PROFESSION OF MANAGER

КОНТРОЛЬНАЯ РАБОТА 4

World business newspaper.

вариант 2

(ECONOMICS/ MARKETING/ ACCOUNTANCY)

& READING

Задание 1. Прочтите текст и переведите письменно выделенный отрывок.

Few people better personify the French technocratic elite that has held France in a tight grip for many decades than Pierre Bilger. Bilger is the Chairman of Alstom, the giant power and railway equipment company formed out of the joint venture between Britain's General Electric Company (GEC) and France's Alcatel-Alsthom, which became a separately quoted company in 1998.

On graduating, Bilger, like many of his ENA colleagues, joined the Finance Ministry, rising quickly up its ranks. In 1982 he switched from government to industry, joining CGE, as Alcatel-Alsthom was then known, although since the company was at that time owned by the French state, the change was more apparent than real.

At Alcatel-Alsthom his big project was overseeing the formation in 1988 of the joint venture with GEC. As soon as the joint venture, GEC-Alsthom, was formed, Bilger was given the task of running it.

After a decade of working for one of the largest Anglo-French joint ventures, Bilger is well attuned to Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He speaks frequently of shareholders and of the need to keep costs down but he still remains very French. His explanations are fluent and polished and his arguments have none of the down-to-earth style you might expect from someone running a British engineering company.

Although Britain and France are neighbours, their business cultures could hardly be further apart. What, I ask, had he found most irritating about the English once he was put in charge of a company full of them? 'What I found most irritating about our British colleagues was their great reluctance to go through what we French would consider a rational process of making a decision,' he answered thoughtfully. 'They insist on going straight to the point, whereas we like to have a systematic agenda. But over time I came to appreciate that this had its virtues as well.'

Like most French establishment figures, Bilger is an ardent Europhile. The company, he believes, is itself an experiment in unity; soon after the British and French parts were put together, German and Spanish units were added. After a brief attempt at using multiple languages inside the company, Bilger soon decided

to impose English as the company language, partly because the English were reluctant to learn any other languages. 'We lost a few French managers because of that, but not many,' he says.

Alstom remains a technological leader and it is led by bright people. Bilger does not mention it, but in France the country's cleverest, best-qualified people can be found running manufacturing companies. In Britain that has not been true for almost a century.

Задание 2. Соответствуют ли данные утверждения содержанию текста? Поставьте знак T , если утверждение верное и знак F, если неверное.

1 British and French business cultures have many things in common,

2 The British tend to take decisions more quickly than the French.

3 The French do not like having long discussions to analyze things in detail.

4 The French feel they are systematic and logical in their approach to business.

5 British business people like to follow a strict agenda at meetings.

6 Alstom is no longer a purely French-British company.

7 In Alstom the French and English languages have equal status.

8 In Britain, manufacturing companies attract the best-qualified and cleverest people.

9 Alstom remains a technological chief.

10 At Alcatel-Alsthom his big project was overseeing the formation in 1996.

Задание 3. Заполните список этапов образования и карьеры Бильжера.

Complete the chart showing the different stages of Bilger's education and career.

First higher education institution a) Institut des Etudes Politiques

Second higher education institution b)

First main employer c)

Second main employer d)

New name of company from 1988 e)

Current name of company f)

& READING

Задание 4. Прочтите текст и ответьте на вопросы.

Karl Marx: It's Exploitation!

Karl Marx, a German economist and political scientist who lived from 1818 to 1883, looked at capitalism from a more pessimistic and revolutionary viewpoint. Where Adam Smith saw harmony and growth, Marx saw instability, struggle, and decline. Marx believed that once the capitalist (the guy with the money and the organizational skills to build a factory) has set up the means of production, all value is created by the labor involved in production. In Marx's view, presented in his 1867 tome Das Kapital (Capital), a capitalist's profits come from exploiting labor—that is, from underpaying workers for the value that they are actually creating. For this reason, Marx couldn't abide the notion of a profit-oriented organization.

This situation of management exploiting labor is the main reason of the class struggle. Marx saw the class struggle at the heart of capitalism, and he predicted that that struggle would ultimately destroy capitalism. To Marx, class struggle intensifies over time. Ultimately, in Marx's view, society moves to a two-class system of a few wealthy capitalists and a mass of underpaid, underprivileged workers.

Marx predicted the fall of capitalism and movement of society toward communism, in which “the people” (that is, the workers) own the means of production and thus have no need to exploit labor for profit. Clearly, Marx's thinking had a tremendous impact on many societies, particularly on the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) in the twentieth century.

While Marx's theories have been discredited, they are fascinating and worth knowing. They also say something about weaknesses in capitalism.

1. Who is Karl Marx?

2. What was Marx’s view at capital and capitalists?

3. How did Marx consider class struggle?

4. What was Marx’s prediction about development of the society?

5. Why his theories are still studied by future economists?

Задание 5. Подберите определения к словам из левой колонки.

1) corporation a) give up (oneself, one's time, energy etc.)

2) unemployment b) payment which must be paid to somebody

3) deficit c) group of persons authorized to act as an individual

4) budget d) state of being poor

5) debt e) amount by which something is too small

6) consumer f) demand recognition of the fact that one is or owns

7) poverty g) similar estimate made by a business company

8) to claim h) comfortable living and working condition

9) to devote i) state of being unemployed

10) welfare j) person who uses and buys goods

– GRAMMAR

Задание 6. Вставьте артикль, где необходимо.

1. When my grandfather was ... young man, he studied ... physics. 2. Do you speak ... Spanish? 3. My uncle is ... great specialist in ... biology. 4. ... Japanese is more difficult than ... French. 5. We listened to ... very interesting lecture on ... English literature yesterday. 6. Yesterday at ... lesson of ... geography ... teacher told us ... very interesting things about ... famous travellers. 7. My father speaks ... English and ... French, but he does not speak ... German. 8. We had ... lesson of ... mathematics yesterday. We wrote ... test-paper in ... mathematics. ... teacher said: "I shall correct... test-papers in ... evening. Tomorrow you will know ... results".

Задание 7. Поставьте следующие предложения во множественное число.

1. This is my stocking. 2. He has a new suit. 3. This metal is very hard. 4. That ship is a Rus­sian one. 5. I heard her voice. 6. His dog does not like bread. 7. The plate was on the table. 8. This town is very large. 9. I was talking to her at the tram stop yesterday. 10. Is that girl your sister? 11. I shall give you my book. 12. This story will be a good one. 13. Is this a good match? 14. The boy put his book on the desk. 15. She took off her hat.

16. That house is new. 17. The young man put his hand in his pocket. 18. Is this student coming with us, too? 19. The woman didn't say anything. 20. Does she speak English?

Задание 8. Вставьте somebody, anybody, nobody или everybody.