16. How does Cary Cooper think people should deal with the requirements of the workplace? A. Obtain help in negotiating terms of employment. B. Let people know when demands are unreasonable. C. Delegate the less important work to other staff. D. Accept that the modern workplace is a competitive place.
17. What does Mo Shapiro see as a problem for employees today? A. They lack the communication skills that modern business requires. B. Many employers would not regard requests for shorter hours favourably. C. Most employers do not want to be responsible for the professional development of staff. D. They have difficulties adapting to the rapid changes occurring in working practices.
18. What does Mo Shapiro think about present working hours? A. In many companies senior staff need to work a long day. B. The best staff are efficient enough to finish their work within eight hours. C. There are too many staff deceiving employers about their hours of work. D. Top executives should use their influence to change the long-hours culture.
答案:13.A;14.C;15.A;16.B;17.B;18.D
PART THREE Questions 13-18 Read the article below about managing a small business and the questions on the opposite page. For each question 13-18, mark one letter (A,B,C or D) on your Answer Sheet, for the answer you choose.
The Difficulties Of Managing A Small Business Ronald Meers asks who chief executives of entrepreneurial or small businesses can turn to for advice. “The organisational weaknesses that entrepreneurs have to deal with every day would cause the managers of a mature company to panic, ” Andrew Bidden wrote recently in Boston Business Review. This seems to suggest that the leaders of entrepreneurial or small businesses must be unlike other managers, or the problems faced by such leaders must be the subject of a specialised body of wisdom, or possibly both. Unfortunately, neither is true. Not much worth reading about managing the entrepreneurial or small business has been written, and the leaders of such businesses are made of flesh and blood, like the rest of us.
Furthermore, little has been done to address the aspects of entrepreneurial or small businesses that are so difficult to deal with and so different from the challenges faced by management in big business. In part this is because those involved in gathering expertise about business and in selling advice to businesses have historically been more interested in the needs of big business. In part, in the UK at least, it is also because small businesses have always preferred to adapt to changing circumstances.
The organisational problems of entrepreneurial or small businesses are thus forced upon the individuals who lead them. Even more so than for bigger businesses, the old saying is true – that people, particularly those who make the important decisions, are a business’s most important asset. The research that does exist shows that neither money nor the ability to access more of it is the major factor determining growth. The main reason an entrepreneurial business stops growing is the lack of management and leadership resource available to the business when it matters. Give an entrepreneur an experienced, skilled team and he or she will find the funds every time. Getting the team, though, is the difficult bit. |