Good Luck


 Reading
Read the text from a newspaper article. Complete each gap 1-6 in the text with a
sentence from a - g below. There is one extra sentence which does not fit into any
of the gaps.

a. Get punctual colleagues to explain their feelings to late ones.

b. Let people know that meetings will start promptly.
c. Don't keep people waiting as a way of suggesting you are important.
d. Never be late if possible.
e. Work out the cost of lateness.
f. Interpret lateness.
g. Decide your own attitude to lateness.

How to cope with late colleagues

1 If you have twenty people attending a meeting which starts ten minutes
behind, your business has lost the equivalent of half a day's work. If you institutionalize
inefficiency in this way, you are subconsciously telling colleagues they can do what they
like about meeting deadlines.

2 Either decide to be on time, or accept that meetings and appointments will

nearly always drift. You cannot take a middle line, and you cannot tackle anyone else if
you are sometimes late.

3 'It is showing a strong contempt for people; says Clare, who typically has five
meetings a day. 'It's regarded increasingly badly,' says Jo Bond of the Right management
consultancy. 'You should think of colleagues as internal customers. Would you keep
external customers waiting? No: Bad time-keepers are usually weak administrators —
poor at making decisions, unable to say no to people they are with, incapable of critical
path analysis, and bad at setting priorities. You have a choice between letting them set the
tone of your business or trying to establish a sharper routine.

4 If you let them begin late, you are penalizing the people who arrive on time.
Do this more than once or twice, and you encourage everyone to be late. Resist
temptations to recap for latecomers. You could, however, start your meeting with the least
important item.

5 The early birds will almost certainly cooperate if, for instance, they arrived for
an 8 a.m. meeting and were kept waiting for forty minutes.

6 In Louise Bagshawe's new novel A Kept Woman, the anti-hero deliberately

keeps the hero waiting for thirty minutes but is left looking a fool in front of senior
executives when the hero walks out.

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 Grammar
Verb tenses.
Complete the text using the correct form of the verbs in brackets.

Private Labels — past, present, and future

It was not so long ago that the power was in the hands of the manufacturers in their
relationship with the retailers; they dictated prices, delivery terms, and product placement.
During the 1980s and 1990s however, things changed. Retailers _______________(grow)
bigger and stronger, and realized they _______________(give) the brand manufacturers
too much say in what _______________(happen) in their stores. Since then large chains
_______________________ (increasingly dictate) terms to the brands,
and one phenomenon in particular ________________ (shake) their sense of security –
the growth of the private label.

These products _______________(market) in various ways; they may be in a plain

package or as a retailer's brand and they may be produced by the big brand
manufacturers themselves. The fact of the matter is that they _______________(become)
more sophisticated and less brand-loyal with the result that more and more shelf space
_________________(allocate) to private labels. They are especially strong in mature
product markets where it is difficult to persuade customers that your product is really any
different.

The private label is particularly well established in Britain. One department store, Marks &
Spencer, _______________(sell) only its own label products for several decades, and as
the big supermarket chains position themselves in the market the customer
_______________ (often make) a choice between various own labels rather than
manufacturers' brands. German hard discount stores are also full of these products and,
indeed, _______________(focus) their assortment on suitable products for own labelling.
In the USA, retailers _______________(tend) to remain faithful to the big brands but over
the last few years the biggest chains _______________(promote) more private labels, and
they are likely to go on doing so. The market trend in Europe indicates that in the future
they _______________ (continue) to grow and diversify still more, and that retailers
____________________ (probably develop) up-market labels as well. In ten years' time
________________________(we simply buy) brands owned by retailers rather than
manufacturers?

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If.
Correct the sentences below.

1 If I’m sleepy, I would drink a cup of coffee.

2 If I could drive, I will get a better job.

3 We’ll go and see Max and Chris if we’ll be in Berlin.

4 If he’s from Switzerland, he would probably understand French.

5 If we left early tomorrow morning, we would have arrived before 12.00.

6 You can’t come in here unless you don’t have a ticket.

7 If he would work harder, he passed his exams.

8 I wouldn’t do that if I am you.

9 If you didn’t help me, I would have been in trouble.

10 I will see you next week, unless I would hear from you.

11 Negotiations generally work better if they will be conducted in less formal

conditions.

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 Vocabulary
Choose the word.
Read the text about attitudes to debt. Underline the correct word in italics.

It seems the younger generation worries less about getting into and paying out / paying up
/ paying off / paying into debt than their parents' generation and much less so than their
grandparents'. An increasing number seriously fail to match their outgoings / savings /
investments / expenses with their income, and most of the reason / blame / motive / sin for
this lies with their willingness to fall out / fall behind / fall through / fall off on credit card
repayments. So now they're broke / black / red / credit, what are they doing about it?

Verb-noun collocations.
Match the phrasal verbs on the left with the nouns on the right.

1 set up a a list of guidelines

2 go into b too much work
3 take on c your work
4 draw up d politics
5 get on with e your own business

Prepositions.
Choose the correct preposition from the box to complete these sentences.

to up with to in off by of with to

1. I'm not in the office tomorrow — I have a day_______________ in lieu.

2. We can't put _______________the price in today's market.
3. I used_______________ work for Glaxo but I left last year.
4. He's always overruling my decisions — I'm fed up_______________ it!
5. Increased sales lead _______________ greater profits.
6. According _______________Mary, the office is in Espoo, Finland.
7. The company's sales have slumped _______________80% to €30,000 over the
last five years.
8. We never recovered from the collapse _______________our main supplier.
9. There's never been such an increase _______________ the number of sales.
10. I don't agree _______________ that suggestion at all.

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Communication skills

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