Part 1
Read the text and answer questions 1–13.

Part 1

Read the text below and answer Questions 1—9.

Sunset Tours

BOOKINGS

A deposit of $150 each is payable on booking and the balance is payable 30 days prior to tour departure.

Feel free to contact us for further information:

Office Hours:    8 am—4 pm Monday—Friday Phone 5500 0881         Fax 5501 0881           Email: info@sunseftours.co

CONDITIONS

The cost is subject to a minimum of 25 passengers travelling and we reserve the right to cancel if this number is not reached. Should the tour be cancelled, you are entitled to a full refund. NB: The itinerary is given as a guide only and is subject to alteration if weather conditions are unfavourable or in any other unforeseen circumstances.

LUGGAGE

Each passenger is entitled to bring a cabin bag and one item of checked luggage no heavier than 20 kg as per industry requirements. Couples travelling together are requested to use individual suitcases. Your suitcase should be of a size and weight you yourself can manage as tour leaders may not be readily available to handle your luggage.

CANCELLATIONS & REFUNDS

It is obligatory that you have a travel insurance policy to cover sudden illness or accident. Even so an administration fee is retained for notice of more than 30 days prior to departure but, should cancellation occur through unforeseen circumstances not covered by travel insurance, 10% of the fare is retained for 15— 30 days’ notice, 20% for 4—14 days and 50% Is held for less than 4 days’ notice. There will be no refund for notice of one day or on the day of departure.

RESPONSIBILITY

Although every endeavour is made by Sunset Tours to ensure your holiday goes according to plan, we act purely as an agent for the various accommodation and other services provided. Sunset Tours shall not be liable for any accident, injury, delay, Irregularity, loss or damage caused by or arising out of the provision of or failure to provide any such service.

Read the text below and answer Questions 10—13.

Easy Listening

Broadcasting Association

                                                    26/7/11

You Are Invited…

Dear Listener

We wish to express our sincere thanks for your support during our last successful fund-raising endeavour.

Your annual donation makes it possible for us to improve the station in every way for your interest and pleasure.

We would like to extend to you an invitation to join us at the station on Wednesday, 16th August at 3.00 pm for afternoon tea and to discuss station programming. Your input will be a great help to us. It will enable us to continue programming to suit your requirements. Together we will be discussing future ideas for 5ZBG and whether frequent news broadcasts should be included in our agenda. There has also been a proposal to make the mainstay of our programming a talkback format. Any changes to programming would have to be finalised by September 1st.

We hope you can join us and we look forward to sharing time with you. If you are able to join us, please be kind enough to phone, and let us know. If you are unable to attend on this day, please phone and we will arrange a suitable date for you.

Yours sincerely,

Tobias Rank

Programming Coordinator

RSVP by 5/8/11

Part 2
Read the text and answer questions 14–26.

Part 2                          

Read the text below and answer Questions 14—22.

Setting up pay structures in your workplace:

When it comes to setting up a pay structure for your new business, there are two broad options to choose from: the internal equity method, or the market pricing method.

The internal equity method

The internal equity method of pay structuring involves creating a series of grades with each grade representing a different level of pay within the company. Employment positions are set within these grades depending on the rank of internal advancement the job represents.

A company determines how many grades it needs based on the number of employees and the variety of jobs in the organisation. The number of grades can be expanded at any point. As a result of their frequent use of hybrid positions, small businesses do not always benefit from pay grades.

Each grade should also be given a spread, so that employees can move within their grade as they progress within their current position. Creating a minimum and a maximum spread for the company is also recommended. There should be a 15 percent progression between grades. This is vital for ensuring that promotions incur meaningful pay increases and maintain incentives for the employee to rise within the company.

Market pricing method

An alternative to this more traditional, grid-based method of remuneration is what is called the market pricing approach. This is quickly becoming the dominant method of pricing jobs. This approach involves and employee’s position being compensated in relation to the market value of that job, not the level that specific position holds within the organisation.

Using the internal equity method, for example, the chief financial officer (CFO) will probably be in the top grade and remunerated higher than an information technology worker in that organisation. Under the market pricing method there is no guarantee of this. An information technology worker with a highly demanded skill-set may be paid much more than what the CFO earns.

Which is right for your business?

Only you can decide which pay method is right for your business. As a general rule you may find that small, dynamic, high-turnover and high-speed growth-orientated businesses respond well to the market pricing method. This way you can individually select the most qualified and skilled candidates for each position by remunerating them at or just above the market rate so that your precious capital is not wasted on simply rewarding status.

For those companies that seek to expand in a firm, controlled and more cautious manner while maintaining robust internal cohesion and high levels of staff loyalty and discipline, the internal equity method may be more suited.

Read the text below and answer Questions 23-29.

A Planning Process for Middle-Sized Projects

Any business project — such as reducing energy costs, or improving efficiency — needs to be planned, and time spent planning will save far more time later on. The typical stages in this planning process are explained below.

• Your first task is to spot what needs to be done. Examine your firm’s current position, perhaps making a formal analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. Then think about how you might improve that position: what opportunities are there for achieving this?

• The next step is to decide precisely what the aim of your plan is. This is best expressed in a simple single sentence, to ensure that it is clear and sharp in your mind. Doing this helps you to avoid wasting effort on irrelevant side issues.

• Next you should work out how to do it. It is tempting just to grasp the first idea that comes to mind, but it is better to consider a wide range of options: this way, you may come up with less obvious but better solutions.

• Once you have explored the options available to you, the selection of which option to use is the next step. If you have the time and resources, you might decide to evaluate all options, carrying out some planning, such as costing, for each. Normally you will not have this luxury.

• You already have a broad idea of what your project will consist of. Now is the time to work out the full details, identifying the most efficient and effective method of carrying it out, including answering the questions of ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘when’.

• The next stage is to review your plan and decide whether it will work satisfactorily. This evaluation enables you to change to another option that might be more successful, or to accept that no plan is needed.

• Once you have finished your plan and decided that it will work satisfactorily, it is time for implementation. Your plan will cover how this is to be done.

• Once you have achieved a plan, you can close the project. At this point it is often worth assessing the project to see whether there are any lessons that you can learn.

Part 3
Read the text and answer questions 27–40.

Part 3                           

Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.

The Elephant Orchestra

A In Thailand, elephants are revered as a national symbol, but even there, the survival of the great mammals is at risk. A century ago more than 100,000elephants worked in the Thai timber industry or roamed the forests. Today the number of elephants in captivity is just 2,500 and there are even fewer in the wild. Illegal hunting has taken a toll. Deforestation and the banning of logging have removed the elephants’ chief source of employment.

B Recently, on the site of a former government logging camp, the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre has been established. It is home to more than one hundred elephants retrenched from the logging industry. An American elephant specialist and his team have come up with an ingenious career alternative for these redundant employees. A select group of the Centre’s residents have been chosen to play in the world’s first Elephant Orchestra. The project was initiated to create unique music but more importantly, to generate income for the operation of the Elephant Conservation Centre.

C The orchestra currently has twelve members, selected for their musical aptitude and motivation. They are aged seven to eighteen and play a variety of percussion and wind instruments in the Thai tradition — renats, which look like xylophones silt drums, harmonicas, a bow bass, a gong and a thunder sheet. The instruments are ‘elephant-sized’ and specially designed to be played with trunks. Early in the project the organisers were unsure how the elephants would respond to musical training. Then one morning they were awakened to the sound of harmonicas. The elephants had picked up the instruments on their own and were wandering through the forest playing enthusiastically.

D Making music comes naturally to elephants. They have huge brains and are highly sociable creatures. Their hearing is much better than their sight and they use a wide range of vocalisations. In performance, they stand in a line and prompted by the trainers, play their instruments. A strong sense of rhythm is evident as they flap their ears to the beat, swish their tails and generally rock back and forth. Some add to the melody with their own trumpeting. As the conductor paces up and down orchestrating proceedings, a trunk can sometimes be seen imitating the movement of his arm.

E The elephants aren’t forced to learn complex patterns, so playing the instruments is quite easy. Commands are given only to indicate when to start and when to stop. The rest of the time, the players have the freedom to improvise. According to the trainers, the elephants love their work. The modest plan, initially, was to teach the elephants just to hit the instruments and then overdub those sounds with other music. But after only five practice sessions a decision was made to record the performances intact with just the human noises removed. The players improvise distinct meters and melodies, then vary and repeat them. The resulting music is meditative, deliberate and delicate and it is real, elephant music. Western listeners often describe it as ‘haunting’. To some ears it may seem monotonous but anyone not knowing they were listening to elephant music would assume that humans were playing. The first CD, classical in style, has sold well, so soon there will be pop, techno- and country versions in production.

F Playing music is not the only creative form of activity the elephants of the Centre engage in. For several years now a number of the residents have been painting. They use acrylic paints on large canvases and have a preference for broad strokes and bold colours. Last year, elephant paintings helped raise over $25,000 at charity auctions internationally. These art sales, together with profits from the CD, are helping to fund the Centre’s operations. The proceeds go towards an orphanage, hospital and mobile veterinary clinic for elephants and to support the training school.

G Animal rights’ advocates might object to these non-traditional occupations for elephants. But Thai elephants have always had to work for a living. If they weren’t playing music or painting pictures, they would be dragging logs or carrying tourists. Given those choices, playing music and painting are not such bad options.