Variant V

I. Read and translate the text.

MANAGEMENT STYLES (I)

Men and women do things differently. There are, of course, exceptions to every generalization, including this one.

Cristina Stuart is a managing director of Speakeasy Training, a consultancy that runs courses for men and women working together. Here she describes a few key differences between the sexes in the workplace.

Working together

The male approach to business is competitive, direct and confrontational. The end justifies the means. Personal status and a focus on the individual are important.

The female method is collaborative. Collective action and responsibility are more important than personal achievement. Lateral thinking, as well as goodwill and the well-being of the individual, are also of great importance.

Tackling problems

The male approach is to go to the heart of the problem, without taking into account secondary considerations. The female preference is to look at various options.

Conversation

Men like to talk about their personal experiences and achievements or discuss ‘masculine’ topics such as cars or sport. Women tend to talk about staff problems and personal matters.

Meetings

If a woman does not copy the male confrontational style, she is often ignored.

Self-promotion

Men find it easy to tell others about their success. Women tend to share or pass on the credit for a success.

II. Find in the text the following words and expressions:

исключение, вести курсы, различия, рабочее место, конкурирующий, средства, совместный, ответственность, достижение, благополучие, не принимая во внимание, различный, мужские темы, игнорировать.

III. Answer the questions.

1. Do men and women do the things in the same way?

2. What is Christina’s job?

3. What are the features of the male approach to business?

4. What is important for women?

5. Do men go to the heart of the problem or do they look at various problems?

6. What do men like to talk about?

7. What do women discuss?

8. What do women have to do not to be ignored?

9. Is it easy for men to tell about their success?

IV. Grammar and sentence structure.

A. In these sentences underline the verb and then circle the subject.

1. I hear the company is going to open an office in Thailand.

2. Phone-answering skills are critical for businesses.

3. The great thing about my job is that it’s really diverse.

4. My colleagues are ready to listen to my suggestion.

5. We are expected to work longer hours than usual.

6. Born in Hungary, she came to the UK at 18 to study English.

7. My job is around the development and training of the managers in the store where I work.

8. Apart from professional qualifications, we’re also given plenty of internal training.

9. The working hours vary in our area: our busiest periods in the year are the end of the financial year.

10. I was originally attracted to this company in my final year at Cambridge.

B. In these sentences, underline each adjective and circle the noun it is describing.

1. Since we met in 1998, Rebecca and I have had beautiful ideas about escaping office life.

2. Starting up your own business means taking a massive risk.

3. Glasgow has a dynamic and exciting lifestyle.

4. All the trainees will work on their individual computer.

5. And then they offered me an evening checkout supervisor’s job which I took.

6. All the training you give is hand-on training, isn’t it?

7. We can offer you tailor-made courses adapted for your particular staff.

8. We are a small company from the Republic of Ireland.

9. A logo was a straightforward guarantee of quality and consistency.

C. Turn each of these words into an adjective by providing an appropriate suffix:

dust, corporation, fragrance, hour, intent, luxury, nonsense

D. First change these adjectives into adverbs. Then use each new adverb in a sentence:

safe, partial, lucky, main

E. In each sentence, underline the verb and circle the adverb.

1. We’ll research the market thoroughly before we start our own business.

2. Our sales increase spectacularly.

3. It’s essential to speak loudly and clearly.

4. She spoke too quickly for me to understand what she was saying.

5. All the money still comes exclusively from employees advertising job vacancies.

6. Employees learn to use the applications more quickly.

7. Best practices spread across an industry very rapidly.

8. A 90% success rate encouraged us to start looking more closely.

9. Treat your customers badly, and you could be paying a heavy price for what are essentially simple people skills.

10. She learns how to handle awkward customers appropriately.