2013年剑桥商务英语BEC高级模拟试题
Reading
1. This bank provides circulating funds to other banks of different countries.
2. This bank faces stress to take measures to drive down the currency.
3. This bank introduced emergency measures to fight against the monetary crisis,
4. This bank plans to raise funds to reimburse the capital injected by the government.
5. The government tried to restrict this bank's attempt to award its staff.
6. This bank suffered a run as a result of the exposure of some news.
7. This bank wants to maintain full control of itself.
8. This bank succeeded in bailing other banks out of their financial crises.
9. 1
10. 2
11. 3
12. 4
13. 5
14. 6
15. What does the first paragraph suggest about shoppers?
A．They are always aggressive.
B．Even heavily discounted merchandise can't arouse their interest in conventional retailers
C．They choose to abandon conventional retailers even on Black Friday.
D．Their passion for online retailers has been promoted by the slump.
16. In paragraph two, the writer mentions that in 2009 the offline sales is predicted to
A．grow by 11%.
B．continue to grow.
C．fall by no less than 3%.
D．grow feebly.
17. In the third Paragraph, the writer argues that online shops
A．have boomed due to economic prosperity.
B．never fail to provide prompt service.
C．used to deal with luxury goods.
D．provide consumers with more and more types of goods.
18. Some conventional retailers have reported rising profits this year because
A．they maintain reasonable stock.
B．they cut their retail outlets.
C．they increase their revenues.
D．they use discounting as an effective means.
19. In the fifth paragraph, the writer says that
A．all retailers have made multichannel shopping possible.
B．conventional retailers may eventually promote their sales in stores.
C．conventional retailers shift their focus to online sales.
D．there is no change in a customer's shopping style.
20. "Pop-up" stores can help to fight against economic gloom because they
A．appear for a short time and then vanish.
B．attract and urge consumers to make prompt purchase.
C．cut the extra expense of running stores.
D．are proved effective by online retailers.
21. A．sums B．numbers C．figures D．values
22. A. concerns B．considers C．supposes D．involves
23. A．in B．to C．with D．for
24. A．help B．assist C．support D．favor
25. A．closeness B．likeness C．similarities D．resemblances
26. A．basis B．base C．basics D．approach
27. A．reconciled B．tuned C．accumstomed D．attuned
28. A．peaceful B．harmonious C．lively D．relaxed
29. A．to B．within C．beyond D．out
30. A．providing B．contacting C．fostering D．leading
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53. PART ONE
· Look at the statements below and at the five extracts from newspaper articles about different banks on the opposite page.
· Which extract (A, B, C, D or E) does each statement (1-8) refer to?
· For each statement(1-8), mark one letter (A, B, C, D or E)on your Answer Sheet.
· You will need to use some of these letters more than once.
A．Bank of America announced that it was ready to repay the $ 45 billion it received in government bail-out money, which will finance by selling $ 18. 8 billion in securities and tapping $ 26.2 billion of "excess liquidity". The bank had to demonstrate to the Treasury that it was stable enough to obtain investment through the markets. By exiting the Troubled Asset Relief Programme, BofA will be free of many of the restrictions imposed on it, including on executive pay, which is said to be hampering the bank from appointing a successor to the outgoing chief executive, Kenneth Lewis.
B．The Bank of Japan held an emergency meeting following pressure from the government to take steps to counter deflation and the strengthening yen; the currency recently hit a 14-year high against the dollar. The central bank announced a ￥10 trillion ($115 billion) programme of new lending in three-month funds at a rate of 0.1% , which as officials said was similar to the quantitative-easing measures it employed earlier this decade to fight deflation. But the sum fell short of market expectations.
C．Directors at the Royal Bank of Scotland threatened to resign if the British Treasury prevented them from paying ￡1.5 billion ($ 2.5 billion) in bonuses at its investment-banking unit. Some British bankers have stepped up their criticism of what they say is overbearing government influence in matters of pay and compensation.
D．Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, revealed how close Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS came to collapse in October 2008. After Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, both banks had trouble raising funds in the markets and turned to the central bank, which lent them ￡ 62 billion ( $103 billion) in emergency aid. Mr. King revealed the details of the rescue now because both companies are considered to be stable. In 2007, news that Northern Rock received loans from the state led to a run on the bank.
E．The European Central Bank said it would tighten its rating standards for the asset-backed securities that euro-area banks use as collateral when seeking liquidity from the central bank. The move forms part of the ECB's plan gradually to withdraw the emergency measures it introduced during the financial crisis.
54. PART TWO
· Read this text about the four-day workweek adopted in Utah.
· Choose the best sentence from the opposite page to fill each of the gaps.
· For each gap (1-6), mark one letter (A-H) on your Answer Sheet.
· Do not use any letter more than once.
The Four-Day Workweek Is Winning Fans
In an era when most of us seem to be working more hours than ever (provided we're still lucky enough to have jobs), 17, 000 people in Utah have embarked on an unusual experiment. A year ago, the Beehive State became the first in the U. S. to mandate a four-day workweek for most state employees, closing offices on Fridays in an effort to reduce energy costs. The move is different from a furlough in that salaries were not cut; nor was the total amount of time employees work. (1) But on that fifth (glorious) day, they don't have to commute, and their offices don't need to be heated, cooled or lit.
After 12 months, Utah's experiment has been deemed so successful that a new acronym could catch on: TGIT (thank God it's Thursday). (2) Altogether, the initiative will cut the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 12, 000 metric tons a year. (3) "It's beneficial for the environment and beneficial for workers," says Lori Wadsworth, a professor at Brigham Young University who helped survey state employees. "People loved it." Those who didn't tended to have young children and difficulty finding extended day care.
(4) Private industry is interested as well—General Motors has just instituted a workweek of four 10-hour days at several of its plants. "There is a sense that this is ready to take off," says R. Michael Fischl, an associate dean at the University of Connecticut's law school, which is organizing a symposium on four-day weeks.
The advantages of a so-called 4-10 schedule are clear: less commuting, lower utility bills. (5) By staying open for more hours most days of the week, Utah's government offices have become accessible to people who in the past had to miss work to get there in time. (6) Plus, fears that working 10-hour days would lead to burnout turned out to be unfounded—Wadsworth says workers took fewer sick days and reported exercising more on Fridays. "This can really make a difference for work-life balance," says Jeff Herring, Utah's executive director for human resources.
Of course, in the age of the BlackBerry, fewer days in the office may not make much of a difference in terms of workload. But as energy prices start rising again, it makes sense to be flexible and find savings where we can.
A．The disadvantage of 4-10 schedule is clear.
B．And perhaps not surprisingly, 82 % of state workers say they want to keep the new.
C．The state found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13% reduction in energy use and estimated that employees saved as much as $ 6 million in gasoline costs.
D．And there have been unexpected benefits as well, even for people who aren't state employees.
E．They pack in 40 hours by starting earlier and staying later four days a week.
F．Managers from around the world have gotten in touch with Utah officials, and cities and towns including El Paso, Texas, and Melbourne Beach, Fla., are following the state's lead.
G．With the new 4-10 policy, lines at the department of motor vehicles actually got shorter.
H．A year ago, the Beehive State became the first in the U. S. to mandate a four-day workweek for most state employees, closing offices on Fridays in an effort to reduce energy costs.
55. PART THREE
· Read the following article about how Bricks-and-mortar shops struggle to win customers back from virtual ones on the opposite page.
· For each question (1-5).mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet.
SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this year, are notoriously aggressive. Some even start queuing outside stores before dawn to be the first to lay their hands on heavily discounted merchandise. Last year berserk bargain-hunters in the suburbs of New York City trampled a WalMart employee to death. Despite the frenzy at many stores, however, the recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar in favour of online retailers- e-tailers, in the jargon. So this year Black Friday (so named because it is supposed to put shops into profit for the year) also marks the start of many conventional retailers' attempts to regain the initiative.
E-commerce holds particular appeal in straitened times as it enables people to compare prices across retailers quickly and easily. Buyers can sometimes avoid local sales taxes online, and shipping is often free. No wonder, then, that online shopping continues to grow even as the offline sort shrinks. In 2008 retail sales grew by a feeble 1% in America and are expected to decline by more than 3% this year, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade body. In contrast, online sales grew by 13% in 2008 to over $141 billion and are predicted to grow by 11% in 2009, according to Forrester, a consultancy.
Online-only shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay, two e-commerce giants, have thrived in the downturn. Amazon's sales rose to around $ 5.5 billion in the third quarter of the year. up by almost 30% from a year before. Listings, chiefly from commercial vendors, have surged so rapidly on eBay that its website briefly crashed on November 21st. The range of items available online is also growing. Amazon has started selling groceries. Consumer-goods companies such as Procter & Gamble (P & G) are encouraging the sale of things like nappies (diapers) and laundry detergent online. At the opposite extreme, the internet is also being used to sell luxury goods. Fabergé, a defunct jewellery-maker known for its gem-encrusted eggs, relaunched in September. It will not open any shops but will instead operate only online.
The shift in spending to the internet is good news for companies like P & G that lack retail outlets of their own. But it is a big concern for brick-and-mortar retailers, whose prices are often higher than those of e-tailers, since they must bear the extra expense of running stores. Happily, however, conventional retailers are in a better position to fight back than last year, when overstocking forced them to resort to ruinous discounting. Inventories are about 15% lower this year. Some big retailers, such as Saks and Target, have recently reported rising revenues and margins.
The concept of " mulichannel" shopping, where people can buy the same items from the same retailer in several different ways online, via their mobile phones and in shops—is gaining ground, and retailers are trying to encourage users of one channel to try another. Growing onlinc traffic may actually increase sales in stores too. According to a spokesman for Macy's, a departmentstore chain, every dollar a consumer spends online with Macy's leads to $ 5.70 in spending at a Macy's store within ten days, because consumers learn about other products online and come into stores to look them over before buying them. Many online retailers offer tools that let people locate the nearest outlet that has a given item in stock.
Retailers are also trying to make shopping seem fun and exciting to counteract the economic gloom. One common tactic is to set up " pop-up" stores, which appear for a short time before vanishing again, to foster a sense of novelty and urgency. Following the lead of many bricks-and-mortar outfits, eBay recently launched a pop-up in New York where customers could inspect items before ordering them from kiosks.
56. PART FOUR
· Read the article below about the key to successful intercultural team building.
· Choose the correct word to fill each gap from A, B, C or D on the opposite page.
· For each question(1-10), mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet.
Intercultural Team Building
Today the need to 'go global' and to cut outgoings is demanding that companies combine protecting international interests whilst keeping down staff (1) The solution in most cases has been the forming of intercultural teams.
Undoubtedly, the intercultural dimension of today's teams brings about new challenges. Successful team building not only (2) the traditional needs to harmonise personalities but also languages, cultures, ways of thinking, behaviours and motivations.
The key to successful intercultural team building lies (3) intercultural training. It is one method of helping to blend a team together. Through analysis of the cultures involved in a team, their particular approaches to communication and business and how the team interacts, intercultural team builders are able to find, suggest and use common ground to (4) team members in building harmonious relationships. It helps a team to realise their differences and (5) in areas such as status, hierarchy, decision making, conflict resolution, showing emotion and relationship building in order to create mutually agreed upon structures of communication and interaction. From this (6) teams are then tutored how to recognise future communication difficulties and their cultural roots, empowering the team to become more self-reliant. The end result is a more cohesive and productive team.
In conclusion, for intercultural teams to succeed, it is important to stay (7) to the need for intercultural training to help cultivate (8) relationships. Companies must be supportive, proactive and innovative. This goes (9) financing and creating technological links to bring together intercultural teams at surface level and going back to basics by (10) better interpersonal communication. If international businesses are to grow and prosper in this ever contracting world, intercultural synergy must be a priority.
57. PART FIVE
· Read the article below about language learning for small businesses.
· For each question (1-10), write one word in CAPITAL LETTERS on your Answer Sheet.
Help for Exporters to Speak the Language
The new Languages in Export Advisory Scheme has been started to help companies that are keen to export and have fewer than two hundred and fifty employees. It means that they (1) eligible for a grant of up to fifty per cent of the cost of three-and-a-half days' on-site consultancy. The scheme defines ways of meeting the business's language needs (2) relating its product or service to the overseas market.
There are two stages: the first stage, (3) lasts half a day, gives employers understanding of the issues involved in exporting and briefs (4) on local language and export information centres. The second, three-day stage provides expert advice on competing effectively (5) overseas markets. A specialist in exports and language use analyses the firm's language needs and produces a plan (6) developing strategies.
Strategies that might (7) considered include establishing on-line or phone links with an interpreting company, hiring a native of a particular country on a contract basis, advertising for someone (8) fluency in a particular language, and locating a foreign student on placement or at a local business school. Such people might help the boss to (9) up a stand at a business exhibition in a foreign city, as (10) as handle the paperwork and deal with clients. It is hoped that many small businesses all over the world will benefit from this idea in the future.
58. PART SIX
· Read the text below about how to order.
· In most of the lines (1 - 12) there is one extra word. It is either grammatically incorrect or does not fit in with the sense of the text. Some lines, however, are correct.
· If a line is correct, write CORRECT on your Answer Sheet.
· If there is an extra word in the line, write the extra word in CAPITAL LETTERS on your Answer Sheet.
Special Products Co. —How to Order
1．Ordering is easy and delivery fast. Once received, your order will
2．normally be dispatched within 72 hours. We will inform to you
3．immediately should any items be out of stock. If you are not happy
4．with your purchases please return them to us within the 15 days in their
5．original packaging and we will refund you for in full. Quality is our main
6．criterion. Each item is under unconditionally guaranteed for 6 months.
7．You will receive a receipt and with your order which is your guarantee.
8．In the unlikely event of damage to an item during delivery, should please
9．contact with us immediately on 0371 3118 1772 and we will arrange for
10．its return or replacement. All prices and promotional offers are valid until
11．30th September. Since the stock of some popular commodities is not large
12．enough so please not hesitate and order from us without any delay.
Writing
1. PART ONE
· The table below shows the results of a study that compared three major cities. Four characteristics of each city were measured on a scale of satisfaction from 1 to 10 , with 10 being the most favourable evaluation. Compare the advantages of living in each of these three cities.
· Using the information from the table, write a short proposal on your preference of living in one of the three cities.
· Write 120-140 words on a separate sheet.
2. PART TWO
Write an answer to ONE of the questions 1-3 in this part. Write your answer in 200-250 words.
1、The Marketing Manager in your company is looking for a suitable medium for advertising a new product. You have been asked to make a survey in advertising through newspaper and television and to prepare a report on the suitability of the media.
· Write your report for the Marketing Manager:
· describing each medium
· assessing the positive and negative aspects of each medium
· making a recommendation as to the suitability for your product.
2、· Because of increased business in your department, you believe that you need to recruit an additional receptionist, and have been asked to write a proposal to CEO explaining why this new post is necessary.
· The proposal should cover:
· why another receptionist is needed
· what duties the person appointed will be expected to perform
· what qualities the new receptionist should have
· what salary and benefits your department could offer.
3、· The supermarket you work for is considering installing a TV system in its departments to give customers information on products and services while they shop. You have seen an advertisement for a company which provides this type of system.
· Write a letter to the Manager of the company. Mr. Goodson:
· give details of your supermarket
· what information you want customers to see
· the number of TV screens you want to install
· when you want to have it done and why.
Speaking
1. PART ONE
2. PART TWO
The candidate chooses one topic and speaks about it for approximately one minute. One minute's preparation time is allowed.
A．Training: how to ensure the target of a training programme realised
B．Quality control: the importance of ensuring products meet the quality standards
C．Career development: the factors involved in formulating a career development scheme within a company
3. PART THREE
In this part of the test, candidates are given a topic to discuss and are allowed 30 seconds to look at the prompt card, before talking together for about three minutes. Afterwards, the examiner asks more questions related to the topic if necessary.
For two candidates
Reducing Overheads
You work for a company which supplies parts and accessories to a car manufacturer. You have been asked to suggest ways of reducing operation costs.
Discuss, and decide together:
· how operation costs might be reduced
· who would need to be consulted about any possible changes.
For three candidates
Reducing Overheads
You work for a company which supplies parts and accessories to a car manufacturer. You have been asked to suggest ways of reducing operation costs.
Discuss, and decide together:
· how operation costs might be reduced
· who would need to be consulted about any possible changes
· what risks will you run into during the processing.
Follow-on questions:
· What do you think are the risks for companies if they reduce spending on operation? (Why?)
· What particular operation problems do you think your company have? (Why?)
· Do you think companies should review all types of spending regularly? (Why? / Why not?)
