QUESTION EXAMINER

NO USE ONLY

TOTAL

Series 3 Examination 2011

ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS

Level 3

Friday 3 June

Subject Code: 3041

Time allowed: 3 hours

Instructions for candidates

Answer all 4 questions.

All questions carry equal marks.

All answers should be correctly numbered, but do not need to be in numerical order.

Adequate and appropriate communication is more important than a particular number of words.

Check your work carefully.

You may use an English or bilingual dictionary.

3041/3/11 Page 1 of 8 ASE 3041 3 11 1

QUESTION 1

Situation

You are employed as an administrator in the Human Resources section of DSJ Services, a large
company based in the city of Norville. Your department organises many training sessions for your
staff. These are often held in various hotels in the area as the company has no suitable facilities on its
own premises.

Three weeks ago, a training session, Total Quality Management for Middle Managers was held at
the Station Hotel in Norville and the Manager of the hotel has sent the following letter to your
manager, Ms Ivana Krivankova.

STATION HOTEL
Central Boulevard, Norville NV7 6PT
2 June 2011

Ms Ivana Krivankova
Human Resources Manager
DSJ Services
Park Street
Norville
NV2 9FJ

Dear Ms Krivankova

DSJ Training Session on 16 May 2011

As you will know, your company has used our hotel as a venue for your training sessions. These have
always been successful but I must make a number of observations about the event held on 16 May
2011.

First, I am sorry to report that the bill for the event has not yet been paid by your company. We allow a
discount for your company on the understanding that the bill is paid within seven days but we have yet
to receive the remittance.

I was disappointed that there did appear to be various problems with your staff on the day of the
event. In addition to reporting the non-payment of the bill, I will also mention these other problems.

The most serious issue is that one of your staff, a tall young man, was reported as acting in an
inappropriate manner. During the lunch break, he was reported as being aggressive to one of our
serving staff and he used abusive language. There was also an issue at lunchtime when a member of
your staff complained about the lack of a special diabetic menu. Our records indicated that your
company had ordered some vegetarian food, which we provided, but there was no record of any food
suitable for diabetics being requested. I believe our Catering Manager spoke to you at the time about
this.

Today, a company for whom we also hosted an event on 16 May 2011 made a return visit and
mentioned that it appeared that some of your staff parked their cars in the hotels bus parking area
when they visited us on 16 May 2011. Consequently, this companys bus was unable to pick up its
passengers at the designated space.

We hope that these issues can be resolved before we accept a further booking from you.

Yours sincerely

Paulo Moura (Mr)

(Hotel Manager)

3041/3/11 Page 2 of 8
QUESTION 1 CONTINUED

Ms Krivankova says this to you.

Oh dear! I dont like receiving letters like this. We have used this hotel a lot in the past and as Paulo
suggests, they always give us a good deal. Id like you to look into the points he makes, but be very
tactful in what you say. Id like to use the Station Hotel again in the future.

Please check with the Finance Department if the bill has been paid. This is nothing to do with our
department, but maybe you can find out if theres been a problem. Now, funnily enough, we must
plead not guilty to this accusation about a young man and his bad behaviour. I remember that this
course was very unusual in that all our staff were women! So it must have been someone from a
different company. Oh yes, I do remember speaking to their Catering Manager and he was quite right.
One of our staff forgot to mention to us that she needed a special diabetic diet so we didnt order one.
I apologised to her at the time. As to this car park allegation, well, please have a word with a couple of
people who were there and see if you can clarify the problem.

You speak to some of the staff who attended this training event but none can remember any issue
over parking in a bus space. They did point out that the hotel is not well-endowed with parking
spaces.

The Finance Manager did apologise. He accepted that because of staff absence, there were delays in
the payment of some bills and invoices. Payment has now been made and he has made the
assurance that this will not happen again.

Task

Write the letter as instructed by Ms Krivankova. You can assume that the companys headed paper
will be used.

(Total 25 marks)

3041/3/11 Page 3 of 8
QUESTION 2

Situation

You are employed as an administrator in the offices of HIRA Financial Services, a company that
provides investment services for clients in many areas. The company employs 20 Financial Advisors;
each holds all the details of their clients financial circumstances on their computers.

Recently the Company Manager, Mr Carlos Botello, has become concerned about the security of the
information held on each client as there have been some well publicised instances of confidential
client data being accessed illegitimately by computer hackers in other companies. He said this to
you.

Im getting a bit worried. We believe that our computer systems are pretty secure, but could there be
a weakness in the passwords that our staff use to access the information? The other day, I asked one
of our advisors to get some information for me, and I noticed that his password was 123456. Weve
gone to the trouble to allow everyone to have a password of six characters but this number must be
easy to guess. But the worst thing was that he changed it when I mentioned this to HELLO! Dear
me!

Id like you to have a chat with Ahmed Ali from Ali Security theyve helped us a lot in the past. He
can tell us what the implications are in choosing the right password. You can also do a survey of staff
to check how many are using appropriate passwords. Ahmed can probably make suggestions on how
to create a good password.

When you have done your research, please produce a report that can go to the Staff Liaison
Committee where we discuss these matters. Produce the report any way you wish, but it would be
good to start off with a summary of the passwords staff currently use and then end with
recommendations for better practice. Give any other relevant information.

Your notes of the conversation you have with Ahmed Ali are as follows:

Passwords must be taken seriously criminals can hack into your system
maybe from a distance if your password can be guessed must use one that
cant be guessed must not tell anyone else shouldnt write it down (unless
you hide it well) most important, dont forget it!

Obvious ones like 123456, ABCDEF, QWERTY, 111111, etc easy to type
in but easily guessed any dictionary words criminals have sophisticated
tools to guess these many staff use personal details eg wife or husbands
name date of birth (eg 070872) again easily worked out if someone
investigates staff.

Good passwords: Choose totally random selection of digits use upper and
lower case letters numbers even characters like $, %, & - very secure
difficult to remember.

Neednt go so far as this can choose password that is easy to remember

choose a personal sentence eg My favourite colour is dark blue then use
initial letters but do them backwards, ie bdicfM maybe use a number eg
Father born 1946 (Fb1946) Most important change password regularly
easy to do.

3041/3/11 Page 4 of 8
QUESTION 2 CONTINUED

As you suspected, most staff went for a password that was easy to remember. Half chose passwords
derived from patterns on keyboards, eg QWERTY a single letter/number repeated (eg one member
of staff chose 777777, as 7 was his lucky number). Others chose personal information, such as a
name sometimes their own or that of a relative. One password was SECURE! Only four staff
chose a random selection of characters, and all four said they wrote them down in order to remember
them. Only three advisors changed the passwords regularly.

Task

Produce the report as requested using any appropriate format.

(Total 25 marks)

3041/3/11 Page 5 of 8
QUESTION 3

Situation

You are employed in the Administration Section of a large company, Foxcroft Systems. The Company
Manager, knows that you take an interest in language and communications and says this to you:

Ive heard a lot about some new ideas concerning body language. I know you are knowledgeable
about this sort of thing so Id like you to look into this. Interpreting body language and using it
appropriately are both important for our staff so it would be helpful to know of the latest ideas.

You find a useful website, which is given below. You should read this before you answer the questions
that follow.

Everybodys Language

It is widely known that in any face to face interactions, body language is a significant factor in the
communication that takes place. This concerns the non-spoken parts of the communication and
includes facial expression, gestures and posture. Some of this language can be controlled but much of
it is involuntary. Therefore, there are valuable skills to be gained for those in business; it is important
that you are able to send a correct message with your own body language but it is also vital that you
should be able to interpret other peoples language. If you have not gained either of these skills then
the communication taking place might not be fully effective.

These two skills are closely linked. If you are able to recognise and control your own body language,
you will develop a good understanding of how to interpret the language of others.

It is important that one large issue is mentioned at the outset. The vocabulary of gestures differs from
country to country, or more particularly from culture to culture. For example, in many cultures the
nodding of the head indicates affirmation or agreement, and the shaking of the head from side to side
means no or disagreement. However, these actions do have the opposite meanings in some places.
Therefore in the business world, it is just as important that organisations should ensure that their staff
have an understanding of the local language and the culture.

As far as your own body language is concerned, the most important fact to remember is that it can
draw attention to contradictions. For example, if your spoken language is meant to be assertive, even
aggressive, then aspects of your body language, such as involuntary movements of your feet can
demonstrate that you are highly anxious or nervous. As long as your communication is open and
honest such contradictions will not appear, but you must practice the art of deception!

If you realise that your body language and spoken language can be contradictory, then this will assist
you in recognising this contradiction in others. Some aspects of this topic are huge areas of
psychological study. For example, there is a close link between the way a person looks at someone
else straight in the eye and how comfortable the speaker is with what he is saying.

There is also a widespread belief that feet are more honest than hands. Those who have learned a
great deal about body language are able to keep the upper half of their bodies under control,
particularly the hands. But, particularly when they are seated, their feet are more difficult to control, as
indicated earlier.

Successful communication plays a major role in the business world. It is easy to overlook the part that
body language plays in this.

3041/3/11 Page 6 of 8
Task

Answer the following questions, in your own words as far as possible, to demonstrate your
understanding of the points raised.

(a) What is meant by the term body language? (3 marks)

(b) What are the two main reasons why it is important for someone who
is involved in business communication to have a knowledge of body language?
(2 marks)

(c) What is meant by involuntary body language and how does this
differ from voluntary body language? (2 marks)

(d) Why is it important to understand that there is a cultural dimension

to the use of body language? What example of such an issue
is given in the text? (5 marks)

(e) What is meant by the phrase (body language) can draw attention
to contradictions? Give an example of how this can happen. (4 marks)

(f) What is the link between the feelings of the speaker and the way
in which he/she uses eye contact? (3 marks)

(g) Why is it suggested that feet are more honest than hands when
body language is observed? (3 marks)

(h) From your own experience of using or seeing others body language,
give examples of the use of body language and what it means or
indicates. (3 marks)

(Total 25 marks)

3041/3/11 Page 7 of 8
QUESTION 4

Situation

You are employed as an administrator for a large company involved in Marketing and Public
Relations, PR Strategies. The company specialises in carrying out market research for a range of
companies to assist them to devise new products or sales strategies.

The Company Manager, Mr Maher Mujahed, says this to you:

I dont know if youve heard about this new market research called ethnography. I must say, I
thought it sounded a little odd when I first heard about it as it involves sending our researchers out to
live with families. I think the word ethnography comes from a type of anthropology, but I might be
wrong there. It certainly means actually living with a family, sometimes for a few days but sometimes
for several weeks, so the researcher can make an in-depth study of lifestyles and purchasing habits of
the members of the family. Now Im very tempted to introduce this system here, so Id like you to draft
a memo to explain to our staff what ethnography means, and please try to sell the idea to them. We
will be looking for volunteers from our staff soon, so please do a good job and make it sound
attractive.

Im sure some of our staff will think this is not a good idea. Between ourselves, I think I know already
what John Steiner is going to say. John does his job very well, but he doesnt like new ideas, does
he?

Well, you can say that really this idea expands on a couple of programmes we have already run. We
did ask families to keep detailed diaries of everything they did over a period of time, and you will recall
we piloted fitting video cameras into homes so we can actually observe what people do. The problem
is that these two methods are simply not interactive. If the researcher is there on hand, he or she can
ask questions and clarify any issues.

As far as the practicalities go, wed have to be very selective in choosing appropriate families and
researchers. Please make it very clear that any researchers involved would be volunteers, and well
make sure they are all fully trained. I can hear some of our staff asking some questions, already, such
as Do we have to stay overnight? Thats the question that always seems to be asked first! The
simple answer is maybe. There could be occasions when the researcher might have to do a 24 hour
shift, although to be honest, I think this will be rare. This will depend on what we are researching, as
will so many things. For example, Ive heard that sometimes we tell the families what we are
researching, but on other occasions we wont. If they know what we are researching, they might
behave differently.

In fact, Ive got in mind the documentary programmes in which television researchers went into
peoples homes what were they called? Wasnt it something like a fly on the wall documentary?
They worked well when the researchers just blended into the background and the families acted
normally as if they werent there.

Sorry, Ive rambled on a little. Are you clear what Im asking you to do? Please send a circular memo
to all staff explaining what ethnography means and why we are thinking of introducing it. Actually, I
should have said at the beginning that some of the worlds biggest companies have used this
technique I have heard that Microsoft found it very valuable. Youd better also stress that not only
will our researchers be volunteers, but well make sure they are well paid for their work. This is not a
cheap method of research, but the results have proved to be really valuable.
Thanks a lot for your help. Good luck! Of course, if staff have any concerns about this, Id be happy
to speak to anyone even Mr Steiner!

Task

Write a memo as requested.

(Total 25 marks)

3041/3/11 Page 8 of 8 Education Development International plc