Part two

　　Questions 13

　　It's been a bad day for us today. The art market is extremely sensitive and I'm afraid I expected the picture to go for a lot more.

　　Unfortunately it didn't reach its reserve price and so we are left with a very expensive picture which we have failed to sell. I'm afraid I have to take that sort of risk.

　　Question 14

　　Well, if you want my professional opinion my advice is that in order to avoid paying more tax than you need to you should ensure that your overseas representatives act as consultants to your company. It's better for you if they are not technically your employees. This is especially important as they only work for you on a part-time basis. Now it's quite a different matter if you are planning to open regional offices…

　　Question 15

　　Finally, thank you for coming here today at such short notice. I hope that by the end of today all staff will be aware of the implications of the takeover and I am relying on you, as my senior managers, to ensure that their concerns and queries are fully answered. It won't be possible to guarantee that their jobs are safe forever, but at least you will be able to reassure them that there will be no redundancies in the next 12 months. Now if you have any questions…

　　Question 16

　　I've got three deliveries in the London area and all of those are top priority. However, if you're willing to take a chance, there's a good possibility that I could do a pick-up from the airport early this afternoon.

　　Question 17

　　This report has to be on the Minister's desk by Monday morning. I‘ve had the researchers on it for a few weeks and it's looking pretty good. I don’t think the Government is going to have too much difficulty as the statistics speak for themselves. There is a clear drop in the unemployment figures, even taking into account seasonal factors.

　　Section Two. Questions 18—22

　　Question 18

　　I've decided to circulate the report you produced on your visit to Pakistan to the senior management team. Before it goes out, can you make sure that those sales forecasts you pet in are as accurate as possible? I suggest you speak to Daniel in Marketing. He‘s pretty reliable.

　　Question 19

　　I want you to come to the committee meeting this afternoon. It′ s going to be quite a tricky one for me so I'll be needing you to made an accurate record of everything that goes on…… Of course I‘ll check it with you afterwards. I know how confusing ti can be when everyone seems to be speaking at once!

　　Question 20

　　Pam Jones from Human Resources has just called. She wants me to let Mr. Easton know that he can start next week. You know, the man who came for an interview last Friday. Trouble is I forgot to ask him what his telephone number is. Still, I suppose it world be better if I put it in writing, don't you think?

　　Question 21

　　I'm determined that we are going to get all these consultants′ names and details sorted. What I want you to do is to have a word with the IT department and get them to understand what it is we want and then to get them to recommend some specific software. After that you‘d better go on some sorts of training courses so that you'll be able to run it efficiently. Then we’ll be in a much better position to find the person we need quickly.

　　Question 22

　　I've just been in a meeting with some of the staff from finance and you wouldn‘t believe how disorganized it was. There was no agenda and someone had lost the minutes from the last meeting. Could you put something in writing for me to remind departmental managers that it is not acceptable to hold meetings without the appropriate preparation and follow-up?

　　第二套题

　　Listening

　　Part two

　　Section one. Questions 13—17

　　Question 13

　　Yes, the meeting seemed to go pretty well and we covered all the important areas in my agenda. There were one or two small points that I would have liked to have got through but I can probably have my assistant send up memos to the managers of each department concering these. I must say I was very impressed with your ideas for the future of your department. Good work…… I'm also very impressed with that young man in the finance department. What‘s his name?

　　Uh, Mike. He could have quite a future in front of him. I can certainly use fresh ideas like his in this company.

　　Question 14

　　Well, I'm quite nervous about it, to be honest. I‘ve never met the boss before and I've heard he can be a bit dismissive of younger managers. And it’s only BECause my immediate superior is off sick that I've been asked to represent my department at today‘s meeting. It's so early as well. Nine o’clock. That's why I‘m hoping there're no delays on the way today. At least we are making good time so far. That’s all need—to be late. It's bad enough forgetting to bring any money with me today. That‘s GREat for someone in my department, isn't it? Question 15 I think I mentioned to you all before that at the interdepartmental meeting with the

　　Managing director last week, it was put to me that we need to look into expansion into new markets. And I am interested in any suggestions that anyone in our department may come up with.

　　You had some excellent ideas for expansion last year when we moved to the Mid-eastern marker.

　　So if you could all give that some thought, I know, Sarah, that you said you looked into the possibility of further eastern European customers on your last trip to the Czech Republic, and I'll be interested in your report, uh, when it‘s ready.

　　Question 16

　　And Androme, have you got those figures for the suggestions for the new courses that we hope to be able to offer? Or were those in the file that you left in the office too. I'd like to take them with me to the interdepartmental meeting this afternoon, as it should be a good opportunity to try to persuade everyone there of the value of the new courses , and the new language training scheme in particular. If I‘m successful in this, it could mean some profitable expansion for all of us in our department. So please remember to get then to me this time.

　　Question 17

　　Well , I don't know. We didn‘t really talk about my department. Most items on the agenda seem to be about our new marketing strategy or something, which has very little to do with me. Well, I suppose it will affect me eventually. Because if we do expend, a lot more staff are going to be needed. So I'll be busy interviewing for a while. But apparently that’s unlikely to be before next September. Actually that is a point, though. Perhaps we should think about taking our holiday in France before then because you said something about being very busy in your job after August. We don't want the same complications as last year.

　　Section Two.

　　Questions 18—22

　　Question 18

　　Well, I wrote to them last week thanking them for their help over the accounting matter. I've just had a rely. They‘ve written to say we were right to decide to reduce costs, which is nice to know. But they want us to cut back even more. Barry suggested that I pass it on to the accounts department to see if they could make more savings. But I think we've gone as far as we can. So I’m just going to leave it for the moment. If they're really insistent, they‘ll write again. But I don't think I need to do anything about it right now.

　　Question 19

　　I was quite surprised to get their letter, actually. In the past, they've done nothing but complain abort everything. There always seemed to be something wrong. So it‘s strange that they now want so many of the components, especially as they're relatively untested. We’ve only had them on the marker for a month. They want us to deliver sixty by September. I'm not sure we can meet the delivery dates they want. And I wanted to call and discuss it with them over the phone, but I think it‘s better if the sales department deals with it directly. We've had so many problems with them in the past. I think I’ll keep out of it.

　　Question 20

　　I've just had a letter from them about that actually. They want to know what we‘re going to do. They didn't agree with our decision to expand with Australia, so now they want to know if we’re proposing to go into New Zealand as well, I don't want to give too much away until we know what they are doing. I was going to write and ask for further details of their expansion scheme, but I‘ve decide not to. I think it will be better done face to face. So I asked my secretary to set something out for next week. And hopefully it will be fairly friendly.

　　Question 21

　　About 2 months ago, we ordered the new photocopiers that they were selling. But they sill haven't appeared. Now they‘ve written to say they are sorry they weren't delivered on time. They expect to deliver them by the end of this week. That’s lucky, because I was just about to write to complain about them taking so long. I won't write now, but I still don‘t think we ought to just accept it. So I'm going to give them a ring to talk about the problems. If we don’t say anything, then the same thing will just happen again next time. But I'd like to keep it informal for now.

　　Question 22

　　I said I wanted to make it out to Harrison. So they've written to say they are organizing something next month. Apparently he is going to give a talk about the ideas in his new book. They‘ve asked everyone in the sales & marketing to go. Of course they're right abort accepting, as he’s the expert in their field. The problem is I wanted the opportunity to have a detailed discussion with him. I don't want to just listen to a lecture with a lot of other people. So I‘m going to reply saying I'm very sorry, and I’ve decided not to go.

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