savings, but it was crazy to move over to such an untried firm. The trouble was we were getting nearly all our parts from them, so everything was leaving the factory here with faulty components, with appalling results. We should have listened to the consultants, but on this one we thought we knew better. It gotso bad that predatory offers were being made for the division, and we had to think hard about how to save the brand’s reputation. Raising fresh capital through new shares was the right way to go and enabled us to cover the losses we made in sales.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-14 19:16:39

Speaker Five</p>Woman: I sometimes really do think that the people who know least about a company are the people who run it... that’s why there’s such an industry in advising on and supplying the skills for managing change. We went along assuming that we were selling well because of what we saw as our core qualities - but we were wrong. It was just that we happened to have got our pricing right, so when we changed that, it all started falling apart. Things got decidedly grim for a time, and drastic action was required. A merger was considered, and an aggressive takeover had to be fought off. In the end, it was easier to accept an offer for the Budget Products Division, and avoid major redundancies, than to go on trying to keep the whole thing afloat.
[pause]
Now listen to the recording again.
[pause]
That is the end of Part Two.
[pause]

Part Three. Questions 23 to 30.You will hear a discussion between two senior managers, John and Deborah, about an assistant manager, Colin, who has applied for a new post.
For each question 23-30, mark one letter (A, B or C) for the correct answer.
After you have listened once, replay the recording.
You have forty-five seconds to read through the questions.
[pause]
Now listen, and mark A, B or C.
[pause]
Man:       Well, Deborah, we need to think about the candidates who’ve put in applications for the post of area manager.
Woman: Yes, John, it’s an exciting new role, and it fits in with the strategy development plan.
Man:       Quite. It’s part of a logical progression in our approach to management, carefully consolidating our skills base. It should mean a new chain of command, but based on tried and tested methods.., we’ll be stronger as a result.
Woman: Well that’s the idea. Now, the first one that’s come in is from Colin...
Man:       The assistant manager for the south-east?
Woman: Yes. Colin’s clearly keen...
Man:       But of course, it’s an attractive proposition.
Woman: And I think that’s what’s drawn him. He’s said his current post is demanding - as well he might - but that he’s keen to position himself in the spotlight here. Reading between the lines, I think the alternative, as he sees it, is to move sideways to IT, which is where his background is. It would be a shame to lose someone like him ... he’s hungry.

会计考友 · 发表于 2012-8-14 19:16:40

Man:       Yes, it’s a genuine application. He’s a serious contender. I was struck recently... I think it was last month.., by his problem- solving abilities. He was passed a complaint - it wasn’t really his problem at all - but he took it up anyway, about some faulty goods we’d supplied, apparently. I think he saw it as an efficiency issue, and so relevant to any responsible person here. And he reacted really well, so that the customer went away happy after all.</p>Woman: Right, and that suggests the qualities that are most germane to the job. Ultimately, I suppose, we’re looking for a level of adaptability that it’s fair to say someone in his position may not have had the chance to really demonstrate yet.., but his familiarity with the goods we produce is second-to-none, so I think the signs are there that he may become an astute analyst and problem-solver.
Man:       That’s certainly encouraging. And it’s not just in the office that he’s been looking good. I sent him abroad as part of that group a few weeks ago. The basic brief was to secure a continuation of the Asian contract. To be honest, that was a bit of a given, and what I was really hoping for was something extra. And sure enough, he clearly really worked on all our contacts out there, and he came back with some great new insights into how we might be able to develop bulk sales direcdy through warehouses, rather than through the standard agency channels.
Woman: Oh right, interesting - I missed the de- brief on that one. But I do know he went on a training course not so long ago, and clearly reaped the benefits there. The content was mundane enough - ‘how to produce effective reports’ or somesuch - but he identified the points that really mattered, and saw that what it actually addressed was how to order the most pertinent facts for delivery to a team.
Man:       So, it’s good news all round?
Woman: Let’s look at what his reference has to say. He does have shortcomings, of course. His confidence is very strong, almost to a fault, you might say, which could lead to difficulties on the patience front.., just because he gets the point quickly doesn’t mean he’s entitled to think everyone else does, that they share the same conclusions.., others may be behind in terms of objectivity, still grappling with issues that impact personally on themselves.
Man:       Hmm, that’d certainly be something to watch, I guess. Still, we’re not looking for perfection, are we? And we’re not going to be setting up a lone operator.
Woman: Oh, far from it. Whoever gets the job will be well backed up. I was talking to the consultants the other day, and they were quite critical of our reliance on checking performance through the one-to-one appraisal system, so it’s been decided that this new post will be linked into the cross-departmental advisory group that was set up a few months ago, and benefit from dealing with them and getting their input. That should help quite a bit.
Man:       That makes a lot sense. Well, let’s talk about some of the other candidates...
[pause]
Now listen to the recording again.
[pause]
That is the end of Part Three. You now bare 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.

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