Министерство просвещения Российской Федерации

Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение

высшего образования
«Московский педагогический государственный университет»

A. V. Guslyakova

BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

А. В. Гуслякова

ДЕЛОВАЯ ПРЕССА –
ЭКСТЕНСИВНОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ С1+

Учебное пособие

МПГУ
Москва • 2022
УДК 811.161.1(075.8) DOI: 10.31862/9785426310773
ББК 81.432.1я73
Г965

Рецензенты:
Н. Г. Валеева, кандидат педагогических наук, профессор,
заведующий кафедрой иностранных языков Института экологии РУДН
А. Н. Мамедов, кандидат филологических наук, доцент,
доцент кафедры теории и практики перевода и коммуникации
Института иностранных языков МПГУ

Гуслякова, Алла Викторовна.

Г965 Business News Reading C1+ = Деловая пресса – экстенсивное
чтение С1+ : учебное пособие / A. V. Guslyakova = А. В. Гусля-
кова. – Москва : МПГУ, 2022. – 104 с. : ил.
ISBN 978-5-4263-1077-3
Business news reading C1+ представляет собой сборник аутентичных ста-
тей, взятых из англоязычного международного делового медиа издания «The
Financial Times». Статьи посвящены наиболее актуальным проблемам совре-
менного общества, включая вопросы искусственного интеллекта и его роли
в профессиональной сфере человеческой деятельности, проблемы инвестиро-
вания в «зеленую экономику»; развития цифровой медицины; поддержания то-
лерантной деловой среды; описание авиапутешествий в XXI столетии; советы
по эффективной мотивации профессионала на рабочем месте, правила успеха
в ведении бизнеса и другие актуальные вызовы современного глобального биз-
нес-пространства.
К каждой статье прилагается перечень разнообразных заданий, направлен-
ных на совершенствование навыков устной и письменной речи. Учебное посо-
бие предназначено прежде всего для студентов 3–5 курсов языковых и неязы-
ковых факультетов и институтов, а также для всех изучающих английский язык
и интересующихся современными международными англоязычными периоди-
ческими изданиями и транснациональным бизнес-пространством в третьем ты-
сячелетии.
УДК 811.161.1(075.8)
ББК 81.432.1я73
ISBN 978-5-4263-1077-3 © МПГУ, 2022
DOI: 10.31862/9785426310773 © Гуслякова А. В., 2022
 СОДЕРЖАНИЕ

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Unit 1. WHO NEEDS A DRIVER

WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Unit 2. ARTIFICIAL OR HUMAN INTELLIGENCE:

WHICH WILL DRIVE FUTURE INNOVATION? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Unit 3. LAND INVESTMENT SUPPORTS PRODUCTIVITY

AND SUSTAINABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Unit 4. DIGITAL DOCTORS ARE GOING GLOBAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Unit 5. MEMES MOTIVATE PEOPLE

TO ENGAGE AND ACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Unit 6. PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE PROFITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Unit 7. CAN WE SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

WITH ECONOMICS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Unit 8. AIR TRAVEL: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Unit 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC

AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Unit 10. WATCHING YOUR WORKERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Unit 11. COFFEE SHOPS TAKE A HIT IN SILICON VALLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Unit 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAIN

WITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Unit 13. QUICK LOANS FOR MEXICAN BUSINESSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

KEYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

3
 ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Современный мир третьего тысячелетия, насквозь пронизанный таки-

ми ключевыми понятиями, как глобализация и цифровизация, мотивирует
человека становиться информационно осведомленным и грамотным с це-
лью лучшей адаптации в обществе в различных сферах своей жизни. Одним
из важных показателей успешного взаимодействия личности и глобального
цифрового общества является осведомленность и понимание функциониро-
вания бизнес-пространства как собственной страны, так и осознание меха-
низмов жизнедеятельности бизнеса в международном масштабе. Чтобы до-
стичь умения достаточно быстро и гибко ориентироваться в деловом мире
XXI столетия, необходимо уметь читать новостную прессу, ориентированную
на бизнес-сектор в локальном и глобальном форматах его существования.
Это подразумевает владение иностранными языками, а именно английским
языком, как языком международной коммуникации, на достаточно высоком
профессиональном уровне с тем, чтобы понимать суть происходящих биз-
нес-процессов в современном межнациональном измерении.
Соответственно учебное пособие «Business news reading C1+» в пер-
вую очередь ориентировано на студентов колледжей и вузов, а также лиц,
изучающих английский язык в качестве первого или второго иностранного
языка и владеющих коммуникативными компетенциями, предусмотренны-
ми уровнем B2, C1 Единых европейских стандартов.
Учебное пособие «Business news reading C1+» представляет собой
подборку газетных статей, взятых из международного делового издания
«The Financial Times» (Великобритания), относящегося к группе качествен-
ных медиа изданий (qualities) и являющегося одним из ведущих мировых
медиа площадок, специализирующихся на вопросах экономики и финансов.
The Financial Times по праву является одним из старейших финансо-
вых изданий в мире. Оно было основано в 1888 году в Лондоне Джеймсом
Шериданом и Горацио Боттомли и первоначально ориентировано на банки-
ров и финансистов лондонского Сити. Собственно, и сегодня эта деловая
традиция сохраняется. Тем не менее, одновременно с медийной активностью
внутри страны, The Financial Times владеет издательскими подразделения-
ми в других регионах планеты и его географическая локация простирается
не только на государства Европейского Союза, но и Евразийского геополи-
тического пространства, охватывает Северную и Южную Америку, Ближний
Восток, Юго-Восточную Азию, Австралию и Африканский континент.
Статьи, приведенные в учебном пособии, предлагают читателям по-
знакомиться с такой тематикой, как вопросы искусственного интеллекта
и его роль в профессиональной сфере человеческой деятельности; вопро-

4
 ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

сы инвестирования в «зеленую экономику»; развитие цифровой медицины;

проблемы поддержания толерантной деловой среды; организация авиа пу-
тешествий в XXI столетии; вопросы эффективной мотивации профессиона-
ла на рабочем месте, правила успеха в ведении бизнеса и другие актуаль-
ные вызовы современного глобального бизнес-пространства.
Важно подчеркнуть, что чтение деловой прессы, особенно на ино-
странном языке, позволяет читателю не только получить хороший про-
фессиональный совет, решить аналитическую задачу, стать информаци-
онно подкованной личностью и грамотным профессионалом своего дела,
но и выучить иностранный язык, научиться мыслить в новых глобальных
форматах и по-другому рассматривать бизнес-процессы, происходящие
в собственной стране и за рубежом.
Чтение газетных публикаций, взятых из международного медиа изда-
ния «The Financial Times» в учебном пособие «Business news reading C1+»
позволит студентам и всем заинтересованным лицам познакомиться с боль-
шим количеством важной и полезной общественно-экономической, поли-
тической и научной англоязычной терминологий, которая также легко и бы-
стро адаптируется и в родном языке.
В целом, для эффективного и адекватного прочтения бизнес новостей,
данное учебное пособие предлагает простую структуру, состоящую из семи
ключевых разделов: warmer, key words and expressions, reading, understand-
ing the text, business language, discussion questions, wider business theme.
Каждая статья начинается с раздела warmer, который содержит зада-
ния (например, вопросы, требующие дискуссии, ключевые понятия, необ-
ходимые проранжировать, картинки для описания и сопоставления и т.д.),
связанные с представленной в статье проблемой.
Следующий раздел key words and expressions позволяет читателям
познакомиться и отработать наиболее значимые словарные дефиниции,
словосочетания и устойчивые выражения, встречающиеся в тексте статьи.
Третий раздел reading содержит непосредственно статью по опреде-
ленной тематике, взятой, как было упомянуто выше, из британского медиа
издания «The Financial Times».
Четвертый раздел учебного пособия (understanding the text) ориен-
тирован на понимание и анализ прочитанного текста, а также его ключевых
деталей и авторского отношения к представленной проблематике.
В пятом разделе учебного пособия business language дополнительно
представлены интересные бизнес-термины, коллоквиализмы и метафоры,
часто употребляемые в деловой англоязычной коммуникации. Кроме того,
этот раздел также может содержать наиболее значимые грамматические
конструкции, которые распространены в бизнес-документации.

5
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Шестой раздел discussion questions позволяет критически подойти

к обсуждению представленной в статье проблеме, благодаря подборке во-
просов, ориентированных не просто на воспроизведение фактической ин-
формации в содержании газетной публикации, но и на ее качественный
анализ.
Наконец, в последнем, седьмом, разделе учебного пособия wider busi-
ness theme представлено определенное проблемно-ориентированное зада-
ние, направленное на обсуждение некоторой задачи, тематически связан-
ной с содержанием статьи. Это задание можно выполнять в мини-группах
или выносить на обсуждение более широкой аудитории читателей, участни-
ков этой дискуссии. Подобные бизнес-коллоквиумы, проводимые на англий-
ском языке, позволяют одновременно активизировать все языковые навыки
(фонетический, лексический, грамматический), необходимые для успешно-
го овладения иностранным языком (в данном случае английским языком).
В целом, материал (лингвистический, социально-экономический, по-
литический, научный и медийный), включенный в тексты и задания учеб-
ного пособия «Business news reading C1+», дает преподавателю и студентам
возможность выбора форм и видов работы в зависимости от временных ра-
мок, конкретных установок того или иного учебного заведения и образова-
тельных предпочтений обучающихся.
Желаем успехов всем, кому придется изучать язык современной дело-
вой англоязычной прессы по учебному пособию «Business news reading C1+»!

6
 Unit 1. WHO NEEDS A DRIVER
WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME?

1. Warmer
a. Briefly discuss these questions with a partner. Share your answers
with the rest of the class.
• What sort of people are likely to have a (personal) driver and why?
• What type of work do you imagine is available for personal drivers /
chauffeurs?
• What skills and characteristics do you think a good driver needs to have?

2. Key words
a. Read the definitions and find key words in the article that match
them. The paragraph numbers are given in brackets to help you.
Check your answers and your understanding of how the words
are used. Put the word to complete the example sentence next to each
definition.
1. a covered area with shops on both sides (2 & 30)
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a well-preserved and elegant
shopping ___________________________ and one of Milan’s most famous
landmarks.
2. relating to large companies, or to a particular large company (3)
After suffering a nervous breakdown at the age of 49, Charles, a successful
and hard-working ___________________________ lawyer, decided to give up
work and sail around the world instead.
3. an opportunity to sell a particular product or service that no one else is selling;
a small gap in a market that creates a business opportunity (6)
Within two short years, Florian managed to successfully carve out a
___________________________ for himself as a leading researcher in his field
of study.
4. the unpleasant effects of something that has happened (9)
The ___________________________ from the Asian financial crisis
continued to affect businesses for many years.
5. return to a better level or position (12)
Despite the recent fall, stockbrokers expect the shares to
___________________________ to their previous levels.
6. people or companies who provide goods or do work for another person,
organization, or company at a particular price (17)
Private ___________________________ have been called in to help deal
with damage caused by the recent flooding.

7
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

7. something such as money or property that a person or company owns (17)

The business has ___________________________ amounting to well in
excess of £5.1 million.
8. cloth or leather that is used for covering chairs and sofas (18)
The classic jaguar still had its original cream leather
___________________________ and walnut trim – both in almost perfect
condition
9. the amount of a product or service that people want or the fact that they want
it (18)
In the coming 24 months, around 20,000 affordable apartments will be
needed to cope with the ___________________________
10. activities that businesses engage in on a regular basis to increase the value of
the enterprise and earn a profit (23)
The less profitable parts of their business ___________________________
are likely to be axed in the next budget.
11. when an industry is experiencing a period of economic growth and success,
with a lot of trade and business activity (24)
The business is ___________________________, and the price of its
shares is skyrocketing.
12. an organization that provides local government in a city, county, etc. (27)
Members of the city ___________________________ voted this morning
to give the go-ahead to the new shopping mall-and-hotel complex.

Shoeshiners and chauffeurs hit by corporate travel uncertainty

1. Romi Topi spent 20 years building scrambling to save his business

a successful shoeshine business
among the hedge funds and high-
end hotels of London’s Mayfair.
2. About half of Topi’s clients were
international business people
coming to buff up their footwear
before meetings. His stall in
Burlington Arcade cleaned 45
pairs of shoes a day in the good
times, taking sales of about
£60,000 a year.
3. But customers dried up overnight
when the pandemic hit, and Topi
has spent the past 18 months
amid growing uncertainty over the
future of corporate travel.
4. “Hopefully, it will resume again
this month. That’s very optimistic,
though,” he said.
5. Topi’s business is just one in an
ecosystem that has been built up
over decades to service the once-
booming corporate travel industry.
6. Businesses now fill every niche in a
traveller’s journey from the moment
they step out of their house, from
chauffeurs to airport lounges and
restaurants to dry cleaners.

8
 UNIT 1. WHO NEEDS A DRIVER WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME?
7. These businesses face tough
decisions with office workers slow
to return from homeworking and
executives predicting a permanent,
or at least long-term, drop in
corporate travel. Some have turned
to new niches. Others have hunkered
down, hoping to ride out the crisis.
8. Data from Travelogix shows that
in the first week of September,
international business travel from
the UK was 80 per cent lower
than the same week in 2019.
The Business Travel Association
estimated the UK lost £4.47bn in
gross domestic product in the first
week of September because of the
decline in corporate travel spending.
9. The uptake of video conferencing
during lockdowns prompted hotel
group Accor’s chief executive
Sebastian Bazin to tell a hotel
conference in Berlin last week that
20 to 25 per cent of international
corporate travel could be lost, while
Marriott’s chief executive Tony
Capuano told the Financial Times,
“nobody knows” what the fallout
would be.
10. Many airline bosses have also
predicted a long-term impact from
the pandemic.
11. But the ecosystem behind corporate
travel spreads far beyond the “big
box” hotel companies and business
class airlines. Thousands of smaller
businesses stand to suffer, if industry
predictions about a longer-term
drop in corporate travel are correct.
12. “Hospitality is the taxi drivers, the
restaurant owners, the airlines, the
9
car rental,” said Dimitris Manikis,
president of Europe, Middle East
and Africa for Wyndham Hotels,
who said that business travel was the
sector that hoteliers are expecting to
“rebound last”.
13. Manikis, who before Covid-19
spent 220 days a year on the road,
said he expected to do half that in
future, particularly as concerns
about climate change grew.
14. Craig Chambers, the chief executive
of TBR Global Chauffeuring, said
Covid “wiped the business out
nearly overnight”.
15. A company with £40m in turnover in
a normal year, TBR is now operating
at about 25 per cent of normal levels
and picking up business where it
can, including from governments
and sports events.
16. Chambers feared that his network
of self-employed drivers will no
longer be in the industry when
passengers return.
17. Contractors that he worked with
in the US, where government
support was less forthcoming
than in Europe, no longer exist,
he said. “The industry has been so
decimated, everyone has had to sell
off assets.”
18. Julian Stone, managing director of
American Dry Cleaning, a 45-site
chain spread across London, said
the company has switched from
cleaning suits to upholstery and
invested in two curtain-stretching
machines (curtains reduce by about
12 per cent in size when washed) to
keep up with demand.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
19. The chain used to churn through
28,000 shirts and about 25,000 suit
jackets and trousers each week,
but now cleans less than half those
numbers.
20. Contract work from high-end hotels
that made up 20 per cent of sales
in 2019 also vanished because “the
need for business travel has reduced
dramatically”, Stone said.
21. But promising signs are emerging: a
recent growth in the number of suits
and shirts coming in for mending
suggests some appetite to get back
on the road.
22. “We are getting more mending
work because the moths have
been at prey when the suits are
hung up for a while. They look
like Swiss cheese, some of them,”
Stone said.
23. Like Stone, several in the travel
ecosystem have readdressed their
operations to find pockets of demand
where they can.
24. Global hotel companies such as
InterContinental Hotel Group,
which launched a luxury resort
brand last month, and Hyatt Hotels,
which bought the high-end resort
operator Apple Leisure for $2.7bn,
have swung towards the booming
leisure market.
10
25. Others have sourced sales from
other sectors.
26. Jo Layton, director at CAP
Worldwide Serviced Apartments,
said that smaller serviced apartment
businesses in the UK “changed
drastically” last year.
27. Businesses switched from serving
corporate customers to housing
healthcare workers, short-term
residential stays and homeless
people who were put up by local
councils during the first wave of the
pandemic.
28. “We have survived. We might not
have been here today if we hadn’t
been able to do that,” said Robert
Alley, chief operating officer at
Roomzzz Aparthotels.
29. “Some of what we have been doing
will stay, and some of what we did
before will come back,” he added.
30. Back in Mayfair’s shopping arcade,
Topi fears the changes to the
industry could be permanent.
31. “In the past, maybe if [executives]
signed a contract between
companies, it would have taken
10 face-to-face meetings. Today
it might be one – just the final
agreement. The other eight or nine
would be on Zoom.”
Philip Georgiadis and Alice Hancock,
12 September 2021.
 UNIT 1. WHO NEEDS A DRIVER WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME?

3. Understanding the article

a. Are these sentences True or False according to the information in the
article? Tick (V) the sentences that are true and rewrite any that are false.
1. Around fifty percent of Romi Topi’s clients are Londoners stopping
off in the shopping arcade on the way into work.
2. Romi Topi developed a service that filled the last missing niche in the
corporate traveller’s journey.
3. Romi Topi’s business and income decreased along the recent drop in
business travel.
4. Within the last 2 years, 80% fewer business people have travelled to
the UK.
5. One hotel group based in Berlin expects to see 25% decrease in
corporate travel.
6. The sudden drop in corporate travellers has affected more than just
airlines, hotels, and shoeshiners.
7. However, hoteliers expect business travellers to return in large numbers
before tourists return.
8. The pandemic is not the only reason for the decrease in corporate
travel.
9. TBR Global Chauffeuring lost a lot of business as a quarter of its
drivers had Covid.
10. American dry cleaning had to look outside of its niche market cleaning
formal business wear.
11. Some hotel chains have already changed their focus from corporate
clients to the recovering leisure markets.
12. Others that ran serviced apartments for corporate clients will remain
closed until the pandemic ends.

4. Business language
a. Use these prepositions to complete the phrasal verbs from the article.
Then find and circle each phrasal verb in the article to check your answers.
down off back out x 2 up x 6
1. buff ___________________
2. dried ___________________
3. built ___________________
4. hunkered ___________________
5. ride ___________________
6. wiped ___________________
7. picking ___________________

11
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

8. sell ___________________
9. keep ___________________ with
10. put ___________________
11. come ___________________

b. Decide which of the phrasal verbs above can be used to replace the
words in brackets in each of the sentences and write them on the lines.
1. The third flood of the year (destroyed, killed off) ________________
the final chance of making a profit from the year’s crop.
2. Some of our services will (return) ___________________ next year,
but some are gone forever.
3. The company will have to (get rid of) ___________________ their
assets if they want to avoid bankruptcy.
4. The farm workers went from village to village (getting and doing)
___________________ any work they could find.
5. Topi (developed and increased) ___________________ his business
and customer base over many years.
6. Shoeshiners (polish) ___________________ business people’s shoes
with a soft cloth.
7. The building contractors were (housed) ___________________ in
temporary accommodation.
8. The shoeshiner’s business (came to an end) ___________________
when his customers no longer came into the city for work.
9. We are not sure whether we can (match) ___________________
customers’ demand for our new face cream.
10. We (delayed action) ___________________ and hoped that next year
would be much better than this.
11. The government minister believes he can simply (wait for a difficult
situation to end) ___________________ the current political storm.

c. Use five of the phrasal verbs to write sentences about your own work.

5. Business questions
a. Discuss these questions.
• In addition to shoeshining, dry-cleaning, and chauffeuring, what other
niche businesses do you think corporate travellers would have required
and used in pre-pandemic times?
• Which new and upcoming niche markets and services either already have
started to grow or are likely to soon evolve from the pandemic?

12
 • If you had the choice of travelling to London, New York, or Hong Kong
or a business meeting, or attending an online meeting, which would you
choose and why?

6. Wider business theme – Holding a meeting and coming to a decision

Situation
For the past 15 years, your company has taken over a hotel in a small Greek island
for its annual global sales conference for a week at the end of the holiday season.
The event is usually attended by approximately 60 people from at least 15 different
countries. For many of the sales representatives, it is the only time of the year that
they meet their colleagues face-to-face. The week usually consists of four days of
workshops and presentations, with one day in the middle for a group outing. For
the reps, it is not only a welcome break from life on the road visiting customers.
It is also a chance to get to find out about new products and to get to know their
colleagues better.

As last year’s conference was cancelled due to the pandemic, it’s important that it
goes ahead in one form or another this year.

Task
You are attending an online meeting to decide whether the next conference should
be held online, in Greece, as always, in the trusted venue, or whether there is
another solution.
a. First, make a list of the pros and cons for each alternative. Consider:
logistics, budget, health and safety issues, employee well-being, company
needs, etc.
b. Then, complete your role card which will provide the base line for your
own personal agenda during the meeting.
c. Then hold a meeting in which a decision must be made.

Extension
Write an email to the rest of the sales reps around the world (the ones who
did not attend your meeting) informing them of the decision and the reasons
that led to it.

13
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Role cards

You have been looking forward to You’ve often though the conference
the conference, it’s always been the a waste of time and money, but …
highlight of your …
You had decided to take your partner You dislike flying, so you’re happy not
with you this year and stay on for an to go to Greece, but it’ll be a shame not
extra week. They … to ….
You hope the conference won’t be You were really hoping to be able to
moved online. Staring at a screen all day speak to the sales director for southern
is just too ….. Europe personally this year because …
You were confident you’d be presented Compared to being physically present
with the top salesperson award this year. at a conference, attending an online
Now … conference seems …

14
 Unit 2. ARTIFICIAL OR HUMAN INTELLIGENCE:
WHICH WILL DRIVE FUTURE INNOVATION?

1.Warmer
Put these technological developments in order from 1 (most likely to
happen soon) to 6 (least likely to happen soon).
a. electric aircraft d. cashless economies
b. colonisation of the Moon e. 3-D printed furniture
c. drone mail deliveries f. 100% synthetic food

2. Key words and expressions

Find the words or phrases in the article that match the definitions
below. Use the paragraph numbers to help you.
1. to suddenly move in a different direction (1) ____________________
2. the things that you decide you have to do to succeed in achieving a goal
(2) (two words) __________________
3. of the basic ordinary type, with no special features (2) _____________
4. a private start-up business with a value of over $1 billion (4)
________________
5. about to do or achieve something after preparing for it (4) _________
6. to happen at a faster rate (5) _________________________
7. a feeling that something is true or will happen, although you do not
know any definite facts about it (8) ____________________
8. to start to use something (9) __________________________
9. a written statement showing the value of a company at a particular time
(10) (two words) _______________
10. to increase the size, amount or value of something (11) ___________
11. anything that prevents progress or makes it difficult for someone to
achieve something (11) _______________
12. the possibility to develop or achieve something in the future (12)
__________________

15
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
Bold business ideas: Where is tech taking us?
Smart companies will use innovation to augment rather than replace human
intelligence
1. For the first 250 metres it all goes
well. I am in Singapore, in the back
of a prototype driverless car, gazing
at the other side of the road. Then
our car decides to veer slowly into
the path of the oncoming rubbish
truck.
2. Our emergency driver lunges for the
wheel, yanks us back to safety, then
tells me the game plan. This isn’t a
vanilla driverless car, he explains,
it is a do-it-yourself driverless car,
made with off-the-shelf technology,
and the goal is to get it on the road
as fast as possible.
3. But the car, which works a treat
for the rest of the day, is only step
one. Step two is to fully automate
Singapore’s economy. Step three is
to put all citizens on universal basic
incomes. Step four is to use facial
recognition technologies to close
off the city to unwanted foreign
migrants. It is a straight line, in
other words, from the technological
to the economic to the social, then
the political.
4. If the 2010s were the decade of
the unicorn – the mythical beast
of the $1bn tech start-up – the
2020s appear poised for a unicorn
stampede. With Timandra Harkness,
the co-presenter of our BBC Radio
4 show FutureProofing, I have
spent the past three years scanning
the horizon for what is coming in
16
terms of disruptive technologies.
The cupboard isn’t bare: eggless
synthetic biology scrambled eggs,
stem cell rejuvenation, weaponised
nanobots, the colonisation of Mars,
passenger-bearing mega-drones
and brain-to-brain communication
systems.
5. Across disparate fields, from artificial
intelligence to robotics, from 3D
printing to nanotechnology, from
genetics to quantum computing, a
pattern is emerging: technological
developments are starting not just to
accelerate but to amplify one another.
6. They are poised to reshape the
business landscape. The core
capacity we are going to need to
survive, says Astro Teller, the so-
called Captain of Moonshots at X,
Google’s research unit, may be
dynamic stability – the velocity to
stay upright.
7. But as the rubbish-truck economy
of Henry Ford’s fossil-driven mass
production starts to yield to the age
of the algorithm, what is the impact
on business and society? Where
does this rollercoaster look like it is
going to take us?
8. My hunch it is not just speed that
matters, it is direction. If technology
is not the answer but the amplifier
of intent, there is a primary question
we have to answer: What are the
problems we are looking to solve?
 UNIT 2. ARTIFICIAL OR HUMAN INTELLIGENCE: WHICH WILL DRIVE FUTURE INNOVATION?

9. It looks like there are two different
directions emerging. We have the
option to prize artificial over human
intelligence, to deploy technology in
a centralised model that solves for
shareholder value at the expense of
jobs, that automates – according to
projections by University of Oxford
academics Carl Benedikt Frey and
Michael Osborne – 47 per cent of US
and UK white-collar jobs by 2035.
10. This would hit national balance sheets
with the double whammy of lower tax
revenues and surging welfare costs,
and set the stage – with increased
inequality and the perception of an
economy no longer working for
the many – for broader support for
challenger populist movements.
11. But there is also another option: to
do the opposite, not to replace
human intelligence but to augment
it. Go back 1,000 years and the
means of production was the land,
and the barrier to entry was the
wall. For the past 200 years the
means of production has been the
factory, and the barrier to entry the
capital to own it. But with this new
set of technologies, from APIs, the
cloud and open data, to the sharing
economy and micro-printing, the
barriers to entry are dropping fast.
12. The potential is there, to unlock a
new wave of cognitive surplus and
put power in people’s hands to drive
innovations across the challenges
that confront us, from distributed
solar energy to data-driven banking
for the unbanked, from 3D-printed
ultra-low-cost housing to sensor-
based micro-irrigation for drought-
resilient agriculture.
13. What does real boldness look like
for me as we head into the 2020s?
It is boldness not just of execution
but of intent.
Leo Johnson, 14 March 2019

3. Understanding the article

Choose the best answers according to the text.
1. How did the author avoid an accident in Singapore while in the prototype
driverless car?
a. He grabbed the wheel and avoided the oncoming rubbish truck.
b. The emergency driver grabbed the wheel and avoided the oncoming
rubbish truck.
c. He accelerated quickly to avoid the oncoming rubbish truck.
2. In terms of ‘unicorns,’ how will the 2020s differ from the 2010s?
a. There will be no more unicorns.
b. There will be a few more unicorns.
c. There will be many more unicorns.
3. What does the author mean when he says ‘the cupboard isn’t bare’?
a. People have a lot of new technological ideas.
b. There aren’t many ideas for applying technology to new inventions.
c. New technology will allow us to replace some food items.

17
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

4. What could happen if artificial intelligence was prioritized over human

intelligence?
a. Automation would lead to massive job losses.
b. Technology would bring huge rewards for shareholders.
c. Nearly half the factories in the US and UK would have to close.
5. How would high unemployment affect national balance sheets?
a. Populist movements would gain support.
b. There would be less revenue from income tax and higher welfare costs.
c. People would believe that the economy was no longer working for most
people.
6. According to the author, what will people need to create wealth and power
in the future?
a. access to land
b. money to invest in factories
c. innovative ideas that rely on technology

4. Business language – idioms

Match the expressions with their meanings.
1. off-the-shelf a. look carefully at the future
2. works a treat b. a set of two bad events or situations that have an effect at
the same time
3. scan the horizon c. a situation in which there are many big and sudden changes
4. vanilla d. very effective
5. rollercoaster e. of the basic type with no special features
6. double whammy f. sold for general use, not made for a particular person or
purpose

5. Business language – word building

Complete the table using vocabulary from the text.
Verb Noun
1. innovate
2. recognize
3. develop
4. opt
Adjective Noun
5. unequal
6. bold
7. dry
8. stable

18
 UNIT 2. ARTIFICIAL OR HUMAN INTELLIGENCE: WHICH WILL DRIVE FUTURE INNOVATION?

6. Business language – expressions with prepositions

Complete the phrases with prepositions.
1. in terms ___________ technology
2. the impact ___________ business
3. ___________ the expense of jobs
4. the barrier ___________ entry
5. poised ___________ a rapid increase
6. valuing artificial intelligence ___________ human intelligence
7. as we head ___________ the 2020s
8. put power ___________ people’s hands

7. Discussion questions
• Are artificial intelligence and automation the answer to the world’s prob-
lems? Give reasons why or why not.
• Singapore is considering a four-stage programme. What do you think of the
country’s plans?
• The article suggests that humans not machines will drive technological
innovations. Do you agree with this? Give reasons for your answer.
• Projections suggest that 47% of white-collar jobs could be lost by 2035.
What effects could this have?

8. Wider business theme – technological developments

1) Read paragraphs 4 and 12 of the article again. The author refers
to a number of technological developments that may radically change
the world we live in. Choose one of these ‘disruptive technologies’ and
investigate it further (e.g. irrigation for drought-resilient agriculture
or colonization of Mars).
• enter your chosen technology into a search engine
• using data from at least two different websites, get information about
current developments in this area of technology
• find out what predictions are for the future of this technology, including
the predicted timescale for its introduction
• find out what will be needed for this technology to be fully implemented
(e.g. research and development, funding)
• evaluate the usefulness of this technology for present and future
generations
2) Present your findings to the group.

19
 Unit 3. LAND INVESTMENT SUPPORTS PRODUCTIVITY
AND SUSTAINABILITY

1.Warmer
a. Successful business leaders have been choosing to purchase land
to meet their environmental impact goals and to strengthen the public’s
opinion of their companies.
b. How might the land be used to meet this aim? How could it be
developed to help companies reduce environmental impact and benefit
society?

2. Key words
a. Read the definitions and complete the sentences with the key words.
Use the paragraph numbers to locate the words in the article.
1. all the investments that a person or company has made (1) She had
purchased an impressive _________________ of luxury villas in the
Caribbean and planned to rent them out to holiday-makers looking for
a unique experience.
2. units for measuring the surface area of land, with a single unit equal
to 4,047 square meters (1) When his father died, he inherited the
sprawling estate that included an enormous mansion and over 600
_________________of forests and agricultural land.
3. very large farms in the western US or Canada, where cows, horses, or
sheep are kept (2) Celebrities are often keen to buy land, and many
actors and singers based in the southern states of the US purchase
their own_________________, far from the prying eyes of the media.
4. involving the principles used for deciding what is right and what
is wrong (2) Businesses need to question whether their operations
are_________________, and research should be carried out to check
that suppliers in poorer regions are given their fair share of success.
5. to change the way that something operates or develops (2) Companies
can capitalize on productivity and introduce new roles to support the
business, as well as _________________existing roles to better fit
needs.
6. an old word for a man who owned the land that he worked on (3)
These rural areas have lacked investment and as the life of the
typical_________________ continues to disappear, towns and villages
must find ways to preserve the identity that makes them so appealing
to visitors.
7. to reduce the harmful effects of something (4) To_________________

20
 UNIT 3. LAND INVESTMENT SUPPORTS PRODUCTIVITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

losses, the companylaunched a new campaign to attract new customers

and targeted a younger demographic that they hoped would boost sales
of existing products.
8. to develop something again, or to bring it back to its original state (4)
Glastonbury Festival is held over three consecutive years before the land
is given a year off, allowing it time to recover and _________________.
9. someone who has more than a billion pounds or dollars (4)
The _________________was recently photographed on a Sunline
yacht, sparking rumours that he might have added a new boat to his
personal collection.
10. the use of methods that do not harm the environment (6) Independent
businesses often put _________________first and develop their
products using materials that can be recycled.
11. in the same way, or in a similar way (6) Gardening centers are set to
benefit from the warmer weather and restaurants with outdoor seating
areas _________________ .
12. the variety of different types of plant and animal life in a particular
region (7) Businesses located in city centers can still use their premises
to boost _________________ by building roof gardens and planting
wildflowers.

‘Farmer Bill’ is not alone in dreams of a rural idyll

New wave of landowners prioritises sustainability as well as profits
13. Many desk-bound and locked-down
workers will have spent much of
the coronavirus pandemic dreaming
of purchasing a rural idyll – even
trying their hand as a farmer. Few,
however, have the resources of Bill
Gates, the world’s third-richest
man, who was revealed earlier this
year by the US publication The
Land Report to have become the
largest private land owner in the
US. It said his portfolio includes
at least 242,000 acres of farmland,
slightly smaller than the territory of
Hong Kong.
14. The gentleman farmer – who relies
on their land not for income but an
outlet – has long been a familiar
figure. Countless American titans
of industry and politicians have
owned ranches as country retreats.
Gates, however, numbers among a
new breed who, in the same way as
modern ethical investing promises
both profits and principles, see
farmland as an investment as well
as a chance to, literally, reshape the
world.
15. Farmer Bill, as he was dubbed
by the Land Report, is not alone.
Family offices that manage the
personal wealth of rich individuals,
and other institutional investors
have similarly started making

21
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
a living from farming – inflows
into funds investing in arable land
rose to a record high in 2019.
That might not chime with some
of the US Founding Fathers’ ideals
of an America based on yeoman
farmers but it does represent many
people trying to have a different
and more fruitful relationship with
the land.
16. Farmland offers a chance for funds
and investors to mitigate climate
change – many investment outfits
now have “net zero” targets. That
can be as simple as growing trees
or encouraging exhausted soils
to regenerate, allowing the land
to work as a carbon sink trapping
greenhouse gases. Most institutional
investors have been buying land
for crops rather than more carbon-
intensive livestock farms. The
UK’s largest private landowner,
the Danish retail billionaire Anders
Hoch Povlsen, is aiming to rewild
his Scottish estate and has, for more
than a decade, pursued an intensive
strategy of tree planting, including
controversial deer culls.
17. Others may want to try their hand
at new farming techniques. Gates’
charitable foundation, while not
linked to his personal portfolio,
has improving conditions for
smallholders and increasing their
productivity as one of its goals.
In response to a question on the
social media side Reddit, Gates said
22
that while the farmland purchase
was a decision for his investment
managers, more productive seeds
can avoid deforestation and help
Africa cope with the already-
changing climate.
18. Farming, as a business, was already
changing. Agritech – start-ups
that aim to apply new scientific
techniques to improve productivity
and sustainability – has become
another rapid-growing investment
trend. These companies likewise
appeal to investors who want to do
their bit for the planet while earning
a financial return. Many have
been the target of special purpose
acquisition companies, so-called
blank cheque companies that first
list on the stock market and only
then find a company to purchase.
19. It is likely to change even further.
Farmers are getting older and many
in the next generation have little
interest in taking over – that means
opportunities for new buyers. Others
are looking at ways to diversify
and find new sources of income;
customers too are demanding higher
standards. In Britain, post-Brexit
reforms to agricultural subsidies are
likely to prioritize biodiversity and
environmental services as much as
crop production. Farmer Bill will
not be the only one considering
how to combine profitability and
sustainability.
The Editorial Board, 1 April 2021.
 UNIT 3. LAND INVESTMENT SUPPORTS PRODUCTIVITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

3. Understanding the article

a. Are these statements true or false according to the text? Correct the
false statements.
1. The Land Rover has stated that Bill Gates is now the largest public
land owner in the world.
2. Gates has amassed a huge collection of farmland that amounts to an
area larger than Honduras.
3. In 2019, investment in arable land suddenly plummeted.
4. Although the traditional image of smallholder farmers may be
disappearing, it is evident that people are trying to have a more
productive relationship with the land.
5. Farmland can be used to reduce the effects of climate change and many
investors have to meet zero emissions targets.
6. A Danish retail billionaire has been planting huge numbers of trees on
his Scottish estate for more than a decade.
7. Agricultural technology businesses can use new scientific techniques
to grow crops in extremely dry regions.
8. The children of aging farmers are not interested in taking over the
business and this presents more opportunities for buyers to purchase
land.
9. Some buyers are looking further afield than farmland and seeking new
sources of income.
10. Political reform to agricultural subsidies in Britain is likely to lead to
an increased focus on using land to provide a rural location for film
shoots.

4. Business Language – Compound adjectives

a. Match the words to make hyphenated compound adjectives.
1. desk - a. down
2. third - b. called
3. carbon - c. richest
4. already - d. changing
5. locked - e. growing
6. rapid - f. bound
7. so - g. intensive

b. Complete the sentences with the hyphenated compound adjectives.

1. Asha is the _________________ female entrepreneur in the industry,
establishing herself first on social media and then working her way up
to high profile book and television opportunities.

23
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

2. The local produce market is _________________ in this region, and

people flock from neighbouring towns and villages to sample traditional
Cornish fare.
3. Employees no longer want to find themselves _________________ in
the office all week, and many are now seeking new opportunities that
will allow them to remain remote workers.
4. Developers are looking to reshape the transport and luxury travel
industry, with a view to reduce the environmental impact of
_________________ passenger jets and cruise liners.
5. The _________________ simple payment service had led customers
through a continual loop of information requests, and many had
abandoned their purchase before it was complete.
6. An _________________ fitness landscape is likely to see a continued
boost in home sport equipment sales and a reduction in the number of
active gym memberships.
7. With every shop _________________ on government orders, many
businesses have had to make a fast move online to avoid losing market
share.

5. Business Language – Portmanteaus

a. Complete the sentence using the portmanteaus.
agritech biodiversity
Supermarket chains are likely to invest in the newest (a) ____________ ,
but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they will choose to put sustainability
above profit, and they may focus on improving crop production rather than
protecting (b) __________________.

6. Business Language – Suffix-ability

a. Form adjectives from the nouns in the wordpool and complete the
text.
capable charitable profitable suitable sustainable

Ministers have decided to take (a) _________________ seriously and

redevelop several miles of land adjacent to the river. Neglected riverbanks will
be transformed into welcoming green spaces that will attract families to the area.

Development opportunities will be offered to hospitality businesses,

including hotel and restaurant owners. Companies will be assessed for
their (b) _________________ , and their brand must fit well with the tranquil
surroundings.

24
 UNIT 3. LAND INVESTMENT SUPPORTS PRODUCTIVITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

Businesses most likely to facilitate further growth, perhaps through the

use of third-party food delivery services, will boost (c) _________________ and
widen reach.

Ministers are keen for this economic hub to support good causes too and
will also be assessing prospective businesses on (d) _________________. This
doesn’t necessarily mean they will be registered charities, although they too will
be welcome, but may be a business known to act in support of local non-profit
organizations.

Proceedings are already underway to identify a new project manager after

ministers questioned the (e) _________________ of their original choice.

b. Verbs can be formed from most of the nouns in the wordpool in

Activity a). Which one can’t be changed to form a verb?

7. Discussion Questions
a. Discuss these questions.
• Farmland is more often purchased by people keen to buy private land than
woodland or forests, but both could make the ideal choice for different
buyers. Why might farmland make the best choice for some buyers and
woodland make the best choice for others?
• In what ways, other than purchasing land, could businesses seek to protect
the environment and encourage biodiversity?
• What could be the reason behind the next generation choosing not to
inherit the family farming business?

8. Wider business theme – Land development and suitability

a. Do the role play in groups of three. Read the description for A, B or C.

A
You are a member of the legal team for a successful entrepreneur who
wants to buy private land and launch a green investment project. They are unsure
of what they want to do with the land, but they know they want it to have a
positive impact on the environment while also benefit the public.

You believe that the best approach is to use the land to support renewable
energy, for example by developing wind or solar energy. But this plan does come
with drawbacks – it is expensive to launch a business in renewable energy farming
and solar panels and windmills can create an ugly landscape.

25
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Nevertheless, you are determined that this is the best option and voice
your opinion. However, B disagrees with you and believes it is best to plant trees
on the land. Take it in turns with B to argue your case and try to persuade the
entrepreneur that you have the best approach.

B
You are a member of the legal team for a successful entrepreneur who
wants to buy private land and launch a green investment project. They are unsure
of what they want to do with the land, but they know they want it to have a
positive impact on the environment while also benefit the public.

You believe that the best approach is to use the land to grow redwood
trees. Redwood trees are the biggest trees in the world and capable of consuming
impressive quantities of carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen back into the
atmosphere. But your idea does come with drawbacks – it takes decades for a
redwood to reach a significant height, and when it eventually does, it is enormous.

Nevertheless, you are determined that this is the best option and voice your
opinion. However, A disagrees with you and believes it is best to develop the
land as a renewable-energy farm. Take it in turns with A to argue your case and
try to persuade the entrepreneur that you have the best approach.

C
You are a successful entrepreneur who wants to use some of your fortune to
develop a green investment project. You are unsure of what you want to do with
the land, but you know you want it to have a positive impact on the environment
while also benefit the public.

Two members of your legal team want to advise you of different development
ideas, including a renewable energy farm and a plantation of large trees. To help
you decide the best direction for your environmentally friendly project, you want
A and B to describe their ideas and state reasons why you should choose their
approach.

Once A and B have finished discussing their ideas, make a decision and
explain why you think this approach is the best choice.

26
 Unit 4. DIGITAL DOCTORS ARE GOING GLOBAL

1. Warmer
a. Companies have been using technology to improve customer services
and this includes using digital tools that can communicate with customers in
place of a human representative.
Have you ever used a service like this?
What was the experience like?
What are the main issues with automated AI responders?

2.Key words
a. Fill the sentences with words and phrases from the text. The
paragraph numbers are given to help you.
1. The use of computer technology to make computers and other
machines think and do things on their own (1) Through the use of
________________, the fast food restaurant has been able to develop
a fully automated sales service, and customers interact with a digital
representative on a screen.
2. The services that look after people’s health (2) The country has an
advanced ________________ service with high quality clinics and
hospitals located in every region.
3. Pieces of software that are designed to do a particular job, especially one
that people use on a mobile device (4) The business had begun moving
away from paper publications and developing more ____________ ,
allowing their customers to interact with the content and communicate
with the writers.
4. The company’s main offices are based there (4) The global giant still
operates from its firstoffices in San Diego, but it has been ____________
in New York since 2008.
5. To go straight from a job to or position that was lower in status than
someone’s to one that is higher than theirs (5) Thanks to a combination
of determination and luck, she was able to ______________ from a
graduate position to senior management.
6. Changing the corporate image of a company so that consumers recognize
a new identity or major change (6) They hope that and investing in
highly-skilled staff will enable them to win back their customers.
7. A computer program designed to simulate conversation with human
users, especially over the internet (7) He had been trying to contact
the company all day, but they hadn’t supplied a telephone number for
customer service on their website, and the ________________ was
unhelpful and lacked intuition.

27
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

8. The process of deciding which people in a hospital department should

get medical treatment first, according to how serious their condition
is (7) The health regulator questioned the hospital’s integrity, stating
that it should be offering a fair ___________ service rather than
prioritizing patients based on the cost of treatment and a desire for
profit.
9. Basic, not detailed or developed (8) His early designs are inexpressive
and _____________ , proving that his employment at the fashion house
exposed him to bolder pieces and was the catalyst for more elaborate
designs.
10. Pieces of paper that a doctor gives you that says what types of medicine
you need (11) Patients can meet with the doctor online, receive a
diagnosis and then arrange to pick up their ____________ at the
closest pharmacy.
11. Reductions in the cost of making and selling products that are made
possible because a business is very large (13) They had been reaping
the benefits of their______________ using the profits to boost business
growth further and allow the corporation to open offices in the Far
East.
12. The scientific study of infectious diseases and their causes (15) Despite
the recruitment of the world’s experts in _____________ there are still
major hurdles to address in the flow of medical supplies and delays
along major trade routes that could disrupt the production of vaccines.

Rwanda venture tests digital health potentialin developing world

Babylon’s high take-up masks concerns for equality of access and hyping of AI
capabilities

1. When Babylon, a UK-based digital even as multiple providers expand

health group, began operations in
Rwanda in 2016, there was already
strong interest in the use of artificial
intelligence to improve the country’s
medical system.
2. Babylon’s telemedicine service has
since registered 2m users across
the African nation and handles
3,500 daily consultations. But its
progress highlights the constraints
and debates around new technology
the use of digital healthcare around
the world.
3. While digital tools can potentially
support more people affordably and
efficiently in stretched healthcare
systems, critics have raised concerns
about unequal access and say that
claims about digital tools such as
AI can be overhyped and unproven.
4. Millions of patients in industrialised
nations already use online medical

28

services and apps, and companies
are looking further afield for
growth. Babylon is scaling up its
operations in Africa, Asia and Latin
America, while rival Ada Health,
headquartered in Germany, is
expanding in Tanzania.
5. “These countries have an
opportunity to leapfrog and not
make the same mistakes of our
[health] systems created over a
couple of centuries,” says Ali Parsa,
Babylon’s founder, referring to the
ability to target prevention rather
than costly treatments. “They can
focus on keeping their people
healthy, rather than investing in
sickness.”
6. From his UK base, where Babylon
has contracted with the NHS,
Mr Parsa agreed to launch in
Rwanda – rebranding under the
name of “Babyl” – after meeting
with Paul Kagame, the country’s
president. That led to a 10-year
contract with the government and
the local health insurance system. “It
had a small population [12.5m] and
an executive that works,” he says.
“We were picking up something we
could handle.”
7. At the start of 2018, Babyl announced
“the first ever fully digital healthcare
service in east Africa using artificial
intelligence”. The service would
include a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 chatbot “to
take the power of a doctor’s brain
and put it on a mobile phone for
medical advice and triage”.
8. In reality, the system remains a more
rudimentary form of telemedicine,
29
UNIT 4. DIGITAL DOCTORS ARE GOING GLOBAL
with plans to test AI over the coming
months.
9. The effectiveness of Babylon’s
system in the UK has received
mixed reviews. A recent study
by researchers at Pennsylvania
State University concluded that
online symptom checkers “lack
the functions to support the whole
diagnostic process of an offline
medical visit”, with often limited
scope and focus on particular
diseases.
10. Academics at the University
of Sheffield in the UK wrote
in a review of digital symptom
checkers globally that they are
used primarily by younger, more
educated people and there is little
evidence of how far medical advice
is taken up.
11. Shivon Byamukama, Babyl’s chief
executive, says few people in
Rwanda own smartphones (the
service is also designed for basic
mobile phones, using text messages
and voice calls). Instead of using
bots to diagnose symptoms, most
people text a request for telephone
appointments. Nurses call back
and transfer them to doctors for
consultations. When necessary,
patients receive a code for follow-
up prescriptions or laboratory tests.
12. “We take out people from the
system that digital health can
handle,” says Ms Byamukama.
The benefits include swifter and
easier access to doctors, even in
remote areas, reduced time waiting
in clinics and greater privacy.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
13. An evaluation of Babyl in 2018 by
Dalberg, a consultancy, concluded
it had scope to cut costs, including
through the development of more
efficient electronic health records.
For now, says Ms Byamukama,
the company faces extra costs as
it seeks to gain economies of scale
from its global systems, including
a requirement to store all its data
on a local cloud server hosted in
Rwanda.
14. Dalberg warned of a “slightly
increased risk of fraud through false
impersonation” by callers using
Babyl, compared with face-to-face
consultations. It also highlighted the
need to adjust symptom-checking
algorithms to “local health and
disease patterns and to language
and communication practices”.
15. Hila Azadzoy, global health
initiatives lead for Babyl’s
competitor Ada, says use of local
health information and languages
is critical for algorithm accuracy.
“Local epidemiology is core. You
need region-specific incidence and
prevalence for an optimised disease
model,” she says.
16. Babylon’s Mr Parsa, who says
Babyl did not initially compile such
Rwanda-specific data for its system,
cautions: “People are hyping AI
often because they want to get
finance. The reality is we are in day
30
one. It’s really in early infancy. AI
will utterly outperform our wildest
imaginations in years to come and
utterly disappoint us in the short
term.”
17. Much of the analysis in the field is
funded by the companies themselves
and not published in peer-reviewed
journals. It is limited in scope, with
tight restrictions on the medical
conditions examined, and often
provides no comparison with rival
products or the final outcomes for
patients.
18. Hamish Fraser, a researcher at
Brown University’s Center for
Biomedical Informatics in the US,
recently co-authored an assessment,
backed by Ada, of different
symptom checkers. He says there
is a need for more systematic
independent evaluations and clearer
requirements by medical regulators
for data.
19. “It’s a bit crazy no one has funded
a large-scale study,” he says. “I find
this hard to square with the number
of patients using digital tools. If
you have too high sensitivity, you
could overwhelm the health service.
A good system could make a big
difference, but a poor system leaves
people very vulnerable, without a
safety net and not getting access
until it’s too late.”
By Andrew Jack, January 18 2021
 UNIT 4. DIGITAL DOCTORS ARE GOING GLOBAL

3. Understanding the article

a. Read the sentences. Decide if they are True or False. Correct the false
statements.
1. Babylon began operating in Tanzania in 2018 under the brand Babyl
and it provides people with wider access to medical services. T/F
2. Critics are worried that digital tools provide unequal access and think
that artificial intelligence is not as reliable as it’s claimed to be. T/F
3. Two medical services providers are expanding in new regions, including
Africa, Asia and Latin America. T/F
4. Ada Health has a long-term contract with the government and
international health insurance providers in Rwanda. T/F
5. Academics at the University of Sheffield found that the online
symptom checkers lack proper function to support offline medical
appointments. T/F
6. Few people own smartphones in Rwanda and most use Babyl’s basic
functionality to send appointment requests in text messages. T/F
7. Babyl could cost cuts by developing more efficient electronic health
records. T/F
8. Understanding the way that disease spreads through local communities
is essential in offering a region-specific services model and so is
understanding local language. T/F
9. Analytical information about these kinds of medical services is
usually provided by the companies themselves and lacks regulatory
oversight. T/F
10. A good system will have a big impact, but a poor system will still have
some impact for reduced cost. T/F

4. Business language – words and phrases for processes and actions

a. Match the words to make words and phrases for expressing processes
and actions.
1. scaling up
2. take up
3. follow reviewed
4. co up
5. peer up
6. looking authored
7. picking further afield

31
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

b. Complete the sentences with the words and phrases.

When Welsh environmental architect, Aneurin Hughes, and Scottish
environmental scientist, James Thomas, combined forces to develop green urban
housing project In Bloom, they had no idea how quickly it would take off. It began
after an idea sparked in the minds of the Oxford graduates who had been reading
articles in a (1) _________________ journal that provided new evidence of the
positive impact urban farms can have on pollution. Fast-forward six years and the
pair have delivered housing projects across the UK and America, and now they
are (2) _________________ at opportunities in South America.

Over the last few years, the UK-based company has established a strong
presence in Peru, (3) _________________ valuable development space in the
centre of Lima. The cost-effective housing has enabled the Peruvian government
to develop housing with In Bloom for those on lower incomes, opening up
a much wider market and ensuring high (4) _________________ . of properties.

Since its establishment, the eco-friendly development in the centre of Lima

has enabled many residents to face the pollution challenges head-on. Isabella
Benson is a journalist documenting the development of green-living initiatives,
and she was on site when the first foundations were laid till the final roof
garden was installed. She returned to the urban village earlier this year for a (5)
________________ interview with the residents.

She was unsurprised to find that they had made great progress, something
they had been committed to doing. The residents had worked with In Bloom to
build an urban farm using the flat rooves of theirhomes to create roof-top gardens
bursting with fresh fruit and vegetables. This is helping them to make a positive
impact on the carbon footprint of the city, bringing green resources to the centre
of Lima’s most polluted region.

Isabella will be releasing a series of articles (6) _________________ with

some of the residents. She hopes it will give her readers a special insight into the
lives of the people at the heart of the project. She plans to keep following Aneurin
and James’ progress with In Bloom as they continue (7) _________________
in South America, with a new development planned for Paraguay in the spring.

32
 UNIT 4. DIGITAL DOCTORS ARE GOING GLOBAL

5. Business Language – words with prefixes over- and out-

hype live perform

a. Complete the sentences with the correct form of the words using the
prefix over- or out-.
1. She was annoyed that she had fallen for the _________________ ,
believing that his latest release was worth the money, when it was just
recycled advice from his first book.
2. The legacy software was expected to _________________ the new
product, but with poor reviews dominating on social media and sales
dropping, it seemed more likely with every passing day.
3. The contestants are pitted against each other, completing challenging
tasks every week and aiming to _________________ their peers to win
the prize.
4. The meeting _________________ , causing Mohammed to miss his
flight.

6. Discussion questions
• How could the level of service between a patient and a chatbot and
a patient and a human medical professional differ? Could one outperform
the other and how?
• Which kinds of people might benefit most from easier access to medical
appointments and how would they benefit?
• How can understanding the local language of the patients help providers
to offer better medical services?

7. Wider business theme – adapting technology

a. Work in pairs. Choose A or B and read the role play cards below.
Take 5 minutes to prepare ideas on what to say to your partner. Then, hold
a 10-minute discussion.
A: You are a senior sales executive of a technology company that has
designed a new chatbot feature
for websites. The chatbot can offer advice and find key information for
customers. The advice it can offer is detailed, and the chatbot will ask questions
to get an idea of the customers’ personality and use that information to influence
its suggestions. You think the functionality could work well
for hotels and holiday resorts. You are meeting with the CEO of a family
resort chain to discuss adapting the software for their resorts. Persuade the CEO
that your product is the best on the market and explain how you can adapt the
chatbot to fit with their company.

33
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

B: You are the CEO of a family resort chain and you want to improve
your website to offer customers automated customer service for basic enquiries.
However, you have heard that many competitors have had problems with the
functionality of technology like chatbots and you want to make sure you invest in
developments that are worthwhile. You are meeting with a senior sales executive
of a technology company that has designed a new chatbot and thinks it will work
well as a feature adapted for your chain’s website. Communicate your concerns
about the technology and listen to what they have to say before deciding whether
to buy the product.

34
 Unit 5. MEMES MOTIVATE PEOPLE
TO ENGAGE AND ACT

1. Warmer
a. Businesses share a range of content on the internet and different types
of content can help to drive different levels of engagement. It is often shared
on social media channels as many customers, clients and other businesses
have their own accounts and access to this type of content is immediate and
easy. Content can come in many forms, such as images, graphics, videos,
text, or a combination of these.
Which types of content do you think are most likely to gain an audience’s
attention?
Which type of content would be best to use if you want your audience to
respond through comments or by making some form of action?

2. Key words
a. Read the definitions and complete the sentences with the key words.
Use the paragraph numbers to locate the words in the article.
1. humorous images, videos or pieces of text that spread very quickly
on the internet, often being changed by different users (title)
____________________
2. frightening or hurting someone who is smaller or weaker than you
(2) _________________
3. stories or accounts of something that has happened (3)
____________________
4. to change something, such as information, so that it is no longer true or
accurate (3) _____________________
5. showing that you think you are not very good or important (4)
_______________________________
6. extremely silly (5) ____________________
7. a large number of people (7) ____________________
8. a lively positive among a group of people or in a particular place (9)
____________________
9. causes a feeling or attitude to exist (10) ____________________
10. the limits of something such as an activity or way of life (11)
____________________
11. continuing to exist or work for a long time, even if the situation changes
(12) ____________________
12. got control of something in order to use it for a particular purpose (13)
____________________

35
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

b. Complete the text with the correct key words. Four of the words are
not needed.
Restricted to the (1) _____________ of their homes and gardens, the public
have struggled to get enough exercise. However, thanks to the (2) __________
of personal trainers keen to get back to work, a new age of internet exercise
has dawned. Gyms and fitness centers have instructed their staff to create online
fitness classes and self-employed trainers have developed stretch and tone, dance
and weight-lifting routines that can be done in living rooms.

Encouraged to put (3) ___________ aside and believe in themselves,

clients have been happy to engage, sharing their routines and fitness goals on
their own social media accounts. With so many determined to keep in shape
during lockdowns, this has created quite a (4) ___________ and dance routines,
in particular, have spawned a flurry of hilarious (5) ___________ designed to
energize and entertain.

Fitness trainers are not the only ones driving this new trend – now dieticians
are getting involved too. Dr Sonia Nazim has been sharing videos of simple and
nutritious recipes that can be enjoyed after home workouts. Calling on personal
experience and using real-life patient stories to create semi-fictitious (6) , she has
been able to develop recipes that suit everyone, from gym fanatics to beginners.

Before the pandemic, it seemed (7) ______________ to suggest that people

would be investing in home workout equipment and cheap internet subscriptions.
This change in behaviour has brought about a big question – will those who were
previous fitness centre customers decide to stick with home workouts that benefit
budget and do away with expensive gym memberships? According to a recent
poll in a leading newspaper, over half intend to continue using their home in
place of private membership clubs, suggesting this trend will quickly become
something far more (8) ______________ and long-lasting.

How memes fuelled a boom in the‘stonk market’

Financial memefication is evolving from a niche corner to grow deep roots
in markets
1. In 1944, two psychologists The results were fascinating –
showed their students a simple and relevant to markets today.
film depicting a big triangle, a 2. Overwhelmingly, Fritz Heider
small triangle and a little ball and Marianne Simmel’s students
bouncing around what looked like felt the big triangle was bullying
a schematic layout of a house. the other shapes, imagining their

36

emotions and even constructing
a plot around what was going on.
The experiment illustrates how
humans can find narratives pretty
much everywhere, no matter how
tortuously constructed.
3. Narratives matter and have always
mattered enormously to markets.
Nobel laureate Robert Shiller has
even written a book on how the
stories we tell ourselves can shape
economic ebbs and flows. But
over the past year, a condensed,
modern form of narrative – the
internet meme – has grown deep
roots in markets and evolved from
attempting to capture reality to
actually helping distort it.
4. Memes are easily-digestible and
shareable images or videos, often in
the form of a snapshot from popular
culture, tweaked with custom
captions to send myriad messages,
from amusing selfdeprecation to
arch political commentary.
5. It may seem ludicrous, but
financial memes can arguably
shape perceptions just like
verbose investment bank reports
or newspaper opinion pieces.
Arguably more so among younger
generations with less patience for
long-winded, staid traditional news
and analysis. If a meme spreads, it
can have a sizeable impact at a time
when retail trading is a rising force
in markets.
6. “Individually, a meme from one
small account probably won’t do
much, but if it’s a concerted effort
and it goes viral, then there is the
37
UNIT 5. MEMES MOTIVATE PEOPLE TO ENGAGE AND ACT
possibility to drive the share price,”
says a prominent finance “meme
lord” known as Litquidity on
Instagram where he has over half a
million followers. He has declined
to give his real name.
7. Memes have long been central to
the rise of various cryptocurrencies,
but their impact is starting to be felt
in mainstream markets as well. This
is most vividly highlighted by the
mayhem surrounding a bunch of
meme-friendly stocks adopted by
a horde of online retail traders this
year.
8. Shares in video game retailer
GameStop and cinema chain AMC
have climbed over 1,000 per cent
and 2,600 per cent respectively this
year, giving them a combined market
value of $46bn, overwhelmingly
thanks to meme-inspired trading
by young retail investors loosely
organised on social media sites.
9. For now, this is primarily a factor
in niche corners of markets. But it
is a broader phenomenon than just
the classic “meme stonks”. Memes
have also fuelled the boom in so-
called special purpose acquisition
companies, arguably in a modest
way, even affected the wider stock
market, exemplified by Tesla’s
marketrattling run. Almost half of
1,500 individual investors polled
by advisory group Betterment said
they invest in stocks based on social
media buzz.
10. Kyla Scanlon, a young former
industry insider who now creates
TikTok videos explaining finance to
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

younger generations, is among those the industry pre-pandemic now

both fascinated and alarmed by the
“memefication” of markets. She
observes the sense of community it
engenders but also how it displaces
reality from valuations. “We have
this short-form content to help us
process larger narratives,” she says.
“And I think that is going to keep
showing up in the stock market.”
11. Another pseudonymous finance
memer known as Dr Parik Patel –
who has garnered over 300,000
followers on Twitter in less than
a year – sees them mostly as
fleeting entertainment at a tough
time for many people. That said,
he has noticed how they have
spread far beyond the confines of
his world. “I have friends working
in completely unrelated fields to
finance who had no interest in
trading their own portfolios and
following the hottest finance
meme pages,” he says.
12. How durable is this phenomenon? It
seems unequivocally linked to how
maniacal markets have been in the
post-Covid era. Scanlon and Patel
reckon that it will therefore likely
fade once the ebullience eventually
evaporates.
13. Litquidity, however, worries that
the growing appreciation for how
social media can be harnessed to
make money means that market
memefication might prove more
resilient than many expect. “I don’t
think it’s a good thing, but I don’t
think it’s going anywhere unless
some sort of regulations are put in
place,” he says.
Robin Wigglesworth, 21 June 2021

3. Understanding the article

a. These statements contain information about the business article.
Circle True or False for each statement.
1. Finance industry professionals ran an experiment that tested students’ reactions
to different narratives that personified balls and shapes. True / False
2. Humans like to attach narratives to situations, even if the situation is abstract
and not relevant to a story. True / False
3. Memes are an accurate representation of reality and as such, they are now
used as internet learning tools for a range of industries. True / False
4. Memes often focus on popular culture, are easy to understand and easy to
share with a wider audience. True / False
5. Share prices are hard to influence with memes, but this type of content has
been used by banks to attract new customers. True / False
6. Cinema chain AMC and games retailer Game Stop have witnessed a
huge drop in shares since they started sharing memes on their social
media accounts. True / False
7. Approximately half of investors use social media engagement as an indicator
of which shares to invest in. True / False

38
 UNIT 5. MEMES MOTIVATE PEOPLE TO ENGAGE AND ACT

8. Shorter content can make it easier to understand longer content and can be
used to teach people about complex industries. True / False
9. Memes can encourage people to engage with the finance industry even
when they work in an entirely different industry. True / False
10. Social media has an enormous influence on people’s lives and the
decisions they make, so it is likely that memes will continue to have a
purpose for years to come. True / False

4. Business Language
a. Match the words to make compound nouns found in the article.
crypto pieces
retail currencies
opinion market
bank group
advisory investors
social reports
stock media
mainstream markets

b. Which of the compound nouns form a single word?

5. Business Language
a. Add the missing letters to make words about news and story-telling.
All the words have been used in the article.
1. ___e m___ ___(title)
2. c___m___ ___n___a___y (2)
3. __ __r r___t___v___s (2)
4. e___s i___ ___-__i___e s t___b___e (4)
5. ___a p t__ __ __s (4)
6. s __c__ __l m______i a (8)
7. p s___u___o___ ___m o___s (11)

b. Complete the article with the words for news and story-telling.
The comedy writer Andrew Boxton is well-known for creating hilarious
books for adults, but he originally found fame as an author or horror novels for
teenagers. As a young man, he wrote under the (1) ___________ name of Count
Skelliton, focusing on the paranormal and psychological sub-genres.

39
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

His first substantial piece was about vampires, an (2) _______________

226-page novel weaving the (3) ________________ of a young man, a blood-
thirsty woman and an elderly widow into a story of love and revenge. But critics
treated him harshly and this almost brought his career to an early close. As I read
some of their comments aloud, Andrew smiles wryly and, with the half-smile that he
is famous for, says, “Yes, well they may have had a point. I will admit that Deathly
Deeds was not my greatest work of fiction, but it did manage to connect with the
teen audience. However, I almost called it quits after reviews came in and my first
publisher let me go. But I stuck with it and I’m glad I did.”

Glad he should be. A little over a year later, he got his first big break with the
Crazy and Cold zombie trilogy and quickly gained a following of loyal fans on (4)
_______________. The Countists, as they called themselves, were particularly
fond of the touch of humour contained in those stories. Phrases taken from his
writing found additional fame in (5) _______________ shared on the internet
and eventually found their way into common slang.

It was this touch of the funny that prompted Skelliton to focus on dark comedies
for an adult audience and to gradually move away from horror to pure comedy… and
from Skelliton to Boxton. “I knew I needed to give myself a new face if I was going
to launch into comedy and I’ve always been known as a joker by my friends, so what
better name to use than my own?” He made sure that he changed his appearance for
the Jeremy, Jack and Jill press campaign and biography photographs, insisting that
image (6) ________________ did not mention his previous persona. When the book
was released, he wasan immediate hit in this new literary sphere. The household name
we know and love today was born.

6. Discussion Questions
a. Discuss these questions.
• Do you think memes containing video clips or static images are more
likely to gain an audience’s attention and encourage them to share the
content?
• The article suggests that the finance, cinema and gaming industries have
been strongly influenced by memes. Do memes have the potential to
influence decisions in any industry and should regulations be brought in
to control their use?
• Some people are making a career from developing simple media, including
short videos and simple memes for use on social media channels. Is it
possible to develop a career with longevity by developing skills for media
trends? Why/Why not?

40
 UNIT 5. MEMES MOTIVATE PEOPLE TO ENGAGE AND ACT

7. Wider business theme – influential media

a. Read the scenario and work in small groups to complete the task.
You are the communications team for a university and you need to recruit
students for a new media course. The course is a postgraduate degree and the
majority of your recruits will be aged 21–25. However, you also attract mature
students, the majority being in their 30s and some in their 40s.
The communications team are responsible for the university’s main
social media channels, email marketing and running the website. You need to
create a communications plan that will enable you to sufficiently market the
postgraduate course to students and ensure enough students are enrolled when
it launches next year.
Considering the communications channels at your disposal, you need to
decide which types of media to use and which channels to send communications
out from.

Think about:
• different types of media
• which types of media work best and on which channels
• the age demographics of your audience
• whether the different communications channels can be used together to
create a holistic campaign
• whether to include specific content, such as opinion pieces and student
success stories

41
 Unit 6. PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE PROFITS

1. Warmer
a. Look at the pictures. In pairs, discuss which occupations these
people might have. What kinds of challenges do you think they face if they
are working while we fight the virus? How could their employers help them
to face these challenges and succeed?

2. Key words
algorithm backlash buckling clapping deadlines
deadlines gig economy lockdown quarantine
rainforest rigour tweak unprecedented
1. a forest in a tropical region of the world where it rains a lot (2)
______________
2. the quality of being thorough and careful (2) ________________
3. a situation in which a person or animal with a disease is kept
separate from other people or animals so that they do not catch the
disease (5) ________________
4. a time when large numbers of people are ordered to stay at home either
most or all of the time (5) ________________
5. a strong, negative and often angry reaction to something that has
happened, especially a political or social change (5) ______________
6. to make small changes in order to improve something (5) _________
7. specific times or dates by which you have to do something (5)
________________
8. suddenly becoming weak because you have no energy left (6)
________________
9. a labour market where there are a lot of short-term contracts or freelance
work and not many permanent jobs (8) ________________
10. a set of rules for solving problems or doing calculations, especially
rules used by a computer (8) ________________
11. hitting your hands together many times to show that you liked
something or admire someone (9) ________________
12. never having happened or existed before (16) ________________

42

How should we assess value?
Now is a good moment to rethink business principles and put humans
before profits.
1. Mark Carney, the former central
banker, asks why we esteem
financial value over human values
in this year’s BBC Reith Lectures.
2. One theme is our slow response to
climate change. Mr Carney says
we favour short-term thinking over
long-term strategy partly because
we do not properly recognise the
value of preserving the planet. We
fail to assess the Amazon rainforest
with the same rigour that we
approach Amazon the company
because we place more focus on the
present than the future.
3. Many companies, driven by a
singular focus on maximising
efficiency and profits, fall into this
trap but the pandemic has presented
a moment for leaders to rethink first
principles. Mr Carney’s argument is
a useful lens that managers can use
to better understand value in their
organisations.
4. Two very different stories from the
coronavirus crisis illustrate how.
5. The first is from China, where much
of the country was under lockdown
after the virus was discovered.
For millions of Chinese stuck at
home, food delivery drivers became
heroes for maintaining supplies
through quarantine. When couriers
complained about the stress of being
penalised for missing strict time
limits imposed by services such as
Meituan and Ele.me, a consumer
43
UNIT 6. PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE PROFITS
backlash forced the companies to
tweak their algorithms and extend
the deadlines.
6. The second example is from the
UK, where Britons took to the
streets and applauded healthcare
workers during the first stages
of the pandemic. The collective
experience boosted the nation’s
spirits and felt like recognition for a
buckling NHS.
7. Both of these stories display a
genuine appreciation but did they
lead to meaningful change for the
lauded?
8. Chinese delivery drivers are still in
demand but remain under intense
pressure, as is typical for gig economy
workers who are often poorly paid
and live precarious lives governed
by an algorithm. “The rewards are
light but the punishments are always
heavy,” one Chinese courier told
NPR last month. Some drivers have
gone on strike or protested against
working conditions.
9. In the UK, some healthcare workers
suggested the applause was nice
but did nothing to deal with the
underlying pressures they face.
Stop clapping, they said, start
managing the NHS and staff better,
and take the pandemic seriously.
Hospitalisations in England last
week surpassed their peak in
April, during the first wave of the
pandemic.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
10. These stories highlight how
understanding value matters. There
has been lots of public appreciation
for work done under extreme
circumstances but not enough done
to address fundamental problems
that have been amplified by the crisis.
11. Some managers, however, have
gone deeper.
12. One executive at a midsized global
company said that not being able to
travel or work in the office forced her
to put more trust in lieutenants. But
it also highlighted who she was less
able to trust or rely upon, revealing
which staff added the most value to
the organisation. Such insight has
been critical as she thinks about
how to retool the business beyond
the pandemic.
13. Roger Martin, the management
thinker, believes organisations
need to become more human.
For too long, he says, companies
have been driven solely by profits
and efficiency, and have turned
their staff into automatons by
stripping them of decision-making
authority.
14. He points to the example of Costco,
the retailer, which pays its staff
higher wages than its peers and
gives them more autonomy. “They
have a business system set up to
3. Understanding the article
a. In pairs, read the statements below and identify which are supported
by information from the text. Tick the supported statements.
1. Businesses tend to treat their employees in a similar way to the
environment, placing more importance on profits than human
values.
44
give these people important jobs and
decision making. If you do that, it’s
no problem to let them make more.
But you can’t if you turn them into
a drone.”
15. Rita Gunther McGrath, a professor at
Columbia Business School, argues
for more regulatory pressure, such
as forcing boards to include worker
representatives as in Germany.
But she adds that investors need to
challenge CEOs more effectively.
“Unlike the postwar situation, in
which the job of company leaders
was seen to create good jobs and a
thriving middle class, they have not
been questioned sufficiently, in my
view, of the impact of their decisions
on regular people,” she says.
16. This argument reflects a view
advocated by Mr Carney, who
calls for a company’s approach to
global warming to be as much a
determinant of its value as credit
worthiness. The climate crisis is
unprecedented, however, so the
past is not a good predictor of the
future and different solutions are
needed.
17. The same could be said of Covid.
The crisis offers a chance to
radically reassess value. Asking the
right questions is a start.
Ravi Mattu, 4 January 2021
 UNIT 6. PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE PROFITS

2. The pandemic proves that it is more important during times of economic

hardship to focus on boosting profits than it is to give people more
freedom.
3. Chinese deliver drivers have been under pressure to meet strict
deadlines, with employers penalizing them for late deliveries.
4. Customers reported the delivery drivers for failing to deliver packages
on time and became the catalyst behind a round of redundancies.
5. Some of the Chinese delivery drivers have chosen to go on strike and
protest against unrealistic working conditions.
6. People in Britain have been standing in the street and applauding the
government at the same time every week since the pandemic began.
7. The number of patients in hospitals in Britain has increased and is now
higher than the peak experienced in April.
8. A business professional has been forced to trust her subordinates more
as she cannot work with them in person in the office.
9. Costco pays its staff high wages but they have to operate under strict
rules and this has led to many resignations.
10. Following the war, focus was placed on creating a strong economy
and a financially stable society, but the decisions of company
leaders and their impact on regular people has not been sufficiently
questioned.

4. Business Language – Collocations

a. Complete the collocations below with words from the box.

change circumstances conditions limits of trap warming

1. working __________________
2. climate __________________
3. extreme __________________
4. fall into [the] __________________
5. global __________________
6. stripping [someone] __________________
7. time__________________
b. Complete the passage with the collocations from activity a. In some
cases, you will have to adjust the collocations to fit the sense of the text.

Although the actor ran his own environmental charity and had spoken out
about __________ __________ at international events, he has recently faced a
backlash from fans for a number of mishaps.

45
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Firstly, in an ironic turn of events, he had chosen to fly halfway around the
world on a private jet to collect a __________ __________ awareness award.
Many people took to social media to express their disappointment, with one
stating that ‘it was an unacceptable decision for an environmental activist to take
a private plane to collect this award, even in the most __________ __________.’

Furthermore, clothing produced by his environmental charity has been

a source of media focus in recent months and for all the wrong reasons – a
regulator visited the factory and found that many of the workers were children
facing disgusting __________ __________. They were also required to work to
unrealistic __________ __________ and only had breaks to use the toilet. Since
the first story surfaced, the actor has gone into hiding and is avoiding journalists’
attempts to get his side of the story.

One reporter suggested that many celebrities __________ __________

of using their activism to boost their popularity rather than focusing solely on
making positive changes in the world. When genuine commitment to the cause is
not there, they become sloppy and end up taking risks that
could cost them their public integrity. These latest mishaps with the private
jet and the unfair working conditions are prime examples.

The actor may now be hiding out at his Californian estate and reflecting on
the punishments inflicted on his peers who landed themselves in a similar situation.
Perhaps he is biting his nails while images of the Queen of England __________
__________ his honours flash through his mind. Does the punishment fit the
crime? Only time will tell.

5. Business Language – Vocabulary for industries

a. Put the words and expressions from the wordpool in the right column
in the table below.
algorithm automatons central banker climate change credit
drone global warming healthcare rainforest pandemic

Technology Financial Environmental Medical

46
 UNIT 6. PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE PROFITS

6. Discussion questions
a. Read and discuss the questions with your group.
• Do you think it is ever appropriate for a company to put profits above the
welfare of its employees? Are there extreme circumstances that make it
acceptable?
• How can acts like public clapping for good causes help to build a sense
of community and boost morale during challenging times?
• How important do you think it is for workers to be given more freedom
to work autonomously and how can this contribute to professional
development?

7. Wider business theme – supporting autonomy

a. In pairs, take turns and do the role play. Choose role A or B and read
the role description.
A: You are a senior employee at a company that delivers major events
in the education calendar. One of your key events is a large conference about
technology in the education industry and it attracts over 500 guests each year.
One of your employees, B, is keen to take on greater responsibility at work and
you have been considering delegating one of the events to them. You think B
might need to gain some more events management experience before taking on a
major event, but you are supportive of their progression and are keen to listen to
their suggestions.

B: You are an employee at a company that delivers major events in the

education calendar. You are keen to progress at work and are aware that your
manager is planning to delegate one of their events to you, but you want to make
sure you manage to get the best event – a key education conference that draws
over 500 guests each year. You need to convince your manager to give you this
opportunity but remember to be polite and professional!

47
 Unit 7. CAN WE SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT
WITH ECONOMICS?

1. Warmer
a. In pairs, discuss why the following might be effective ways to measure
the importance of looking after the environment
• Volume of carbon in the air
• Centimetres of increase in ocean levels
• Dollar value of natural resources
• Degrees of change in global temperatures

2. Key words and expressions

a. Complete the definitions using words from the paragraph numbers
given for the article.
1. an abbreviation consisting of letters that form a word (1) __________
2. one of the people most admired in a particular profession (3)
____________
3. to collect carbon dioxide that is produced by burning coal or oil and
store it to stop it getting into the atmosphere (4) _________________
4. the variety of different types of plant and animal life in a particular
region (6) ____________________
5. extremely important and urgent (7) ________________
6. able to quickly become healthy, happy, or strong again after an illness,
disappointment, or other problem (7) ____________________
7. important and noticeable (8) __________________
8. calculated the size, value, or amount of something when all the facts
were not available to you (9) ____________________
9. forming two very different groups, opinions, or situations that are
completely opposite to each other (13) _______________
10. a reduction in the harmful effects of something (15) _____________
11. extreme and obvious (15) ____________
12. ideas or practices that are accepted by most people as being correct or
usual (18) __________________

48
 UNIT 7. CAN WE SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT WITH ECONOMICS?
Why we need to put a number on our natural resources
People find it easier to consider nature worth protecting when we assign a
financial value to it.
1. Economists at the mighty
International Monetary Fund
used to joke that the institution’s
acronym should actually stand for
“It’s Mostly Fiscal.” No wonder:
the IMF is (in)famous for fretting
about countries’ budget plans, tax
policies, growth strategies and
capital flows.
2. Last week, however, the IMF’s
managing director Kristalina
Georgieva discussed how some of
its employees have branched into an
unlikely pastime: whale-watching.
3. “We have economists studying
whales,” she told a panel organised
by the Paulson Institute, a foundation
created by Henry Paulson, former
US Treasury secretary and
Goldman Sachs luminary, that often
champions environmental causes.
4. One of these economists is Ralph
Chami, an IMF official who has
studied how whales sequester CO2,
removing it from the atmosphere, as
part of an IMF analysis of the value
of natural capital – the world’s
stock of natural resources. (Whales
apparently sequester 33 tonnes of
CO2 over a lifetime.)
5. Does this matter? Some mainstream
economists might mutter about
mission creep. But the initiative is
worth noting. It reveals a subtle but
striking shift in the global green
debate that is now underway and
that will be an important topic at this
week’s annual UN general assembly.
49
6. In the past few years, the world
has woken up with a vengeance to
the problem of carbon emissions,
thanks in part to activists such as
Greta Thunberg, who has inspired
a generation to campaign against
fossil fuels. But now Paulson and
Georgieva are part of efforts to
expand the focus of this activism
from a narrow debate around
emissions towards a wider one
around biodiversity and natural
capital.
7. Quite apart from the moral and
spiritual imperative behind the
drive to protect nature, people such
as Paulson argue that there are
two additional points: destroying
nature not only hurts the economy
but also makes it harder to combat
the emissions we’re now trying
to reduce. Conversely, protecting
nature makes the planet more
resilient to environmental shocks
and negative changes.
8. With that messaging in mind, the
Paulson Institute and the IMF
are now scrambling to put some
tangible numbers around the
contribution of natural capital.
A report from the Paulson Institute,
the Nature Conservancy and others
last week suggests that 30–50 per
cent of the planet’s species will
vanish by the middle of the century
without action – and that the bill
to prevent this would be $600bn –
$820bn a year.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
9. It also points out that the World
Economic Forum has guesstimated
that $44tn – about half – of global
gross domestic product depends on
natural capital, while the value of
forests in terms of carbon capture
alone could be $100tn.
10. Now, some observers might argue
that affixing dollar signs to nature is
ridiculous, not to mention immoral,
since it implies that the only things
that matter are those that carry a
price. In any case, these numbers
entail so much guesswork that they
are apt to seem fantastical.
11. However, Paulson insists that
number crunching is needed: “The
problem is that people assume that
natural capital is a free good, and if
you don’t put a value on it, they will
value it as zero.”
12. What is really interesting is that
this new drive to quantify the issue
reflects another imperative: the
topic of biodiversity might yet turn
into a tool that could forge some
modicum of consensus on “green”.
13. While the issue of climate change
and carbon emissions tends to be
politically polarizing, particularly
in countries such as the US, talking
about biodiversity is often less
contentious. Some Republicans, for
example, find it far easier to embrace
policies labelled as “environmental
protection” than “climate change”.
14. So too on the international stage.
Discussions about climate change
often spark a blame game between
countries such as the US and China,
since they raise questions about who is
responsible for emissions – previous
high polluters or nations busily
50
developing now – and thus who
should curb them most aggressively.
US President Donald Trump and
Chinese President Xi Jinping traded
barbs over this at the UN this week.
15. Discussions about biodiversity,
however, tend to focus more on
mitigation and resilience. This
can still spark fights (as seen
during the recent battles between
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro
and environmental activists
around rainforest destruction in
the Amazon), but overall they tend
to be less stark.
16. “We can argue about what is causing
climate change... but we cannot
argue about what is happening
now,” says Paulson. “So I think you
will find people coming together
and saying, ‘What do we need to
do to protect against climate shocks
like storms and forest fires?’”
17. Of course, such hopes might yet
turn out to be naive, given that the
Covid-19 pandemic is distracting
policymakers – and cutting the level
of financial resources available to
protect nature or anything else. But
there again, the pandemic has also
shown clearly the cost of ignoring
science and our global connections;
indeed, those championing
biodiversity argue that the spread of
zoonotic diseases – ones that jump
from animal to human, such as
Covid-19 – is partly a result of our
lack of respect for natural capital.
18. Either way, it’s worth remembering
the whales; if nothing else, they
show how orthodoxies can change,
even in economics.
Gillian Tett, September 23 2020
 UNIT 7. CAN WE SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT WITH ECONOMICS?

3. Understanding the article

a. In pairs, discuss the answer to the following questions.
1. What have economists from the IMF recently been studying?
2. What is ‘natural capital’?
3. How do Henry Paulson and Kristalina Georgieva want to change
environmental activism?
4. How much is it estimated to cost in order to save 30 to 50 percent of
the Earth’s species?
5. What could help political parties agree on green issues?
6. How does Henry Paulson think different political groups will react to
recent natural disasters?

4. Business language – word pairs and phrases

a. Match the words to make word pairs and phrases from the article.
Then check your answers in the article.
1. number a. strategy
2. growth b. stage
3. mission c. game
4. gross domestic d. crunching
5. blame e. product
6. international f. creep

b. Write the word pairs and phrases next to the definitions.

1. the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year
2. work that involves doing a lot of calculations, especially when you
think this is boring
3. a situation in which person A tries to make other people take
responsibility for doing something that person A did wrong, rather than
seeking a solution
4. a plan or set of plans intended to increase something, e.g. the number
of customers to a business
5. the gradual expansion of the original objectives of an organization
6. a specific area of life in public where very important events happen:

c. Write six sentences that illustrate the word pairs and phrases using
examples from your personal or professional life.

51
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

5. Business language – verbs commonly used in business

a. Complete the sentences with the correct form of the verbs below.
champion combat curb forge spark
1. They’ve _____________________ a strong partnership that will more
or less guarantee their success for years to come.
2. We must focus on _____________________ the spread of the virus.
3. Cortisol is a hormone that _____________________ stress.
4. She is just one of the activists _____________________ the cause of
climate change.
5. The decision _____________________ riots long before the
government realized the public’s feelings.

b. Write five sentences using these verbs about challenges you have
faced in the workplace.

6. Discussion questions
“The problem is that people assume that natural capital is a free good,
and if you don’t put a value on it, they will value it as zero.” Do you agree
with Henry Poulson?

How can talking about ‘environmental protection’ be more effective

than talking about ‘climate change’?

7. Wider business theme – Action plan

a. In groups of four, imagine that you are in a meeting about ways to
increase people’s awareness of the actions needed to protect the environment.
Divide yourselves into economists and environmental activists and discuss
the following:
• opinions on natural capital
• the future of environmental activism
• an agreement on the key actions to take

b. Work together to develop an action plan for effective ways to increase

people’s awareness of the actions needed to protect the environment.
Present your action plan to the class.

52
 Unit 8. AIR TRAVEL: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

1.Warmer
a. How do you imagine people will travel around in the future? Look at
the images below and discuss what the public transport vehicles of tomorrow
will look like.

2. Key words and expressions

a. Find words from the article and write them next to the definitions
below. Use the paragraph numbers to help you.
1. the main part of an aircraft that the wings are fixed to ___________ (1)
2. one of the first people to do something important that is later continued
and developed by other people ______________ (2)

53
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

3. a military aircraft that cannot be noticed by radar ______________ (2)

4. the first form of something new, made before it is produced in large
quantities ______________ (3)
5. stretching or spreading something in a way that looks strange
______________ (5)
6. at an angle that is not 90 degrees ______________ (5)
7. objects arranged so that they are not at the same height or not in a
straight line ____________________ (5)
8. a machine that is operated by another piece of equipment from a short
distance away ______________ (6)
9. describing something that has been made smaller in size, amount etc
than it used to be ______________ (6)
10. a passage between rows of seats, for example in a theatre or plane
__________________(7)

The model plane that might be the future of flying

The Flying-V raises the prospect of fewer emissions and more space (even
though it’s only three metres wide)

1. There have been big aircraft
advances since flying began:
jet engines, lighter materials,
computerised control systems.
But the shape of the planes has
stayed the same – fuselage,
two wings and a tail. Aviation
engineers have long seen the
heavy fuselage as a nuisance.
What if the passengers and cargo
could be housed in a wing?
2. The flying wing might look
futuristic but the idea is nothing
new. Possibly the first flying wing
was designed and flown by Czech
aviation pioneer Igo Etrich in 1909,
although he had to add a tail to
keep it stable. During the second
world war, both the Americans and
Germans worked at flying-wing
bombers, without fully succeeding.
In the postwar era, the US managed
to build flying-wing military aircraft
such as the B-2 stealth bomber.
3. Engineers have been trying to
build a passenger flying wing too.
KLM and the Delft University of
Technology, supported by Airbus,
have created a prototype called
the Flying-V, a 3-metre-wide scale
model of which made its pilotless
first flight at an air base in Germany
in July.
4. The aircraft’s creators presented
the results this month, with Roelof
Vos, leader of the project and a
Delft assistant professor, calling
it “the most revolutionary change
in aviation since the introduction
of the jet aircraft”. The Flying-V,
as its name suggests, is really two
wings, splaying out v-shaped from

54

a pointed nose. Apart from the
environmental benefits, of which
more below, the designers are
excited about the possibilities for
passengers. We should always take
cabin comfort promises with a pinch
of salt – remember the gyms and
bowling alleys we were promised
in the Airbus A380?
5. The Flying-V team says the plane
could feature economy bunk beds.
But a more important advantage of
a slanted cabin wall is that the seats
could be staggered, rather than in
rows, so that, even in economy,
people would not share arm rests
with their neighbours.
6. There have been other remote-
controlled test flights of scaled-
down blended wing- body aircraft.
Boeing designed the X-48B and
X-48C aircraft, which have more of
a triangle than a v-shape. Built by
Cranfield Aerospace of the UK, and
flown in a partnership with Nasa, the
planes ended their flights in 2013,
with the partners declaring them a
successful look at the future. Airbus
showed off its similarly shaped
Maveric demonstrator at this year’s
Singapore air show, saying it could
one day be a replacement for today’s
shorthaul single aisle planes.
7. The Flying-V is a future long-haul
plane, carrying up to 360 passengers.
55
UNIT 8. AIR TRAVEL: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
The model’s maiden flight, while
largely successful, was not perfect.
The plane’s centre of gravity turned
out to be too far back. It rolled
and yawed and landed awkwardly,
breaking its nose gear. All these
problems are correctable, Vos said.
8. More important is whether the gains
would be worth it. The Flying-V
would use 20 per cent less fuel than
today’s most advanced long-haul
planes, which doesn’t sound much
in an age when many oppose flying
altogether. But Vos says that’s only
the fuel saving from a different air
frame. It doesn’t take into account
improvements in materials and
engines – or the use of a different
fuel. While he doesn’t envisage
the Flying-V ever being electric,
he suggests it may be possible, one
day, for it to fly on hydrogen.
9. When could a plane like this enter
service? “In my personal view,
2040,” Vos told me. Richard Wahls,
Nasa’s strategic technical adviser
on advanced aircraft, also said
wing-body planes could be rolling
off the production line in the late
2030s. A long way off. But the
pause in our flying is not a bad time
to think about a more advanced and
environmentally improved way of
doing it.
Michael Skapinker, September 21 2020
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Glossary
Roll – Rotation around the front-to-back axis i.e. the plane spins round
in the air
Yaw – Rotation around the vertical axis i.e. the back and front of the plane turn
side to side

3. Understanding the article

a. Answer the questions about the article.
1. What will the Flying-V look like?
2. What examples of flying wings have been designed before?
3. When and where did the model of the Flying-V take its first flight?
4. What facilities were intended for the Airbus A380?
5. Why might passengers be more comfortable with the design of the
Flying-V?
6. What went wrong on the model’s first flight?
7. What are the environmental benefits in terms of fuel?
8. What fuel could the Flying-V run on in the future?

4. Business language – adjectives for describing change

advanced correctable futuristic improved maiden
personal revolutionary stable strategic successful

1. The model looks very __________. It’s what I imagined our customers
would be using in 2050.
2. If the platform isn’t __________, then we can’t launch the website.
3. The developers think the new software is __________. There’s nothing
like it on the market.
4. How do you measure whether a product is __________? Is it by the
number of units sold or how innovative it is?
5. The Titanic sank on its __________ voyage.
6. There are a few faults in the original design but they are all
______________.
7. We are using the most _______________ technology to develop our
products. Our closest rivals are using much more basic modelling.
8. My __________view is that we should be targeting the youth market.
9. The board has made a/an __________decision to change our approach
to how we market our products.
10. Our sales figures have __________ dramatically since last quarter.
They’re up by 30%.

56
 UNIT 8. AIR TRAVEL: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

b. Use the adjectives above to make sentences about the industry you
work in. You can use a dictionary to help you.

5. Discussion questions
What new developments are taking place in your industry? Explain
their impact and whether these changes are welcome.
If you are not aware of developments in your industry, what changes would
you like to see in the future? How would these changes affect the direction of the
industry? Discuss how it would affect the following:
• job roles
• technology
• markets
• consumer behaviour

Wider business theme – Car travel

a. Work in groups of three to research the future of car travel. You should
each choose a different topic to investigate:
• Driverless cars
• Hydrogen powered cars
• Electric powered cars
Note down existing and future models, practical issues for use,
manufacturing costs and sale price, target markets, projected dates for roll
out, etc.

b. Explain your research to the group in a presentation about the option

you chose. Then discuss together which developments have the greatest
potential for commercial success.

57
 Unit 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC
AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES

1. Warmer
a. Discuss these questions in groups.
Gender discrimination affects most if not every industry, but it could be
argued that some are worse affected than others.
What do you understand by gender discrimination?
Which industries might suffer from the greatest level of discrimination
and why?
Are there any examples of industries where gender discrimination could be
argued to be necessary?

2. Key words
a. Read the definitions and complete the sentences with key words
found in the article.
1. the belief that men and women should be treated in a different way
and are suited to different types of jobs and different positions in
society (1) The study finds that _________________ is rife in the
company and women have been systematically removed from the
running for senior positions.
2. not having the same advantages as others, for example due to a lack of
money (1) A football player on a top team has been promoting access
to free school meals for ______________ children.
3. a technology for sharing sound or video through the internet (2)
Satellite television providers have been unable to dissuade customers
from the appeal of ________________ websites and their profits have
taken a big hit.
4. sets of rules and mathematic formulas for solving problems or doing
calculations (3) The software communicates with the customer via an
avatar and uses complex ________________ to deliver effective cus-
tomer service in a virtual environment.
5. made images, sound, or computer software a part of other software (4)
The virus is ______________ in the coding and wreaks havoc when
the infected software is downloaded.
6. a set of instructions in a computer program that are repeated until an
action interrupts it (4) ________________ The music had been playing
on a ________________ for two years and regular customers had
requested that it be changed.

58
 UNIT 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES

7. something that produces the features of a situation in a way that

seems real but is not (5) The anti-gravity chamber provides space
_________________ and gives astronauts the opportunity to
acclimatise before launch.
8. to say what is likely to happen or be true using information
that you already have (7) Businesses can use customer data to
__________________ trends and make informed sales forecasts.
9. consisting of things that are very similar or all of the same type (9)
Multi-cultural workforces are stronger than ________________ ones
and businesses should seek to hire diverse candidates.
10. to improve the status or importance of someone or something (11)
The book series is able to _________________ the story, exploring
personal details that give the characters warmth, whereas the film
presents them as soleless robots that blindly follow societal norms.
11. to make small changes in order to improve something (12) You just
need to ________________ the settings and then you can make the
battery life last much longer.
12. to make a place bright with light, or to shine a light on something (13)
The documentary focuses on the challenges faced by ethnic minorities
and the presenter is able to __________________ discrimination at a
governmental level.

3. Understanding the article

a. These sentences contain information about the text. Tick ( ) the
sentences that are correct.
1. Sexism is rarely subtle and many male singers have also reported
women for inappropriate behaviour.
2. Computer scientists have collaborated to analyse the algorithms of
popular music streaming software.
3. It is possible to adjust the algorithm with a few small changes and
make it play the songs of female musicians more frequently.
4. The research team confirmed that this kind of algorithm is unlikely to
affect other industries and it is only musicians that face discrimination.
5. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a commonplace feature in our
software and we should be asking questions about how it is made.
6. The author of the article has faced gender prejudice throughout her
career and hopes AI can be used to readdress the balance in workplaces.
7. The discrimination problem begins with a single demographic being in
positions of power, which then causes bias to trickle down into other
societal functions.

59
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

8. White men dominate venture capitalism, with black and Latino men
obtaining funding far less frequently than white men.
9. The recent success of female musicians has convinced record labels
that women are low-risk investments and fewer men are being offered
contracts in favour of their female counterparts.
10. Data analysis will reveal discrimination in computer programs and
provide the opportunity to rectify the issue.

Not OK, computer: music streaming’s diversity problem

‘If you look at Spotify’s top 10 most popular artists of 2020, only two are
women’

1. Sexism can be a subtle problem. In the music listened to by users. The

the music industry, for example, we
have not just had #MeToo scandals,
exposing the abuses of male singers,
musicians and producers, but have
also seen less obvious ways where
women seem to be disadvantaged.
2. Take people’s listening patterns
on streaming services. If you look
at Spotify’s top 10 most streamed
artists of 2020, for example, only two
are women – and Billie Eilish is the
highest in seventh place. This might
not seem a case of discrimination,
but the way we got here raises some
important questions.
3. Now a team of European computer
scientists have explored this
tendency by looking at streaming
services’ algorithms. More
specifically, Christine Bauer
of Utrecht University in the
Netherlands and Xavier Serra and
Andres Ferraro of Universitat
Pompeu Fabra in Spain analysed the
publicly available listening records
of 330,000 users of one service.
This showed that female artists
only represented 25 per cent of
60
authors wrote on The Conversation
platform that “on average, the first
recommended track was by a man,
along with the next six. Users had
to wait until song seven or eight to
hear one by a woman.”
4. People come to their musical tastes
in all kinds of ways, but how most
of us listen to music now offers
specific problems of embedded
bias. When a streaming service
offers music recommendations, it
does so by studying what music has
been listened to before. That creates
a vicious feedback loop, if it already
offers more music by men, that has
startling consequences – which
most of us listeners are unaware of.
5. Is there any solution? The
researchers offered one: they did
a simulation of the algorithm and
tweaked it a few times to raise
the rankings of female artists (ie
they get more exposure by being
recommended earlier) and lower
the male ones. When they let
this system run, a new feedback
loop emerged: the AI indeed
 UNIT 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES
recommended female artists
earlier, making listeners more
aware of that option; and when
the AI platform learnt that the
music was being chosen, it was
recommended more often.
6. Bauer tells me it was “a positive
surprise” to change the streaming
service’s apparent bias so much
with a few tweaks to the algorithm.
“Of course, it’s always easier to fix
something in theory rather than in
practice,” she says, “but if this effect
was similar in the real world, that
would be great.” She adds that the
group is now exploring how to use
the same approach to address ethnic
and other forms of discrimination in
media platforms.
7. The team stress that this work is still
at an early stage, but the study is
thought-provoking for two reasons.
First, and most obviously, it shows
why it pays to have a wider debate
on how now-pervasive AI programs
work and, above all, whether we
want them to extrapolate from our
collective pasts into our futures.
“We are at a critical juncture, one
that requires us to ask hard questions
about the way AI is produced and
adopted,” writes Kate Crawford,
who co-founded an AI centre at
New York University, in a powerful
new book, Atlas of AI.
8. Second, music streaming should also
make us ponder the thorny issue of
positive discrimination. Personally,
I have often felt wary of this concept,
since I have built my career trying
to avoid defining myself by gender.
61
But today, after years working in
the media, I also realise the power
of the “demonstration effect”: if a
society only ever sees white men in
positions of power (or on the pages
of newspapers), it creates a cultural
feedback loop, not unlike those
streaming services.
9. This affects many corners of
business. Consider venture capital:
research from a multitude of
groups shows that diverse teams
outperform homogeneous ones.
Yet according to Deloitte, 77 per
cent of venture capitalists are male
and 72 per cent white, while black
and Latino investors received just
2.4 per cent of funding between
2015 and 2020, according to
Crunchbase.
10. This pattern has not arisen
primarily because powerful people
are overtly sexist or racist; the
subtler issue is that financiers
prefer to work with colleagues who
are a good “cultural fit” (ie are like
them) and to back entrepreneurs
with a proven track record – except
most of those entrepreneurs happen
to look like them.
11. “Mainstream investors generally
consider funds led by people of
colour and women as higher risk,
despite widely available evidence
that diversity actually mitigates
risk,” point out financiers Tracy
Gray and Emilie Cortes in the
Stanford Social Innovation
Review. You could address this by
using something akin to a music
algorithm rejig: foundations
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

could deliberately elevate diverse
employees and overinvest in funds
run by diverse groups to change
the feedback loop.
12. Would this work? Nobody knows
yet since it has never been done at
scale, or at least not yet in finance.
The reality is that it is probably even
harder to shift human bias than it is
to tweak an algorithm.
13. But if you want a reason to feel
hopeful, consider this: while
computer programs might entrench
existing bias, the amazing levels
of transparency that Big Data can
provide are able to illuminate the
problem with clarity. That, in turn,
can galvanise action, if we choose
it – in music and elsewhere.
Gillian Tett, 7 April 2021.

4. Business Language
a. Match each occupation with the correct sentence taken from
professional opportunity adverts.
1. singer
2. musician
3. venture capitalist
4. entrepreneur
5. computer scientist
6. financier
a. Must have mixed instrumental skills, understand how to use music
software and be confident performing on stage with a band.
b. We are looking for an individual who has top-notch coding skills and is
able to understand a range of coding languages.
c. You will be paid £500 to deliver the workshop, which should provide
guidance for building a unique brand vision and obtaining market
exposure with the use of social media.
d. We are looking for another young lady between the ages of 17 and 22
to join the group and it is essential that she is a soprano who can hit a
high note.
e. The bank is seeking someone who has experience of managing the
accounts of major clients and has built a professional history that
focuses on the real estate sector.
f. We hope to form a partnership with someone who is willing to invest
£50,000 in the company, which will allow us to launch the business in
new territories and double our investor’s contribution in under three
months.
b. Complete the table with the business sectors most associated with the
occupations.

62
 UNIT 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES

bank management medical robotics development digital games

ethical hacking radio broadcasting development
engineering talent management musical theatre
data analysis personal wealth management venture capitalism
event journalism hedge fund account manager financial advisor
festival production songwriter sound website design

computer scientist financier musician

radio broadcasting
venture capitalism

website design

c. Read the excerpts from job adverts and match them with the job
titles.
1. Medical Robotics Developer
2. Financial Advisor
3. Festival Production Designer
A. This role would suit a highly creative individual who is able to analyze the
natural environment and identify suitable artists to contribute to the grounds
design. The world-famous event needs to remain on-brand, so an individual
who has an existing network of artists experienced in working with natural
materials will be welcomed. Likewise, candidates with experience of
developing sites to tell a story and take visitors on an interactive journey will
have an advantage.
B. We are looking for someone with a solid understanding of different markets
and an appreciation for different cultural approaches to money. We have a
strong global market presence and the successful candidate will understand
business trends in different regions. They will be confident in explaining why
customers behave a certain way in one country but differently in another.
Candidates will have access to sensitive information and will be required to
undergo a detailed background check before an offer of employment can be
made.
C. You will work in a small team to design life-changing equipment that will
enable people to use damaged joints. You are expected to work on projects
that will be suitable for many people as well as develop unique models

63
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

designed for specific individuals. In recent years, our team has worked to
change the lives of a diverse range of people, including athletes and war
veterans. You must be able to demonstrate experience of creating technology
that has improved the mobility and life satisfaction of patients with complex
needs.

5. Business Language
a. The prefix co- is used to express collaboration and partnership.
Complete the text with the words below, modifying with co- when necessary.
founded produce designed create
(a) __________________in 1860, the Goldsmith has become a titan
of the jewellery industry and holds the biggest share of the luxury market.
In recent years, Hanson’s Jewels has sought to form a number of lucrative
celebrity partnerships, linking up with major influencers to promote products
and (b) __________________ exclusive lines.
Rihanna recently posted a photograph of herself on social media wearing
a Hanson necklace, suggesting she might be the next star to collaborate with
the jewellers. She recently made headlines when the fashion collection she (c)
__________________ with graffiti artist Lady Pink sold out two minutes after
launching online. Rihanna’s ability to (d) __________________ unique fashion
with mass appeal will certainly benefit Hanson if a relationship were to develop.

6. Discussion
Discuss these questions.
• Could the user experience any benefits when using software that pro-
vides them with a list of songs they didn’t choose themselves? Could the
music industry also benefit from this?
• Why might people choose to hire candidates that look like them and have
a similar cultural background?
• AI can be analysed to check for discriminatory algorithms, but what other
testing methods could companies use to ensure software is not biased?

7. Wider business theme

a. Work in pairs to do the task. Read the passage for A or B.
A
You work at a large radio station that has expressed a new commitment to
gender equality and wants to provide a platform for women to gain professional
exposure. You are going to provide a Women’s Morning once a week, which will
be presented by women and feature female guests.

64
 UNIT 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES

Your radio station is known for broadcasting the latest music, as well as
personal stories, news, a travel programme, radio plays, podcasts and high-profile
competitions. Your job is to create a plan for the first Women’s Morning show and
you should think about providing a good mix of entertainment. Make sure you
draw on the roles of women from many different industries to inform the guest
panel and ensure women everywhere are represented.

Once you have created a basic plan, share your ideas with B and listen to
their plan for a female-led festival.

B
You work for an events management company that is planning to deliver
a new festival. You want to provide a platform for women to gain professional
exposure and plan to invite women from a diverse range of professions to
participate at the event.

The festival will provide a mix of musical styles and a range of activities
and additional features that will appeal to adults. Activities include performances
and games, but you will also need to think about services, for example food outlets
and pop-up shops. Create a basic plan of the different performances, activities
and services that you will provide. Remember that this is an event for both men
and women, so you should think of options that will appeal to both.

Once you have created a basic plan, share your ideas with A and listen to
their plan for a radio programme.

65
 Unit 10. WATCHING YOUR WORKERS

1. Warmer
a. Make a list of five words you associate with the word surveillance.

b. Consider an industry where you would expect to see heightened

surveillance of staff. Write a brief paragraph outlining the kinds of
surveillance you would expect to see and their uses.

2. Key words
a. Find the words and phrases in the article that match the definitions
below. Use the section numbers to help you.
1. the skills or luck to make something happen at the most suitable
moment (1) _______________
2. examining something very carefully (7) _________________
3. an area used or allocated for work, for example an office (7)
___________________
4. an official document that gives an inventor the exclusive legal right
to make or sell their invention for a particular period of time. (8)
_______________
5. a visual summary of information used to give an overview (8)
_______________
6. extremely tired and without energy to do anything else (9)
_______________
7. the amount of work that a person or organisation has to do (10)
_______________
8. causing severe damage or loss (10) _________________
9. an illness or pain that is serious and lasts for a long time (10)
_______________
10. making you lose hope, enthusiasm, or interest you had earlier (11)
_______________

66

Workplace surveillance may hurt us more than it helps
Many employers are monitoring staff, some deciding ‘who’s a superstar
and who’s slacking off ’
1. You can’t fault Amazon’s timing.
In the middle of a global pandemic,
the online retailer has launched a
new workplace surveillance tool
that could help to slow Covid’s
spread. Called AWS Panorama, it
uses computer vision technology
to analyse footage from security
cameras in workplaces. It can detect
when employees are not complying
with social distancing rules, for
example.
2. Amazon, which plans to sell the
tool to other employers, says it can
improve workplace safety in other
ways, too. “Are people walking
in spaces where they shouldn’t
be? Is there an oil spill? Are they
not wearing hard hats? These are
realworld problems,” a senior
executive told the FT.
3. It’s easy to see how the technology
could help in the fight against
Covid-19, since workplaces are a
major source of transmission. It
could reveal pinch points in factories
where social distancing isn’t
possible, for instance, which might
prompt companies to redesign work
processes. But, like any tool, the
outcomes will depend on the people
who wield it.
4. Having read a lot of corporate safety
incident reports over the years, I’m
struck by how often CCTV footage
is used to blame the worker who
was hurt. In a recent example from
67
UNIT 10. WATCHING YOUR WORKERS
a British meat factory (an industry
where work pressures are often
intense), a man fractured his hand
when running to fetch a metal plate.
“This is a behavioural safety issue
[because he shouldn’t have run]
and he will be disciplined upon his
return,” the company wrote in the
report to the UK’s health and safety
regulator. There was no mention of
why he felt the need to run in the
first place.
5. In this context, it’s not hard
to imagine a future scenario
where workers are blamed for
contracting Covid-19, possibly
with implications for their sick pay,
by employers unwilling to consider
their own role and responsibilities.
6. There is also the possibility of
mission creep. A testimonial on
the AWS Panorama website from
guitar-maker Fender enthused: “We
can track how long it takes for an
associate to complete each task in
the assembly of a guitar so that we’re
able to optimise efficiency and track
key metrics.” The comment has
now been deleted from the site.
7. Many employers are exploring how
to use technological surveillance
to drive productivity and measure
performance. In 2018, the research
company Gartner surveyed 239 big
companies and found more than
half were using non-traditional
monitoring techniques, up from
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

30 per cent in 2015. Gartner and mentally exhausted,” Hibaq

defines monitoring as things such
as “analysing the text of emails
and social-media messages,
scrutinising who’s meeting with
whom, gathering biometric data and
understanding how employees are
utilising their workspace”.
8. Walmart, the US retailer, has filed a
patent for a system of sound sensors
placed near cashiers which could
“determine a performance metric
for the employee based on the audio
data”. In the white-collar world,
an array of companies are selling
software that enables employers
to monitor what workers do on
their computers. Time Doctor,
for instance, will take regular
screenshots of each employee’s
screen, measure their breaks and
send nudges if they stray on to
nonwork related sites. Supervisors
are given dashboards that show
“who’s a superstar and who’s
slacking off”.
9. But you don’t have to be a slacker
to recoil at the idea of constant
monitoring. Humans are hard-wired
to feel uncomfortable being watched
all the time, especially when under
pressure to meet stretching targets.
“It makes me afraid, physically
Mohamed, an Amazon warehouse
worker, told researchers at the Open
Markets Institute of the monitoring
at work.
10. A body of research suggests
jobs that combine high demands
(concentration requirements,
workload, time pressure) and
low control (discretion to make
decisions and schedule one’s own
work) are ruinous for human health.
Our metabolic, cardiovascular and
neuroendocrine systems produce
short-term responses to stressful
situations, but when the stress is
chronic, it can damage our bodies
or tempt us to self-medicate. One
study in the US, published last year,
found that people in high-demand
jobs with low control were more
likely to die than people in high-
demand jobs with high control.
11. Workplace surveillance should be
subject to regulatory oversight and
ideally collective bargaining, since
individuals will be better placed
to negotiate the details en masse.
It would be a dispiriting irony if
technology brought in to protect our
health in a pandemic made us sicker
in the end.
Sarah O’Connor, 11 January 2021

3. Understanding the article

a. In pairs, read the statements below and decide if they are True (T)
or False (F) according to the text. Correct the false statements.
1. Amazon has been creating software that can be used to monitor staff
and ensure that they comply with break time allocations. T/F
2. Some companies have been using monitoring equipment on their as-
sembly lines to speed up productivity. T/F

68
 UNIT 10. WATCHING YOUR WORKERS

3. Technology could be used to help to prove that the majority of work-

places are already free of Covid-19. T/F
4. Employers could be held accountable for the spread of Covid-19, with
possible implications for profits. T/F
5. For businesses whose staff work in offices, there is a range of software
that allows employers to monitor what employees do on their comput-
ers. T/F
6. Workers don’t feel comfortable being watched and this has made them
feel anxious and exhausted. T/F
7. Jobs that combine high demands and high control are often ruinous for
human health. T/F
8. Regulatory oversight of workplace surveillance is necessary for indi-
vidual workers to be in a better position to negotiate the details with
their employers. T/F

4. Business language – compound nouns and phrases

a. Match the words to make compound nouns or phrases from the ar-
ticle. Then check your answers in the article.
1. key a. place
2. social b. hats
3. slacking c. metrics
4. work d. sight
5. screen e. off
6. work f. shots
7. over g. load
8. hard h. distancing

b. Write the compound nouns and phrases next to the definitions.

1. hats that workers on building sites wear to protect their heads
____________
2. measures that can help to slow the spread of an infectious disease by
avoiding close contact between people ____________
3. photographs or printed pages showing what appears on a computer
screen ___________
4. the job of checking that a process or system is working well
_____________
5. a group of numbers giving the most important information about
a particular feature of a piece of hardware or software ____________

69
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

6. slowing down and doing something with less energy as before

___________
7. the place where you work _______________
8. the amount of work that a person or organization has to do
______________

c. Choose three compound nouns or phrases and write a sentence about

your own job or that of a family member.

5. Business Language – hyphenated compound adjectives

a. Complete these sentences with hyphenated compound adjectives
from the article.
1. The pandemic has caused the economy to crash, with the retail,
leisure and tourism industries worst hit, while __________workers
have been less affected as businesses have continued to function
in a virtual environment. (work done in offices rather than physical
work, section 8)
2. Fear of rejection is __________in everyone and we all want to fit in
with the team, which may go some way to explain why workers have
pushed themselves to deliver top-quality work even during these most
challenging of times. (behaviour that is caused by your genes and the
way your brain is made, rather than learnt from experience, section 9)
3. We believe that the recession will improve over the next few years, but
businesses are likely to struggle in the __________and should revisit
their sales forecasts. (lasting for a short period of time, section 10)

6. Discussion questions
a. Read and discuss the questions with your group.
• Which method of surveillance staff do you think will be the most
commercially successful? Why?
• How could the added surveillance negatively impact on the employer
and employee relationship? In what ways could it suffer?
• Is improved health and safety at work worth increased surveillance?
Why/Why not?

7. Wider business theme – pitching an innovative idea

a. You have the task of pitching an idea for a new surveillance tool
that can be used to monitor bus driver and passenger interactions. The
monitoring tool’s primary aim is to reduce crime and protect drivers from
abusive passengers.

70
 UNIT 10. WATCHING YOUR WORKERS

• Decide the different functionality that the tool will need and the technology
that will make this possible.
• Consider the position of the driver, passenger and any possible screens
or barriers between them, as this may influence your monitoring tool’s
design.
• If you need some inspiration, use the internet to research existing
technology aimed at protecting people and increasing personal security.
• Create a pitch plan: practice describing what your surveillance tool is,
what is does, why it is needed and why businesses should buy it.

b. Pitch your surveillance product to the class. Invite them to ask

questions about it and answer as best you can.

71
 Unit 11. COFFEE SHOPS TAKE A HIT IN SILICON VALLEY

1.Warmer
a. Look at the pictures of the two meetings. In pairs, discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of each of these types of meetings.

2. Key words and expressions

a. Find the words and phrases in the article that match the definitions.
Use the paragraph numbers to help you.
1. in bad condition and likely to fall down (1) _________________
2. people who invest money in new businesses that may or may not be
successful (2) _________________
3. more modern and fashionable (2) _________________
4. the fact of finding pleasant or useful things by chance (3)
_________________
5. a negative way to describe people interested in technical or scientific
subjects (5) _________________
6. the noise of a lot of people talking at the same time, especially when
angry or excited (5) _________________
7. existing or present around you (5) _________________
8. a place where someone likes to go often (6) _________________
9. without much activity or reaction (7) _________________
10. better or more important than anyone or anything else in a particular
activity (8) __________________
11. somewhere that is seen as the centre of a particular activity (9)
______________
12. an occasion when everyone leaves a place at the same time (12)
______________

72

What the death of coffee shops tells us about Silicon Valley
The tech community needs physical places to meet, program, pitch, make
deals and brainstorm
1. The Creamery never had particularly
good coffee. What it did have was
a perfect location at one of the
technology industry’s most valuable
intersections. The ramshackle café
was in the start-up friendly SoMa
district of San Francisco, across the
street from the Caltrain station that
ran commuters all the way down to
San Jose at the southernmost tip of
Silicon Valley.
2. That made it a favourite spot for
venture capitalists visiting from Sand
Hill Road who did not wish to waste
precious time going too far into
Soma to meet prospective investors.
Founded in 2008, the café soon
became a San Francisco institution,
even as hipper coffee chains, such
as Philz, Blue Bottle and Sightglass,
expanded across the city.
3. The Creamery brought a serendipity
to offline social networking that no
app has ever matched. But no more:
last month, the Creamery closed for
good.
4. Many hospitality businesses across
the world have fallen victim to the
pandemic. In the UK, for instance,
sandwich chain Pret A Manger is
closing 30 branches. But Silicon
Valley’s coffee shops are more
than just caffeine stops – they are
venues for programming, pitching,
dealmaking and brainstorming.
5. That these conversations could be
so easily overheard seemed strange
73
UNIT 11. COFFEE SHOPS TAKE A HIT IN SILICON VALLEY
to me when I first moved there, and
it can be irritating for residents who
don’t work in tech to be constantly
surrounded by a nerdy hubbub. For
me at least, over the years, it became
a useful form of ambient awareness
of the industry’s latest obsessions.
6. It is especially difficult to watch
independent San Francisco outfits
such as the Creamery disappear
when there is so much money
surrounding them. Red Rock Coffee
in Mountain View is another Silicon
Valley entrepreneur hang-out, as
well as playing host to weekly open
mic nights and the Knit Wit knitting
club.
7. The founders of WhatsApp worked
from there in the chat app’s early
years; I bumped into them at the
same low-key coffee bar soon after
they sold the company to Facebook
for $19bn. In July, Red Rock said
it would close if it could not raise
$300,000.
8. Mountain View is home to the
headquarters of Google, LinkedIn
and Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent
accelerator programme Y Combinator,
as well as the innovators of previous
decades such as Silicon Graphics
and General Magic. Family homes
there typically sell for more than
$2m. Yet after a month and a half on
GoFundMe, at the time of writing
Red Rock was still $200,000 short
of its target.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
9. If the tech community is letting
hubs such as the Creamery and
Red Rock die, maybe VCs just
want fancier coffee these days.
But I fear a deeper problem may
be emerging.
10. Silicon Valley thrust social media
and video conferencing on an
unsuspecting world and in the past
six months we have never been
more grateful. Yet the cradle of
the internet has always thrived on
physical networking. Nowhere
has been able to match the Bay
Area’s density of talent, capital and
ambition.
11. Now, the opportunities for
serendipity – so vital for nourishing
the community – seem to be
diminishing, in no small part due
to the rapid shift to remote working
that the tech industry has embraced:
Facebook, Twitter and others have
all said they will allow people
to work from anywhere after the
pandemic recedes.
12. Talk of a mass exodus from San
Francisco feels overdone. The city’s
overheated housing market could
see rents plunge 25 per cent and still
feel expensive. Yet moves towards
long-term remote working point to
a less romantic future than upping
sticks to Lake Tahoe: techies stuck
3. Understanding the article
a. In pairs, read what the author mentions about the topics below and
identify if the author expresses a fact (F) or an opinion (O). The paragraph
numbers have been given to help you.
1. Customers of The Creamery (2) _________________
2. Non-tech customers in The Creamery (5) _________________
74
in their tiny apartments, staring at
Zoom all day simply to avoid the
two-hour commute.
13. If tech staff do become more
widely distributed, that would
only reflect where most of the
industry’s best ideas are coming
from these days. Some of the
most influential tech companies
today are not based in the Valley:
TikTok is Chinese, with its US
base in Los Angeles. Shopify, the
ecommerce platform that inspired
several start-up ideas in the latest
Y Combinator batch, is in Ottawa,
Canada. The most important new
internet markets – such as India,
Indonesia and Nigeria – are far
beyond the horizon of closeted US
West Coasters.
14. Silicon Valley’s monopoly on ideas
has been ebbing away for some
time. Without the right physical
places to meet unexpected people
and exchange new notions, that
trickle could become a flood.
While Big Tech races to build an
interconnected 3D virtual world, it
must remember the value of IRL.
Losing community hubs such as the
Creamery risks undermining what
has made the Valley so special for
the past 50 years.
Tim Bradshaw, September 8 2020
 UNIT 11. COFFEE SHOPS TAKE A HIT IN SILICON VALLEY

3. The Creamery’s disappearance (6) _________________

4. The founders of WhatsApp (7) _________________
5. The use of social media and video conferencing in 2020 (10)
_________________
6. Chance meetings (11) _________________
7. Decisions by Facebook and Twitter (11) _________________
8. The San Francisco housing market (12) _________________

4. Business language – first and second conditionals

a. Write conditional sentences about the article using the information
given.
1. Red Rock / not raise / money / have to shut down
________________________________________________________________
2.Tech workers / not meet in real life / fewer opportunities / meet people
unexpectedly
________________________________________________________________
3. Tech companies / give money / help Red Rock / able to stay open
________________________________________________________________
4. Rent drop / San Francisco / 25 per cent / still be expensive
________________________________________________________________
5. No physical places / tech workers / meet unexpected people / Silicon
Valley / become less important / tech world
________________________________________________________________

b. Write conditional sentences about businesses affected by the

pandemic in your area. You could consider the implications on the following:
customers, staff, the wider community and networking opportunities, the
local economy.

5. Business language – prepositions

a. Complete the phrase with the correct preposition. Use the definitions
to help you.
1. up sticks _________________ a place = to leave one place for another
2. thrive ____________________ doing = to become successful or
happy in a particular situation, especially one that other people would
not enjoy
3. fall victim ________________ something = become a victim of a plan
4. thrust something _________________ someone = to force someone to
do or accept something
5. ebb _________________ = to gradually become smaller or less

75
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

b. Complete the sentences with the correct phrase from activity a. You
will need to modify some of the expressions to the correct tense.
1. My uncle ____________ credit card fraud last year. He lost thousands
of pounds.
2. The popularity of coffee shops in our area is gradually ____________.
3. She was not suited to life in the country. She clearly _____________
living in a busy city.
4. It’s not fair to _____________ such major responsibility ___________
a junior team member.
5. My parents _________________ the Lake District when they retired.

c. Choose three of the phrases above. Use them to write three sentences
about the effect that the coronavirus pandemic has had on business in your
local area.

6. Discussion questions
How does the author use the underlined adjectives in the following
excerpts to express his opinions? Do you like his choice of language?
‘Talk of a mass exodus from San Francisco feels overdone. The city’s
overheated housing market could see rents plunge 25 per cent and still feel
expensive.’

‘… it can be irritating for residents who don’t work in tech to be constantly

surrounded by a nerdy hubbub. For me at least, over the years, it became a useful
form of ambient awareness of the industry’s latest obsessions.’

Do you think Silicon Valley’s large tech companies have a duty to save
the coffee shops that hosted their meetings. Why? Why not?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Silicon Valley losing its
monopoly on technological innovation?

How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your working life? If

you had to work from home, what impact did this have on you and your
relationship with your work colleagues?

76
 UNIT 11. COFFEE SHOPS TAKE A HIT IN SILICON VALLEY

7. Wider business theme – Creative meetings

a. Get into groups of three or four. You’re going to hold a meeting.
However, this is no ordinary meeting! Your teacher will give you a meeting
scenario.
In the meeting, you should discuss:
• ideas for how to make meetings more creative
• your opinions on your meeting scenario

b. Present your ideas and opinions to the class. Listen to each of the
other groups and take notes.

c. Write a short article (200–300 words) about creative meetings.

Include:
• advantages and disadvantages of different meeting scenarios
• your opinion on your own experience of a new meeting scenario

77
 Unit 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAIN
WITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS

1. Warmer
a. Discuss in groups.
Supply chains involve every aspect of production management, beginning
with the first point of product manufacture and running through to the end point
of the customer. Which types of businesses are likely to have many contributors
in their supply chains, and who might these contributors be? Which businesses
might have a very limited number of contributors and why?

2. Key words
a. Read the definitions and match them with words found in the article.
Paragraph numbers are given to you to help.
1. a small and sudden problem, especially with technology such as a
computer (1) _____________________
2. for a limited period of time (3) _____________________
3. not very important, serious, or valuable (3) _____________________
4. experts in their field, especially ones who advise a government
department, business, or ganization (5) _____________________
5. substances put into the body, usually by injection, to provide protection
against a disease (5) _____________________
6. to stop working or behaving correctly (5; two words)
___________________
7. gradually reduced the strength or importance of something
___________________
8. people, time or money that could be used more effectively in an
organization (6) _____________________
9. made to appear bigger than it really is (8) _________________
10. improving a business, organization, process etc. by making it more
modern or simple (9) _____________________
11. best or most favourable option (9) _________________
12. a public record of transactions made in bitcoin, or another cryptocurrency,
in chronological order (12) _______________________

b. Complete the text with the key words. Two of the words are not
needed.
The recent delay in supplying 1 __________ has 2 __________ the
relationship between elderly patients and their doctors in the village of
Goodworth Clatford. This demographic is unable to leave the house easily,

78
 UNIT 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAINWITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS

so they rely doctors’ surgeries 3 __________ the process and visiting them
at home. This should be as simple as a doctor or nurse hopping in a taxi
and heading over to the patient’s house to administer an injection. However,
several problems have arisen along the way that have brought this function to
a grinding halt.

Firstly, a 4 ________________________with the computer system

resulted in many patients’ names being missed from the list for the first vaccine
round. Once the problem had been rectified, surgeries found deliveries of
more vaccines were 5 ____________________delayed, with planes bringing
supplies from the US unable to take off due to a storm. While some patients
were understanding, others felt the delays were 6 ______________________
and that greater supply should have been arranged long before the storm hit.

To top things off, traffic lights on the main road leading into the village
had gone 7 ___________________,showing red or amber when they should have
been green. Traffic cameras have been well-establishedin the village since a major
bus accident, and taxis ferrying nurses were reluctant to drive on for fear
of unfair fines. To pick up the 8 _________________, many nurses attempted
to walk the rest of the way, but limited internet connection to their phones meant
that many were walking around with no map.

Goodworth Clatford has not been the only place in the UK affected by
vaccine hold-ups. Problems in the village simply 9 ____________________
a wider problem with supply. Vaccines are certainly the most concerning
aspect of delays, but many industries have been rocked by similar issues. The
construction industry, fitness equipment, and home technology industries have
all been impacted.
10 _______________________ have informed the government that if
supply is not increased across the economic landscape quickly, there could be
lasting issues when the country is already facing the most testing situation in its
history.

79
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
‘Just in time’ planning has to give way to ‘just in case’
‘We have all become accustomed to relying on ultra-complex supply chains
we do not understand’
1. A few weeks ago I experienced
a problem that would make any
author wince: on the very day that
I published my book, Amazon
suffered a supply-chain glitch
and thousands of copies went
missing. That sparked a scramble
to work out where in cyberspace
they were – or, more accurately,
in which warehouse they were
sitting. Meanwhile the website
suggested that my book had not
been published at all.
2. Thankfully, the hiccup was resolved
in a couple of days. But the episode
illustrates a much bigger point: in
the 21st century we have all become
accustomed to relying on ultra-
complex supply chains we do not
understand and tend to trust these
will always work.
3. Yet in the past year many of these
supply chains have temporarily
frozen, or broken down, and remain
troubled, even today. Sometimes the
consequences seem trivial: when I
recently ordered a dishwasher, for
example, the website promised to
deliver it within a week, which has
now been amended to months.
4. Other glitches are more serious:
Goldman Sachs estimates that a
shortage of computer chips will
hit 169 industries this year, cutting
American growth by up to 1 per
cent. And doctors have warned in
The BMJ that glitches in the medical
80
supply chain affect far more than
just personal protective equipment
and even “endanger patients”.
5. Either way, the fact that these glitches
keep emerging is surprising. After
all, economists have warned for
months that demand for goods and
services across the economy would
explode if (or when) vaccines were
rolled out. Meanwhile, tech giants
also know us (and thus our potential
ordering habits) intimately. Yet a
sudden localized shock, such as a
temporary blockage of the Suez
Canal, causes spasms. And the
Covid-19 pandemic and recovery
have made these systems go equally
haywire.
6. Why? Part of the problem is
obvious: the pandemic caused
factories to shut down. However,
another problem is that western
manufacturers and retailers have
become so addicted to chasing
efficiency and price reductions that
they have eroded any buffers or
spare inventories in the system to
absorb shock. Or as Nada Sanders,
a supply chain professor, notes in a
recent essay on The Conversation
platform, “as customers demand
ever cheaper products delivered
faster, supply chains have given up
every bit of slack.”
7. There is another, less obvious,
problem: risk management
systems that seem sensible for
 UNIT 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAINWITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS
individuals can be bad for the
system as a whole. We saw one
version of this problem play out
in the 2008 financial crisis when
numerous different institutions
had each decided to insure
themselves against the risk of
losses in their complex credit
products. That was sensible on
an individual level. But many of
these institutions chose to use the
same groups, concentrating their
risks thanks to the opacity of the
collective transactions. Risk was
ultimately magnified.
8. Something similar is happening
with supply chains now: individual
companies have been streamlining
them in a way that seemed
optimal – and safe – for each. But
because they have often followed
the same strategy, activity has
been concentrated on nodes that
can falter or fail. It seems sensible
that computer-chip production is
concentrated in Taiwan, which
develops economies of scale and
clusters of expertise, and so benefits
its customers. But it is dangerous
for the system as a whole.
9. Rigid thinking makes the problem
worse. Take the British dairy
industry, which has been studied
by Richard Bruce, a lecturer in
supply chain accounting and
finance at Sheffield university.
This is organised into three
separate supply chains, around
hospitality, liquid milk and
processed products. Although
there was a desperate need for co-
81
ordination when Covid first hit,
it was initially difficult, not least
because antitrust rules prevented
companies from sharing data.
10. The good news, says Bruce, at least
for British milk, is that in 2020 a
quasi government body stepped in
to enforce a more holistic approach
to milk supply chains. Better still,
the Covid problems have prompted
“lots of business and governments
to rethink supply chains” and not
just for milk.
11. Management consultants, for
example, are promoting the idea
of supply chain “resilience” in the
face of shocks, not just “efficiency”.
A “just-in-case” philosophy of
contingency planning is edging
out the “just-in-time” mantra.
And American and European
governments are trying to create
more centralised supply chain
databases, particularly for things
such as medical supplies. Bottom-
up digital innovations, such as
blockchain, may also help promote
more co-ordination.
12. But the bad news is that it’s never
easy to instil a mindset shift, least
of all in a world where company
executives are prone to tunnel vision
and where the cost and consequences
of excessively “efficient” global
supply chains are often hidden in
plain sight from consumers and
investors. Which, ironically, is a key
theme of my (temporarily) missing
books. The literary gods must have
a sense of schadenfreude.
Gillian Tett, 7 July 2021.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

3. Understanding the article

a. Are these statements True or False according to the article? Correct
the false statements.
1. The author of the article was concerned when Amazon suffered a
supply-chain glitch and forgot to publish her books.
2. Modern life has encouraged us to rely on complex supply chains that
we don’t understand and trust will work without problems.
3. The author ordered a washing machine – it was supposed to arrive in a
few months, but it arrived four weeks ahead of schedule.
4. Problems with the medical supply chain are limited, as they affect the
supply of personal protective equipment only.
5. The pandemic has caused factories to close down, while manufacturers
and retailers have removed buffers in favour of sales and efficiency.
6. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, institutions insured themselves
against the risk of losses in their complex credit products.
7. Taiwan is a hub for computer chip production and a combination
of economies of scale and clusters of expertise bring benefits for
customers.
8. The British dairy industry is organised into three different supply
chains: liquid milk, processed products, and the hospitality sector.
9. The pandemic has made governments rethink supply chains and realise
that they need to add in several new stages.
10. The thematic focus of the author’s book is about excessively efficient
supply chains that come with costs and consequences.

4.Business language
a. The prefix en- means to cause or to put into. The prefix ultra- means
very or to exceed. Match the words containing these prefixes with their
synonyms.
Words with prefixes Synonyms
ultra-fast jeopardise
endanger convoluted
enforce accelerated
ultra-complex effectuate

b. Read and sentences and match the words with prefixes form part a.
with the sentence that best relates to them.
1. Staff were not complying by the rules, so it was time to introduce
monitoring tools that ensured they turned up for meetings on time.
___________________

82
 UNIT 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAINWITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS

2. Electric car manufacturers are racing to demonstrate that they can

develop a vehicle that outruns even the speediest petrol model.
____________________
3. If we continue to send carers into care homes without vaccinations or
adequate protection equipment, we are going to continuously expose
older people to this lethal pathogen. ___________________
4. Some interviews involve a multi-stage process that includes theoretical
roleplay and scenarioassessment, advanced written tasks and questions
posed by a large panel of interviewers. ___________________

c. Rewrite the sentences using the ultra- and en- words without changing
their meaning.

5.Business language
a. Prepositions of and in are frequently used in common phrases. Use
the words in the wordpool to complete the phrases below.
just economies case expertise
time clusters just scale

_______________ of _______________

_______________ in _______________

_______________of _______________

_______________in _______________

b. Complete the sentences using the of and in phrases.

1. Lack of communication between teams often results in
________________ promotion and while engagement across social
media channels might be sufficient, it certainly won’t deliver the wow!
factor in an analytics review.
2. For a limited time only, we are offering our super-sized box of
luxury chocolates for just £14.99 – because celebrations are
all about unexpected guests, and we can all benefit from the
________________ approach!
3. Small organisations working with marginalised groups have excellent
knowledge on the best way to approach these demographics, and their
value as _____________________ cannot be understated.

83
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

4. They sought out a new supplier in Europe, reaping the dual benefits
of reduced production and courier costs, allowing them to build
_____________________through a reduced product price and
a greater customer base.

6. Discussion questions
a. Discuss these questions.
• The dairy, medical, and technology supply chains have all been rocked
by the pandemic. Which of these could have the biggest impact on and
create the biggest problems for society?
• Efficient processes enable manufacturers and retailers to save on pro-
duction and this saving of costs always benefits the customer with re-
duced sales prices. Do you agree with this statement? Why/Why not?
• The author of the article suggests that company executives have ‘tunnel
vision’ (the tendency to concentrate on one goal or aspect of something
without considering anything else) when it comes to supply chains. What
other aspects of business might suffer from business executives having
tunnel vision?

7. Wider business theme – Improving efficiency

Work within your group to discuss the description for A or B.

A: You are staff at a home improvements shop. One of your key products
is wooden furniture. You are looking for ways to simplify the supply chain. This
means removing contributions that are not necessary and finding ways to replace
necessary suppliers with ones that could supply more than one aspect of the
chain.

Look at the diagram below to see the current supply chain, beginning with
the first point of manufacture at the top and ending with the customer at the
bottom. Nominate one person from your group to write the new supply chain and
any notes on to the paper supplied by your teacher.

84
 UNIT 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAINWITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS

B: You are staff at a home improvements shop. One of your key products
is bedding sets. Bedding sets include a bed sheet that goes on the mattress and
covers for the duvet and pillows. You are looking for ways to simplify the bedding
set supply chain. This means removing contributions that are not necessary and
finding ways to replace necessary suppliers with ones that could supply more
than one aspect of the chain.

85
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Look at the diagrams below to see the current supply chain, beginning
with the first point of manufacture at the top and ending with the customer at the
bottom. Nominate one person from your group to write the new supply chain and
any notes on to the paper supplied by your teacher.

86
 Unit 13. QUICK LOANS FOR MEXICAN BUSINESSES

1. Warmer
Many sectors of the economy in most countries around the world have
been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Put these sectors in order from 1 (most likely to have been affected) to 6
(least likely to have been affected).

_______________ banking and financial services

_______________ travel and tourism
_______________ hospitality and leisure
_______________ construction
_______________ online retail
_______________ manufacturing

2. Key words and expressions

Find the words or phrases in the article that match the definitions below.
Use the paragraph numbers to help you.
1. able to pay the money that you owe (1) __________________
2. to be unable to operate because the company has lost all its money (2
words) (3) ___________________
3. to help someone get to the end of a difficult period, especially by
giving them money until they can earn some money (2 words) (3)
_____________________
4. raising money for a business by selling shares (two words) (7)
_____________________
5. a difficult period (2 words) (7) _____________________________
6. a sudden increase in something such as price, value or interest (8)
_____________________
7. designed and produced for particular customers (8)
_____________________
8. keep something strongly under control (4 words) (8)
_____________________
9. to increase quickly to a high level (9) _____________________
10. property that you agree to give to a bank if you fail to repay money
that you have borrowed (9) ______________________
11. to become smaller (10) __________________________
12. a formal agreement for someone to sell a company’s products or
services in a particular place in exchange for a payment or a share of
the profits (11) ___________________

87
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
13. money or property that a business can sell in order to pay money that
it owes (12) ______________________
14. a way of raising money by asking a lot of people to each contribute a
small amount of money (13) ____________________
Fintech offers lifeline for crisis-hit Mexican businesses
1. Gabriel Méndez is resigned to
having to close his language school
as coronavirus slashes demand
for English lessons. The Mexican
entrepreneur also runs a small pizza
business, which he is struggling to
keep afloat, but he says he cannot
access government help because
he is not on an official social
programmes registry.
2. So he is looking to Konfío, a
Mexican fintech start-up, whose
success at lending modest sums in
minutes has catapulted it into the
top 50 fastest-growing companies
in the Americas, according to an
FT ranking of 500 businesses from
across the continent, compiled by
Statista, a research company.
3. A client of the online lender for more
than a year, Mr Méndez initially
borrowed 80,000 pesos ($3,320),
repaid it and then borrowed another
120,000 pesos. “The school’s going
to go bust, I’m sure of that... But I
could ask to refinance the loan to
save the pizza business,” he says.
That would allow him to spread out
the repayments to tide him over in
the coming months.
4. Between choosing to borrow from
Konfío or a bank, Mr Méndez,
who lives in Pánuco in the south-
eastern state of Veracruz, says there
88
is no contest. He reckons he will
pay 24,000 pesos in interest on his
Konfío loan of 120,000 pesos. By
contrast, a 50,000 peso bank loan
he had taken out doubled with the
interest payments, he says.
5. Konfío ̶ a play on the Spanish word
for trust – has become a rising star
in the booming Mexican fintech
sector and has found itself perfectly
placed for the pandemic.
6. “Timing has helped us because
we had just closed a financing
round,” says chief executive David
Arana, 35, who founded Konfío
in 2013. In December last year,
before Covid-19 reached Mexico,
the company had closed a $100m
funding round led by Japan’s
SoftBank.
7. The company, which began
operations in January 2014, has
raised more than $400m in debt and
equity financing, says Mr Arana,
an MIT maths graduate. “If we’re
able to work with clients and help
them get through this rough patch,
customers will come back... there are
going to be very good opportunities
once this is over.”
8. Konfío’s website has seen a 20
per cent surge in visits since
the pandemic hit. The company
estimates 45 per cent of its

customers will need some kind of
flexibility on their loan terms and it
is working with clients on bespoke
plans to defer repayments. This,
the company believes, will keep a
lid on non-performing loans, which
stand at 4.95 per cent.
9. The lender has already seen
electric compound annual growth
of 186 per cent between 2015 and
2018; over the period, revenue
soared to more than $12m from
$629,000, according to the FT
ranking. Konfío boasts that it can
approve a loan in seven minutes
with no collateral, making it a hit
with small businesses, which can
struggle to secure financing in a
country where less than 50 per cent
of people have a bank account.
Konfío’s average loan size is now
some $25,000 with an average
interest rate of 28 per cent.
10. Mexico’s economy is forecast to
contract as much as 12 per cent
this year due to the coronavirus.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel
López Obrador has refused to take
on debt to fund a major stimulus
package but is offering 3m cheap
loans for small businesses, with an
interest rate of 6 per cent. Officials
say the government is also making
loans available to companies not on
the registry of recipients of social
programmes, but they are micro
loans only.
11. For other Konfío clients, like Joan
Cordoves, the government credits
are too small – he has borrowed
2.5m pesos from Konfío for his
89
UNIT 13. QUICK LOANS FOR MEXICAN BUSINESSES
franchise of the Dinner in the Sky
experience, in which diners are
hoisted 45 metres into the air on
a crane. But with the restaurant
closed since March 18, he needs
to negotiate extra time for
repayments.
12. “The key in the current crisis is
to have liquidity,” says Konfío’s
website. Fortunately, that has
hitherto been flooding into Mexico’s
tech sector.
13. Enrico Robles, chief financial
officer and intelligence director
at Endeavor México, which helps
entrepreneurs scale their start-ups,
says 2019 was a “historic year for
Mexico” accounting for half of
the $1.6bn raised for tech ventures
in the past decade. Of Mexico’s
nearly 400 fintechs, a third are in
crowdfunding, digital banking and
lending, he adds.
14. “In 2019, fintech was the top
sector by deals and dollars, a trend
that has been growing for at least
the past three years,” says Julie
Ruvolo, director of venture capital
at the Association for Private
Capital Investment in Latin
America. The country’s smaller
businesses, however, may have to
wait before they feel the benefit of
these flows.
15. “If small firms were underserved in
the past, for a while they’re going
to be even more underserved,”
Konfío’s Mr Arana says. “This
[pandemic] just makes our mission
much more necessary.”
Jude Webber, 12 May 2020.
A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

3.Understanding the article

Choose the best answer according to the text.
1. Why will Gabriel Méndez have to close his language school?
a. He is struggling to keep his pizza business afloat.
b. Demand for English lessons has fallen as a result of the coronavirus
pandemic.
c. Government help is not available for language schools.
2. What does Konfío do?
a. It lends large amounts of money to global companies.
b. It lends relatively small amounts of money very quickly.
c. It lends money exclusively to start-up businesses.
3. What is the advantage for Mr Méndez in borrowing money from Konfío
rather than a bank?
a. He can spread out the repayments over a number of years.
b. He can get a much larger loan from Konfío than he could get from a bank.
c. The interest rate is much lower than it would be with a bank loan.
4. Why has Konfío found itself perfectly placed for the pandemic?
a. Konfío had just secured money for its operations when the pandemic
started.
b. Konfío is a rising star in the Mexican fintech sector.
c. Konfío is able to raise money from financing debt.
5. Why is Konfío popular with small businesses?
a. Fewer than 50 per cent of people in Mexico have a bank account.
b. Konfío does not require collateral and can approve a loan in seven
minutes.
c. Konfío has seen a 20% surge in visits to its website since the pandemic
began.
6. How do Konfío’s loans compare with Mexican government credits?
a. Konfío’s loans can be much bigger.
b. Konfío’s loans have a lower interest rate.
c. Konfío’s loans are available online.
4. Business language – collocations
Match the words in the left-hand column with those in the right-hand
column to make expressions from the text.
1. keep a. growth
2. refinance b. capital
3. annual c. banking
4. stimulus d. afloat
5. digital e. package
6. venture f. a loan

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5. Business language – word building

Complete the sentences using the correct form of the word in parentheses
given at the end of each sentence
1. Some borrowers need to spread out _______________ over a number
of months. [REPAY]
2. Many customers require _______________ on their loan terms.
[FLEXIBLE]
3. Government loans are also available to companies which are not
_______________of social programmes. [RECEIVE]
4. Konfío’s chief executive believes small firms will be even more
_______________ in the future. [SERVE]
5. Fintechs offer lower interest rates to small businesses that were once
____________________ to paying the higher bank interest rates.
[RESIGN]
6. Konfío’s _______________ loans currently stand at 4.95%.
[PERFORM]

6. Business language – verbs

Match the verbs from the text with their meanings.
1. catapult a. to experience a period of great success
2. slash b. to postpone
3. boom c. to reduce by a large amount
4. struggle d. to arrive in great numbers or large amounts
5. defer e. to suddenly put into an important position
6. food in f. to try hard to do something that you find very difficult

7. Discussion questions
• Why do you think Konfío has been so successful?
• What is the best solution for a company to avoid going bust in a period
of crisis?
• Apart from taking out a loan, what other ways can a company raise
capital?
• What are the arguments for and against governments offering financial
assistance to companies during crisis situations such as the coronavirus
pandemic?

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8. Wider business theme – financing product development

1) You are a member of a small group whose task is to advise your
company on how to diversify its operations during a pandemic. Consider the
following:
• Which product or products could the company develop or sell that would
be successful in a pandemic situation?
• How long would it take to put this product or products on the market?
• How could the development and marketing of the products be financed?
• What financial terms would the company be able to accept in order to
access funding quickly?

2) Present your findings to the group.

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Unit 1. WHO NEEDS A DRIVER WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME?

2. Key words
1. arcade 7. assets
2. corporate 8. upholstery
3. niche 9. demand
4. fallout 10. operations
5. rebound 11. booming
6. contractors 12. councils
3. Understanding the article
1. False. About 50% of his clients were international business people who wanted
to have their footwear polished before attending meetings in London.
2. False. Many businesses do that is not only his. He specialises in shoe-shining.
3. True
4. False. The article tells us that 80% fewer people travelled on international
business from the UK.
5. False. At hotel conference in Berlin hotel group Accor said that 20 to 25%
international corporate travel could be lost.
6. True
7. False. They say that business travel is the sector that they expect to rebound
last.
8. True. Climate change concerns are also a contributing factor.
9. False. Covid wiped out the business and the company is now only doing a
quarter of its pre-pandemic level. However, this is not because the drivers had
Covid but because business travel was greatly reduced in general leading to a
lack of clients.
10. True. It has expanded into cleaning curtains and upholstery too.
11. True.
12. False. They have switched their focus and now provide accommodation for
healthcare workers, short-term residential stays and the homeless.
4. Business language
a.
1. buff up 2. dried up 3. built up 4. hunkered down 5. ride out 6. wiped out 7. picking
up 8. sell off 9. keep up with 10. put up 11. come back.
b.
1. wiped out 2. come back 3. sell off 4. picking up 5. built up 6. buff up 7. put up 8.
dried up 9. keep up with 10. hunkered down 11. ride out.

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Unit 2. ARTIFICIAL OR HUMAN INTELLIGENCE:

WHICH WILL DRIVE FUTURE INNOVATION?
2. Key words and expressions
1. veer 2. game plan 3. off-the-shelf 4. unicorn 5. poised 6. accelerate 7. hunch
8. deploy 9. balance sheet 10. augment 11. barrier 12. potential
3. Understanding the article
1. b 4. a
2. c 5. b
3. a 6. b
4. Business language – idioms
1. f 4. e
2. d 5. c
3. a 6. b
5. Business language – word building
1. innovation 2. recognition 3. development 4. option 5. inequality 6. boldness
7. drought 8. stability
6. Business language – expressions with prepositions
1. of 5. for
2. on 6. over
3. at 7. into
4. to 8. in

Unit 3. LAND INVESTMENT SUPPORTS PRODUCTIVITY

AND SUSTAINABILITY
2. Key words
1. portfolio 2. acres 3. ranches 4. ethical 5. reshape 6. yeoman 7. mitigate 8. regenerate
9. billionaire 10. sustainability 11. likewise 12. biodiversity
3. Understanding the text
1. F The Land Report has stated that Bill Gates is now the largest public land
owner in the US.
2. F Gates has amassed a huge collection of farmland that amounts to an area
slightly smaller than Hong Kong.
3. F In 2019, investment in arable land rose to a record high.
4. T
5. T
6. T
7. F Agricultural technology businesses can use new scientific techniques to
increase productivity and sustainability.
8. T
9. T

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10. F Political reform to agricultural subsidies in Britain is likely to lead to

an increased focus on using land to prioritize/support biodiversity and
environmental services / as much as crop production.
4. Business Language – Compound adjectives
a.
1. f
2. c
3. g
4. d
5. a
6. e
7. b
b.
1. third-richest
2. rapid-growing
3. desk-bound
4. carbon-intensive
5. so-called
6. already-changing
7. locked-down
5. Business Language – Portmanteaus
a. agritech; b. biodiversity
6. Business Language – Suffix -ability
a.
1. sustainability
2. suitability
3. profitability
4. charitability
5. capability
b. capable

Unit 4. DIGITAL DOCTORS ARE GOING GLOBAL

2. Key words
1. artificial intelligence 2. healthcare 3. apps 4. headquartered 5. leapfrog
6. rebranding 7. chatbot 8. triage 9. rudimentary 10. prescriptions 11. economies of scale
12. epidemiology
3. Understanding the article
1. False. Babylon began operating in Rwanda in 2016 under the brand Babyl and
it provides people with wider access to medical services.
2. True
3. True
4. False. Babyl has a long-term contract with the government and the local health
insurance system in Rwanda.

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5. False. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that online symptom

checkers lack proper function to support online appointments. / Academics at
the University of Sheffield found that younger and more educated people are
the primary users of online symptom checkers.
6. True
7. True
8. True
9. True
10. False. A good system will have a big impact, but a poor system will leave
people vulnerable.
4. Business Language – words and phrases for processes and actions
a. Key
1. scaling up 2. take-up 3. follow-up 4. co-authored 5. peer-reviewed 6. looking further
afield 7. picking up
b. Key
1. peer-reviewed 2. looking further afield 3. picking up 4. take-up 5. follow-up 6. co-
authored 7. scaling up
5. Business Language – words with prefixes over- and out
a. Key
1. overhype 2. outlive 3. outperform 4. overran

Unit 5. MEMES MOTIVATE PEOPLE TO ENGAGE AND ACT

2. Key words
a. Key
1. memes 2. bullying 3. narratives 4. distort 5. self-deprecation 6. ludicrous 7. horde
8. buzz 9. engenders 10. confines 11. durable 12. harnessed
b. Key
1. confines 2. horde 3. self-deprecation 4. buzz 5. memes 6. narratives 7. ludicrous
8. durable
Not needed: bullying, distorts, engenders, harnessed
3. Understanding the article
a. Key
1. False 6. False
2. True 7. True
3. False 8. True
4. True 9. True
5. False 10. False
4. Business Language
a. Key
1. b 5. d
2. e 6. g
3. a 7. c
4. f 8. h
b. cryptocurrencies

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5. Business Language
a. Key
1. memes 2. commentary 3. narratives 4. easily-digestible 5. captions 6. social media
7. pseudonymous
b. Key
1. pseudonymous 2. easily-digestible 3. narratives 4. social media 5 memes
6. captions

Unit 6. PUTTING PEOPLE ABOVE PROFITS

2. Key words and expressions
a. Key
1. rainforest 2. rigour 3. quarantine 4. lockdown 5. backlash 6. tweak 7. deadlines 8.
buckling 9. gig economy 10. algorithm 11. clapping 12. unprecedented
3. Understanding the text
a. Key
1. 7.
3. 8.
5. 10.
4. Business Language – Collocations
a. 1. working conditions 2. climate change 3. extreme circumstances 4. fall into [the]
trap 5. global warming 6. stripping [someone] of 7. time limits
b. 1. climate change / global warming 2. global warming / climate change 3. extreme
circumstances 4. working conditions 5. time limits 6. fall into [the] trap 7. stripping [him] of
5. Business Language – Vocabulary for industries
a.
Technology Financial Environmental Medical
algorithm climate change healthcare
central banker
automatons global warming
drone credit rainforest pandemic

Unit 7. CAN WE SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT WITH ECONOMICS?

2. Key words and expressions
a. 1. acronym 2. luminary 3. sequester 4. biodiversity 5. imperative 6. resilient 7.
tangible 8. guesstimated 9. polarizing 10. mitigation 11. stark 12. orthodoxies
3. Understanding the article
Key:
1. whales – specifically, how much CO2 they can sequester
2. the value of the world’s natural resources
3. They want activism to focus more on biodiversity and natural capital.

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A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

4. $600bn – $820bn
5. talking about ‘environmental protection’ rather than ‘climate change’
6. He thinks that people want to work together to prevent them rather than arguing
about the causes of climate change.
4. Business language – word pairs or phrases
a.
Key:
1.d 4. e
2. a 5. c
3. f 6. b
1. d 2. a 3. f 4. e 5. c 6. b

Key:
1. gross domestic product 2. number crunching 3. blame game 4. growth strategy
5. mission creep 6. international stage
5. Business Language – verbs commonly used in business
a. 1. forged 2. curbing 3. combats 4. championing 5. had sparked

Unit 8. AIR TRAVEL: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

2. Key words and expressions
a.
Key
1. fuselage 2. pioneer 3. stealth bomber 4. prototype 5. splaying 6. slanted
7. staggered 8. remote-controlled 9. scaled-down 10. aisle

3. Understanding the article

a.
Key:
1. two wings that join at a pointed nose
2. one designed by Igo Etrich in 1909, flying-wing bombers that were
unsuccessfully developed during the second world war, the B-2 stealth bomber
3. in Germany, in July 2020
4. gyms and bowling alleys
5. They won’t share arm rests with other people. The seats are staggered.
6. The plane’s centre of gravity was too far back so it didn’t fly steadily.
7. It uses 20% less fuel than most long-haul planes
8. Hydrogen
4. Business language – adjectives for describing change
a.
Key:
1. futuristic 2. stable 3. revolutionary 4. successful 5. maiden 6. correctable
7. advanced 8. personal 9. strategic 10. improved

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Unit 9. DISCRIMINATION DOMINATES THE MUSIC

AND INVESTMENT INDUSTRIES

2. Key words
Key:
1. sexism 2. disadvantaged 3. streaming 4. algorithms 5. embedded 6. loop 7. simulation
8. extrapolate 9. homogeneous 10. elevate 11. tweak 12. illuminate

3. Understanding the text

a.
2. 7.
3. 8.
5. 10.

4. Business Language
a.
Key
1.d 4. c
2. a 5. b
3. f 6. e
b.
computer scientist financier musician
data analysis hedge fund account event journalism
management
ethical hacking financial advice radio broadcasting
digital games venture capitalism festival production
development
medical robotics bank management musical theatre
development
website design personal wealth talent management
management
c.
Key: 1. C; 2. B; 3 A.

5. Business language
Key:
(a) founded
(b) co-produce
(c) co-designed
(d) create

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A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

Unit 10. WATCHING YOUR WORKERS

2. Key words
Key:
1. timing 2. scrutinizing 3. workspace 4. patent 5. dashboard 6. exhausted 7. workload
8. ruinous 9. chronic 10. dispiriting
3. Understanding the article
a.
1. False. Amazon has been creating software that can be used to monitor staff and
ensure they comply with social distancing rules.
2. True
3. False. Technology could be used to help to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in
workplaces, which are a major source of transmission.
4. False. Employees could be held accountable for the spread of Covi-19, with
possible implications for sick pay.
5. True
6. True
7. False. Jobs that combine high demands with low control are often ruinous for
human health.
8. True
4. Business Language – compound nouns and phrases
a.
Key:
1. c. / 2. h. / 3. e. / 4. a. or g. / 5. f. / 6. g. or a. / 7. d. / 8. b.
b.
Key:
1. hard hats 2. social distancing 3. screenshots 4. oversight 5. key metrics 6. slacking
off 7. workplace 8. workload
5. Business Language – hyphenated compound adjectives
a.
Key:
1. white-collar; 2. hard-wired; 3. short-term

Unit 11. COFFEE SHOPS TAKE A HIT IN SILICON VALLEY

2. Key words and expressions
a.
Key:
1. ramshackle 2. venture capitalist 3. hipper 4. serendipity 5. nerdy 6. hubbub
7. ambient 8. hang-out 9. low-key 10. pre-eminent 11. hub 12. mass exodus

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3. Understanding the article

a. Fact or opinion?
Key:
1. It was a favourite spot for venture capitalists. F
2. It can be irritating for them to hear the constant tech talk. O
3. It’s hard to witness when it is surrounded by so much money. O
4. In the early days, the team used to do work in Red Rock Coffee. F
5. They will allow their employees to work from anywhere after the pandemic
passes. F
6. Everyone has been grateful for the existence of social media and video
conferencing during the coronavirus pandemic. O
7. The shift to more remote working will further reduce the opportunities for
serendipity post pandemic. O
8. It is very expensive and would still feel expensive even if rents dropped by 25
per cent. O
4. Business language – first and second conditionals
a.
Key: Possible answers:
1. If Red Rock doesn’t raise enough money, it will have to shut down.
2. If tech workers can’t meet in real life, there will be fewer opportunities to meet
people unexpectedly.
3. If the tech companies gave money to help Red Rock, it would be able to stay
open.
4. Even if rents dropped in San Francisco by 25 per cent, it would still be expensive.
5. If there are no physical places for tech workers to meet unexpected people,
Silicon Valley could become less important in the tech world.
5. Business language – prepositions
a.
Key:
1. to; 2. on; 3. to; 4. on/upon; 5. away
b.
Key:
1. fell victim to 2. ebbing away 3. thrives on 4. thrust; on 5. upped sticks to

Unit 12. SUCCESS IS CERTAIN WITH SIMPLIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS

1. Warmer
Possible answers:
Many contributors
coffee shops: farmer, international courier, roaster, packager, domestic courier, coffee
shop, customer
car manufacturer: chassis designer, interior designer, materials suppliers (metal,
glass, plastic, electrics), safety tester, courier, car sales shop, customer
Minimal contributors
fruit and vegetable produce: farmer, international/ domestic courier, supermarket,
customer

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A. V. GUSLYAKOVA. BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+

2. Key words
a.
Key:
1. glitch 2. temporarily 3. trivial 4. economists 5. vaccines 6. go haywire 7. eroded
8. slack 9. magnified 10. streamlining 11. optimal 12. blockchain
b.
Key:
1. vaccines 2. eroded 3. streamlining 4. glitch 5. temporarily 6. trivial 7. haywire
8. slack 9. magnified 10. economists
Not used: optimal, blockchain
3. Understanding the article
Key:
1. False. The author of the article was concerned when Amazon suffered a supply-
chain glitch and her books went missing (in a warehouse / in cyberspace / in
cyberspace or, more accurately, in a warehouse).
2. True
3. False. The author ordered a dishwasher – it was supposed to arrive in a week
but was delayed by a few months.
4. False. Problems with the medical supply chain affect (far) more than just
personal protective equipment and even endanger patients / “endanger patients”.
5. False. The pandemic has caused factories to close down, while manufacturers
and retailers have removed buffers in favour of price reductions and efficiency.
6. True
7. True
8. True
9. False. The pandemic has made (businesses and) governments realize that they
need to rethink supply chains (and simplify them).
10. True
4. Business language
a.
Key:
ultra-fast – accelerated
endanger – jeopardize
enforce – effectuate
ultra-complex – convoluted
b.
Key:
1. enforce 2. ultra-fast 3. endanger 4. ultra-complex
5. Business language
a.
Key:
1. economies of scale / clusters of expertise

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2. just in time / just in case

3. clusters of expertise / economies of scale
4. just in case / just in time
b.
Key:
1. just in time
2. just in case
3. clusters of expertise
4. economies of scale

Unit 13. QUICK LOANS FOR MEXICAN BUSINESSES

2. Key words and expressions
Key:
1. afloat 2. go bust 3. tide (someone) over 4. equity financing 5. rough patch 6. surge
7. bespoke 8. keep a lid on 9. soar 10. collateral 11. contract 12. franchise 13. liquidity
14. crowdfunding
3. Understanding the article
Key:
1. b 2. b 3. c 4. a 5. b 6. a
4. Business language – collocations
Key:
1. d 2. f 3. a 4. e 5. c 6. b
5. Business language – word building
Key:
1. e 2. c 3. a 4. f 5. b 6. d

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 Учебное издание

Гуслякова Алла Викторовна

A. V. Guslyakova
BUSINESS NEWS READING C1+
А. В. Гуслякова
ДЕЛОВАЯ ПРЕССА – ЭКСТЕНСИВНОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ С1+
Учебное пособие

Оформление обложки Удовенко В. Г.

Компьютерная верстка Ковтун М. А., Дорожкина О. Н.

Московский педагогический государственный университет (МПГУ).

119435, Москва, ул. Малая Пироговская, д. 1, стр. 1.
Управление издательской деятельности
и инновационного проектирования (УИД и ИП) МПГУ.
119571, Москва, пр-т Вернадского, д. 88, оф. 446,
тел. +7 (499) 730-38-61, e-mail: izdat@mpgu.su.
Отпечатано с предоставленных электронных файлов
в ИП Курнешов Е.А., Москва,
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