Transcript Reading
專業英文雜誌選讀
日四技應外三甲
胡若菊
Chapter 1 No Hiding Place
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Theme: The protection of privacy will be a huge problem for the internet society.
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Reading:
A cookie is a small file that a company can send to your computer when you visit the company’s website. It tells them a lot about your browsing habits. Using the web without them is nearly impossible. DoubleClick, an advertising company, has agreements with over 11,000 websites and maintains cookies on 100 million users ……
Chapter 1 (cont’)
1. How do companies collect information about people who visit websites?
2. How can organizations find out where we go?
3. What are some of the new developments in surveillance technology.
4. What four advantages of surveillance technology are mentioned?
5. What do most people think about having so much surveillance?
Chapter 2 Fashion’s Favourite
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Theme: The high cost of fashion shows is worth every penny to the industry.
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Reading:
What is the point of top-end fashion? An
haute couture
dress can cost more than $100,000. Not surprisingly, there are no more than 2,000 haute couture customers in the world. The commercial point is that haute couture is the fashion house’s loss leader. It creates the image of the brand………….
Chapter 2 (cont’)
1. Why are there only 2,000 customers for
haute couture
?
2. Do fashion houses make a profit from
haute couture
?
3. What is the main advantage of a fashion show?
4. Why is Paris the true capital of fashion?
5. Why is the fashion industry good for France?
6. Which city competes with France as a centre of fashion?
Chapter 3 Arabia’s Field of Dreams
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Theme: One of the world’s most successful business ventures is a small city-state that learned lessons from Singapore and Hong Kong.
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Reading:
A tropical sun sets behind the palm trees and white sand of Jumeirah beach. Here, machines are building houses on one of the world’s largest man-made islands, designed in the shape of a palm tree. England’s soccer……
Chapter 3 (cont’)
1. What are they building on the large man-made islands off the coast of Dubai?
2. How long will Dubai’s oil production continue?
3. What attractions does the city-state have for tourists?
4. What is the population of Dubai? What percentage of the people are originally from the city-state?
5. What kinds of companies are setting up business in Dubai?
Chapter 4 The Oneline Job Market
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Theme: How Jeff Taylor changed the way the labour market works.
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Reading:
Monster.com, the world’s biggest online job-search site, shows how electronic marketplaces reach more people and can offer more efficiency than physical markets. It also shows that money can be made in such markets: Monster has a long record of profitability. Jeff Taylor, who launched…….
Chapter 4 (cont’)
1. Does Monster.com make a profit?
2. What two advantages does Monster.com offer to job-seekers?
3. Find two advantages for employers of using the Mosnter.com site.
4. Which two kinds of business are losing money because of Mosnter.com’s success?
5. What advice does the article give to people who want to use the site to find a job?
Chapter 5 Make It Cheaper and Cheaper
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Theme: How technology pushes down price.
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Reading:
Prices have fallen in the food business because of advances in food production and distribution technology. Consumers have benefited greatly from those advances. People who predicted that the world would run out of food were wrong. We are producing more and more food with less and less capital. Food is therefore more plentiful ……
Chapter 5 (cont’)
Are the statements true or false?
1. It costs less to produce large quantities of food than ever before.
2. Big supermarkets can offer food at lower prices because they can buy in large quantities.
3. Some food producers have reduced their range of products.
4. To meet supermarket demands, Cadbury employs more workers than before.
5. Shoppers will buy large quantities when there is a special price.
Chapter 6 Getting Better Service
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Theme: The failure to complain is everywhere.
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Reading:
Australians call the British “whingeing Poms” because they complain so much. But a new study suggests that Brits should hinge more, not less. A team led by Chris Voss of the London Business School found that service quality is Britain is typically worse than in America. One reason, the research suggests, is that …………………..
Chapter 6 (cont’)
Are these statements true or false?
1. Australians are correct when they say that the British complain too much.
2. The British aren’t very direct when they make complaints.
3. Americans only complain when there is a big problem.
4. British companies don’t spend much on service.
5. The Marriott Hotel Group trains is staff to follow a fixed routine when handling complaints.
6. Complaining about bad service in Britain doesn’t bring any results.
Chapter 7 Revolution in the Car Industry
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Theme: Car factories of the future will be smaller and cleaner, and not all owned by car companies.
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Reading:
The car business has a serious problem: it is producing too many cars. This over-capacity is resulting in fierce competition. Each manufacturer is competing in ever segment of the market, with a huge range of models to attract different consumers………..
Chapter 7 (cont’)
Are these statements true or false?
1. Car manufacturers can’t produce enough o meet customer demands.
2. Models need to be updated more often.
3. Each car factory can only product one model.
4. Productivity is very high.
5. It takes too long to deliver finished cars to the customer.
6. Sales forecasts are accurate.
Chapter 8 The Kids Are All Right
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Theme: Young people at work can now expect opportunity, responsibility, respect—and fun.
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Reading:
Youth is a time for fun. In one American playground in Florida, there are basketball courts and volleyball nets. Inside, there are bright colours. Nerf guns and a games room with pingpong. This is not a school, but the offices of CapitalOne, one of America’s largest credit-card firms. ………..
Chapter 8 (cont’)
Which of the following things were generally true in the past (P) and which are true today (T), according to the article?
1. Office culture is formal.
2. People only become top managers after years of loyal service.
3. Companies can grow rapidly and also fail suddenly 4. Workers have to show respect for their superiors.
5. Companies prefer workers who understand e-business.
6. People work for the same company all their lives.
7. Young people have many opportunities to show creativity.
Chapter 9 A Matter of Choice
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Theme: That reliable workhorse of a capitalism—the joint stock company looks surprisingly durable. But pressure on it is increasing.
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Reading:
In 1967, John Kenneth Galbraith’s
The New Industrial State
argued that the USA was run by a handful of big companies who planned the economy in the name of stability. These were hierarchical and bureaucratic ……
Chapter 9 (cont’)
1. What were the characteristics of US corporations in the past?
2. What changes have occurred to those corporations?
3. What is meant by “shifting from high-volume to high-value”?
4. What different types of future companies does the author mention?
5. Why does he believe there is not one definite type of future company?
6. What does he believe to be the key to survival for companies in the future?
Chapter 10 When to Terrorise Talent
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Theme: The football dressing room remains the last refuse of old-style management techniques.
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Reading:
The nation was in shock. David Beckham, Britain’s most beautiful (and skilful) footballer emerged from his house on photograph a would above his left eye. Sir Alex Ferguson, Manager of his then team Manchester United, ………………………….
Chapter 10 (cont’)
Are these statements true or false?
1. A photographer witnessed the manager kicking David Beckham.
2. The manager lost his temper because the team lost the match.
3. Management tactics are easier to identify in business than in sport.
4. Patterson encouraged his employees to make themselves indispensable.
5. When business is good, fear is used less as a management tactics.
Chapter 11 The Rewards of Failure
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Theme: The trouble with the GlaxoSmithKline pay package was its reward for failure.
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Reading:
When the public mood changes, the realisation can take time to sink in. Behaviour that was once acceptable can overnight come to be seen as outrageous. The board of GlaxoSmithKline, a big pharmaceutical company, has found itself at the sharp end of such a mood change. Its………………………
Chapter 11 (cont’)
1. Who refused to approve GSK’s remuneration committee’s report?
a. The board of directors b. The shareholders c. The chief executive 2. The company is now in a difficult position because a. It had already agreed to the new pay packages.
b. It has to decide whether to approve the report or not.
c. Jean-Pierre Garnier will take legal action.
Chapter 12 Gas for Peru v Green Imperialism
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Theme: Where should the balance between development and the environment be struck? And who should strike it?
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Reading:
After nearly two decades of contract negotiations, natural gas from the Amazon jungle looks finally set to teach Peru’s capital, Lima, by next August. However, US environmentalists are making a final attempt to stop the $1.5 billion project, which if it ………
Chapter 12 (cont’)
Which of the following will happen if the Camisea project goes ahead?
1. Peru will again become an exporter of fuel.
2. The IDB loan could release further finance for the scheme.
3. The Peruvian government will be able to give financial assistance to some of the poorer areas in the country.
4. Peruvian companies will be able to reduce some of their costs.
5. A road will be built through the Peruvian jungle.
Chapter 13 Money Can Buy You Love
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Theme: Are we being manipulated into buying brands?
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Reading:
Brands are accused of all sorts of evils, from threatening our health and destroying our environment to corrupting our children. Brands are so powerful, it is said, that they force us to look alike, eat alike and be alike. This grim picture has been made popular by many recent anti-branding ………..
Chapter 13 (cont’)
Are the statements true or false?
1. It was relatively easy in the past to create a new brand.
2. Buying a branded product did not cost customers more.
3. Brands were developed for the international market.
4. The government closely controlled the markets at home.
5. Brands deterred other companies from entering the market.
Chapter 14 Europe’s Enron
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Theme: The Ahold financial scandals should shock Europe into accounting and corporate governance reform, just as the Enron scandal did in the USA.
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Reading:
It may seem an exaggeration to describe the scandal overwhelming Royal Ahold as “Europe’s Enron”– but in many ways it is true enough. Certainly, the world’s third-biggest food retailer, after Wal-Mart and…….
Chapter 14 (cont’)
1. What are the similarities between Enron and Ahold?
2. What should European companies do?
3. Why did the shareholders admire Cees van der Hoeven?
4. Which of Ahold’s acquisitions is mentioned in the text?
5. What did Europeans believe about corporate wrong-doing in the past?
6. How did Foodservice overstate its sales?
Chapter 15 Imitating Property Is Theft
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Theme: Counterfeiting is on the increase. Companies ignore it at their peril.
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Reading:
The most people, counterfeiting means forged currency. But counterfeiters are copying an every-widening range of products. For some time they have been churning out imitation designer fashion, software and CDs. Now they are copying medicines, mobile phone, food and drink, car parts………………
Chapter 16 Of Celebrities, Charity and Trade
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Theme: Charities are not yet free-traders, but some are halfway there.
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Reading:
In the energy-sapping heat of Uganda, women bend double to grow flowers for export to Europe. According to Bono, singers of Irish rock band U2, this scene represents “globalisation at its best”. He is right, of course. Growing flowers is hard work, but no more so than …………………..
Chapter 17 Dilemma: Buy it now!
• eBay, the online auction site, wants to expand. The best way is to set up operations in other countries like India. It has over a billion people and could be the biggest market in the world in the future. But how many people there have access to the internet? Are they ready for online shopping? Are there other online auction companies? How easy is it for a foreign company to enter the market?
Chapter 18 Dilemma: A workplace bully
• Elizabeth works for a computer company. At first, she liked the job and believed that she could do it well. But now she has a problem: her team leader, Valma, is a bully. Valma seems to dislike Elizabeth. She always finds problems with her work. If Elizabeth makes a small mistake, she shouts at her in front of her colleagues: “What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid?” She doesn’t talk to the other team members in this way. She gives Elizabeth all the most boring and difficult tasks to do. Elizabeth……
Chapter 19 Dilemma: Volkswagen bugs
• A few years ago, VW had two problems. 1) It was Europe’s largest car manufacturer, but its best selling cars– the Goof, Jetta and Passat – were beginning to look old. VW’s competitors had new models, but VW had nothing new. 2) The VW brand was based on value for money, middle-priced cars. VW customers wanted a more luxurious brand image when they go older and richer. VW didn’t have any cars to offer them.
Chapter 20 Dilemma: Organic Growth
• Sunshine Foods is a large dairy food producer, specialising in milk, butter, cream, yoghurt, and ice cream. There is a lot of interest now in healthy food products and many consumers want to buy organic food, produced in a traditional way without the use of chemicals. Sunshine’s directors want to have a share in the organic food market and they believe that the best way to enter the market is to take over a firm that already produces organic products. They plan to create a new subsidiary which, they hope, will……..
Chapter 21 Dilemma: Risky ventures
• • • • You represent a firm of venture capitalists. You have funds to invest in an exciting new venture in a technological field. Your main interest is to see a good return on your investment with a minimum of risk. You are going to consider three ventures, which require about $500,000 each as start-up capital: Celf Cure: a biotech solution for curing diseases Space Travel Inc.: a new spacecraft for sending tourists into space Fingertip: using fingerprints instead of keys to………
Chapter 22 Dilemma: A New Location
• Whiterose is a group of hotels, restaurants and leisure companies which operates mainly in the UK. It is planning to expand its international operations but the head office in London is no longer big enough so the company is planning to relocate the Hotel Division.
You belong to a team that is responsible for identifying a new location for this division, which has 1,000 employees. You are looking for a town where it will be easier to find a spacious office building at a lower cost than in London. You are considering ……..
Chapter 23 Dilemma: For love or money?
• Kate Gray is in a happy position: she has two job offers. The problem is to choose the job that will suit her best. Kate is a new graduate in geography and wants to work in the travel industry. She would like a job that includes travelling and working with people. Two different travel companies are offering her a position. She has the chance to work in the marketing department of Wide World Tours, a big company with 3,000 employees and regional offices around the world. Or she could………………….
Chapter 24 Dilemma: Guerrilla marketing
• Virgin Mobile is a phone operator that provides a wide range of mobile communication services to its customers in the UK. Competition between mobile phone operators is strong and winning a large market share in the student market is vital. Students use their mobile phones a lot – to call friends and family, and also to get information and play games. There are 2.5 million students in the UK, and 96 per cent of them own a mobile phone. But it is difficult to market to students because they are hard to reach and are ……..
Chapter 25 Dilemma: A fair decision?
• • You are members of the Financial Ombudsman Service – an independent organisation that helps to settle disagreements between companies and their customers. You have been asked to look at the following dispute between a car owner and an insurance company following the theft of a car.
Jane Buxton was at a restaurant in the city centre when her handbag was stolen. Inside the bag were her house keys, car keys, wallet and driving license with her home address on it. She reported …………
Chapter 26 Dilemma: Service not included
• You are the senior manager at House & Home, a chain of warehouse-style stores selling furniture and fittings for the home. The company is suffering. Competition from other similar stores is strong and sales are falling. You think that the main reason for the loss of sales is poor customer service. To find out more about the problem, you asked your customers for feedback. The following complaints were the most common:……………………………….
Chapter 27 Dilemma: Gold rush
• Goodcorp is a company that mines gold in Canada. The company owns the Red Lake mine, which is not productive. In 50 years of production, only 3 million ounces have been extracted and the quality of this gold is low grade. The mine’s costs are high and the company is losing money fast. Rob McEwen, the CEO, believes there is more gold on the site. Other mines in the area have produced high quality gold: one mine has produced more than 10 million ounces., Perhaps this source of gold also runs into the ……..
Chapter 28 Dilemma: Hot-desking
• You are the senior managers of Sirius, a company selling network solutions B2B. You employ 115 staff: 40 sales consultants, 50 technical staff (programmers, software designers) and 25 administrative staff (accountants, lawyers, etc). Because of a recent downturn in your business, together with a rising cost of office rent, you now have to move to a smaller office. This means that each member of staff will have less work space. However, the sales staff are out of ………………….
Chapter 29 Dilemma: The virtue of necessity
• A serious safety problem is threatening the future of Transal, a pipeline company. Hundreds of yearly accidents have led to high absenteeism, causing lost time, low morale, unsatisfactory efficiency levels, falling profits and a falling share price. Press articles about the company’s lack of concern for its employees are having a very negative effect on customers, shareholders and staff. If the company is to survive it must develop a “ safety conscious culture”. The question is: how?
Chapter 30 Dilemma: Mission: Impossible?
• Louis Schweitzer, the 59-year-old CEO of the Renault group, has just received the latest results for Nissan, the Japanese car manufacturer in which Renault has a 37 per cent stake. The situation looks bad. Nissan has lost money for the sixth consecutive year, the company’s debts have now soared to a record $19 billion and they are now losing $1,000 dollars on every new car they produce. Clearly something needs to be done to return Nissan to profit and quickly. The time has come to ………………..
Chapter 31 Dilemma: Harley’s Angels
• Jeffrey Ableustein, CEO of Harley Davidson, was thinking about the future. He had already pulled the motorcycle manufacturer back from the brink of bankruptcy, but now he was thinking of the serious problems that lay ahead. And top of the list was the fact that Harley Davidson customers were definitely ageing. The black leather Angels were getting greyer every day. From an average age of 36 ten years ago the customer was now edging closer to 46. But what to do? Bleustein decided that he would…………….
Chapter 32 Dilemma: Success at what price?
• Better Prices, a large UK supermarket chain, is in financial difficulties. The departing CEO, Mark Crawley, had promised that dramatic transformations would lead to higher returns and rising share price. However, he began by signing a disastrous merger deal and since then the share value has halved! In spite of this, he awarded himself several bonuses on top of his $790,000 a year salary and leaves with a golden parachute worth over $2m. The outraged shareholders have decided to work closely with the board in choosing his successor from the following short list of candidates.
Chapter 33 Dilemma: A Scent of Risk
• Bellissima is an Italian perfume and cosmetics business. The company has a highly successful range of products in the luxury cosmetics market. It is planning to launch a new fragrance and extensive market research has produced detailed profiles of two potential target markets as described below. Bellissima now has to decide whether to expand its current market base or risk branching out and reaching a new client.
Chapter 34 Dilemma: Going Offshore
• InterState, Inc. is a New York based company specialized in providing domestic insurance for private individuals and small corporations. InterState is currently considering outsourcing all or part of its 150-person call centre to an overseas location in order to reduce its operating costs. The call centre currently processes calls from both insurance agents and enquiries from members of the public within the USA. Several groups of managers have been asked to research different host countries in order to……..
Chapter 35 Dilemma: Counting the costs
• MultiBrands is a globally successful consumer products company, which has built up a reputation based on “Honesty, Quality and Innovation”. Since it started operating ten years ago, it has launched at least two new, high-quality products in different markets every year. However, managers are currently reviewing company policy because of a recent dramatic fall in profits and share price performance. Shareholders believe that this is due to over diversification, rising costs and failing consumer confidence as a result of …………………….
Chapter 36 Dilemma: The Bellagio Interview
• You are members of the HR team that is responsible for the recruitment drive at the Bellagio. You have been asked to design the list of questions for the behavioural interview that will be used b y all the hiring managers. This interview will last a maximum of 30 minutes and will contain six questions designed to evaluate the behaviour of the candidates. After each question the hiring manager will enter an evaluation of the quality of the candidate’s response directly into a computer. The HR team………….
•
Chapter 37 Dilemma: The Golden Couple
Hollywood’s golden coule, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, sold the exclusive rights to their wedding photographs to the celebrity magazine OK! For $1m. Three days afte OK! had published the “exclusive” images, a rival celebrity magazine Hello! published an issue featuring pictures of the couple taken in secret at their wedding. The couple decided to sue Hello! For intrusion of privacy for the sum of $50,000, comparing the distress of seeing the ‘unflattering” photos to that of being burgled. …….
Chapter 38 Dilemma: Closing the deal
• Watermark plc, is a specialist supplier of quality stationery and writing accessories, which it distributes in European markets. At present the sales of the company’s leading products are not growing. Hal Garnett, the newly appointed CEO, is in a hurry to reorganize the company’s sales strategy and to introduce a new online sales channel. Since Watermark does not have the in-house expertise to develop such a site itself, it has decided to outsource the work………………………………………….
Chapter 39
•
Dilemma: Selling up or selling out?
Milton S. Hershey founded Hershey Foods, the USA’s biggest chocolate maker, in 1903. Mrs. Hershey was a model employer who built a town for his employees with comfortable homes, inexpensive public transport and good schools. In 1909 he established a school for disadvantaged children. Many of the company’s managers, including a former chief executive, are graduates from the school. In 1918 he gave the school his entire fortune of Hershey company shares. He put a ……………………..
Chapter 40 Dilemma: Spinning the truth
• • PR Vision is a communication agency that specializes in protecting reputations and corporate image in a time of media crisis. Their company motto is ‘When dealing with the media, whoever tells the best story wins.” PR Vision has helped companies to successfully handle news stories about product recall, job losses and scandals by responding in the press with news stories of their own which: Quickly address issues and recognize when the company is at fault;
Chapter 41 Dilemma: Is grey the new black?
• Many producers of branded goods refuse to distribute through supermarket chains, fearing that price-cutting could damage their brand image. They distribute exclusively through selected retailers. Grey marketers challenge this by obtaining branded goods through alternative supply routes and selling them at much cheaper prices. Best Value is a leading UK supermarket chain that has been offered a “grey consignment” of genuine branded jeans at a very heavily discounted price……………………..
Chapter 42 Dilemma: Prize pitch
• TechStart is a European business association that promotes emerging technology and new business ventures. Originally founded to help young university graduates to gain access to funds. TechStart today offers future entrepreneurs a comprehensive one-year program of assistance, advice and training in order to turn creative new ideas into fully operational business ventures. Every year TechStart organizes a competition where graduates can submit their proposals for new business……….