OUTCOMES - UPPER-INTEMEDIATE - UNIT 14

Rezolvarea exercitiilor din manualul de limba engleza pentru clasa IX intitulat OUTCOMES UPPER-INTERMEDIATE, Editura Heinle Cengage Learning, Autori Hugh Dellar, Andrew Walkley, Editia 2011

OUTCOMES ADVANCED

UNIT 14: BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

Vocabulary – How’s business?

Step 1

1. inundated/ flooded = same
2. relocating/ moving = same
3. rents/ overheads = different; rents = payments for properties; overheads = total costs
4. upturn/ decline = different; upturn = increase; decline = decrease
5. a solid client base/ loyal customers = same
6. lay off/ employ = almost opposite; employ = take on; lay off = make redundant
7. floating/ launching = same
8. pick up/ get better = same; end up going under/ have to make serious cutbacks – similar, end up going under = go out of business; have to make serious cutbacks = have to save money, almost go out of business
9. hanging in/ surviving = same, but surviving is more formal
10. diversify/ consolidate = different; diversify = broaden, add more variety to; consolidate = make stronger
11. take on staff/ make staff redundant = opposite (see 5)
12. downturn / drop = same
13. terminating/ pitching for = different; terminating = ending; pitching for = bidding for

Listening

Step 1

Conversation 1

1. to check whether a delivery has arrived
2. not bad – picking up a bit
3. family and a holiday

Conversation 2

1. to arrange a meeting
2. not bad – they may relocate
3. football – the European championships

Step 2

Conversation 1

1. She was panicking over nothing because the delivery has arrived.
2. Sales have improved this quarter.
3. They have taken on two new staff.
4. Her daughter is crawling everywhere.
5. Her husband is away a lot, which has been a bit of a pain.

Conversation 2

6. He’s just seen the draw for the European championships.
7. He tells him not to count his chickens – i.e.England won’t necessarily lose to Germany.
8. They’ll save on their overheads if they relocate.
9. Half the staff are threatening to leave if they relocate.
10. They arrange the meeting for Thursday.

Developing conversations – Small talk

Step 3

1. How’s the company doing?
2. How’s the economy doing?
3. How are your children?
4. Isn’t the weather lovely?
5. How’s work?
6. How’s the team doing?
7. Are you doing anything this evening?
8. How was your holiday?

Reading

Step 1

1. It is a play on the expression laughing all the way to the bank – used when someone makes a lot of money, often effortlessly. This is used ironically and suggests someone has lost a lot of money – possibly to the bank itself.
2. The news that the National bank is on the brink of bankruptcy and may need bailing out (rescuing financially).
3. Angry because banks have changed and now behave dishonestly.
4. a because it was so different then

b that is when things began to change because of deregulation

c those services began to be provided by banks

d despite this huge profit they are still going bankrupt

e taxpayers’ money will be used to bail them out.

Step 2

1. asset
2. period
3. profit
4. beast
5. bankruptcy
6. bailout

Step 3

Banks have changed a lot since being deregulated in the 1980s. They are no longer community minded, but profit focused and greedy. They no longer serve the public, but the taxpayer has to bail them out.

Grammar – Relative clauses

Step 1

1. a period in which
2. places you went to not only
3. services that had
4. a beast that fed off
5. the ways in which
6. which means us

Step 2

1. why
2. where
3. where
4. which
5. where
6. in

Vocabulary – Business situations

Step 1

1.  a new product
2. an industrial dispute
3. a takeover
4. cutting costs
5. sales
6. business taxes

Listening

Step 1

Agenda – list of items to be discussed, the chair – conducts the meeting, the minute taker notes the main points made and who made them

Step 2

Peter – chair

Henry – finance

Rachel – sales

Alex – product development

Step 6

A – accurate; I – inaccurate, PA – partly accurate

1. I
2. I
3. A
4. I
5. A
6. PA
7. A
8. A
9. A
10. PA
11. A
12. A