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Reading Test Part 4

The document discusses corporate profits and whether current high profit margins are sustainable. It notes that profits as a share of GDP are at their highest levels in decades in many countries. While corporate profits may be inflated in some ways, productivity increases and cost cuts have genuinely boosted profits. However, if wages continue to decline as a share of GDP, workers could react, though they may not due to many workers also owning company shares.

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lorena
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152 views2 pages

Reading Test Part 4

The document discusses corporate profits and whether current high profit margins are sustainable. It notes that profits as a share of GDP are at their highest levels in decades in many countries. While corporate profits may be inflated in some ways, productivity increases and cost cuts have genuinely boosted profits. However, if wages continue to decline as a share of GDP, workers could react, though they may not due to many workers also owning company shares.

Uploaded by

lorena
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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BEC Practice Test Vantage

READING TEST
PART FOUR
Questions 19 33
Read the article below about a company boss.
Choose the best word to fill each gap from A, B, C or D below.
For each question 19 33, mark one letter (A, B, C or D).
There is an example at the beginning, (0).
Breaking Records
Woody Allen once joked if my films dont show a profit, I know Im doing
something right. For most other people, in most other (0) , profit is a mark
of success, and in most countries corporate profits are currently (19) Last
year, Americas after-tax profits (20) to their highest for 75 years; the
shares of profit in the euro area and Japan are also close to their highest for
at least 25 years. UBS, a Swiss bank, (21) that, in many world economies,
the share of profits in national (22) has never been higher. So, are (23)
profit margins sustainable? Are they fair?
Corporate profits may be inflated in various ways. If firms put money aside for
the future (24) costs for the over 65s or whatever, their earnings would be
smaller. Nevertheless, the impressive (25) of American firms to increase
productivity and cut costs are genuine, (26) some claims to the contrary in
the press. Firms elsewhere, notably in Japan and Germany, are also (27)
aggressively. The share of profit in GDP always goes up sharply after a
downturn, but in the United States a bigger slice of the increase this time has
gone to profits than in any (28) post-war recovery.
If the share of wages in GDP (29) to slide, there could be a reaction from
workers. Yet the chances of this are lower than before. The old (30)
between them and us is becoming unclear: many workers also own
company (31) , which sooner or later will give them some of the profits.
In any (32) , there are good reasons to believe that the (33) in profits will
soon slow sharply.
Adapted from The Economist by Louise Pile
2005 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

This photocopiable test has been downloaded from www.intelligent-business.org


Pearson Education 2005

BEC Practice Test Vantage

A conditions

B circumstances

C surroundings

D states

19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33

A elevating
A raised
A judges
A money
A current
A grant
A demands
A despite
A reconstructing
A previous
A maintains
A break
A dividends
A state
A extension

B boosting
B raise
B evaluates
B income
B present
B redundancy
B efforts
B however
B redecorating
B early
B carries
B disconnection
B shares
B situation
B development

C booming
C rise
C estimates
C pay
C actual
C allowance
C trials
C nevertheless
C regenerating
C beforehand
C continues
C partition
C premiums
C case
C expansion

D lifting
D rose
D assesses
D earnings
D up-to-date
D pension
D tests
D although
D restructuring
D sooner
D stays
D divide
D bonuses
D instance
D growth

This photocopiable test has been downloaded from www.intelligent-business.org


Pearson Education 2005

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