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Gin and pomegranate set to woo Britain’s drinking classes
Vocabulary
Woo = verb (T)1. to try to persuade people to support you or buy something from
you, especially by saying or doing nice things: Orange is trying to woo customers by cutting prices. 2. (old-fashioned) if a man woos a woman, he tries to start a
romantic relationship with her and to persuade her to marry him succumb = verb (I) formal 1. to lose your ability to fight against someone or
something, and allow them to control or persuade you; + to She succumbed to
temptation and ordered a glass of wine. 2. to become very ill or die from a
disease: + to His mother succumbed to cancer two years ago.
undertake = (past tense: undertook; past participle: undertaken) 1. to agree to
be responsible for a job or project and do it: The court will undertake a serious Reading comprehension
A. Put the following paragraphs in the right order:
(…) Coke claims to be having success with Coke Zero, a sugar- free cola which is aimed at young men, while Britvic claims the same for its no-sugar version of Coke is trying to broaden the Schweppes brand away from mixers, like soda water and ginger ale, into “the definitive adult soft drinks brand for 30- somethings” and is introducing a seasonal lemonade. More than 60 per cent of Schweppes products are drunk by people over the age of 30. It claims to be undertaking the biggest marketing campaign since acquiring the brand seven years ago from Cadbury Schweppes, with a new advertising slogan, (…) Pomegranate flavours are already popular in the fruit juice market, where drinks companies have been trying to capitalize on the alleged health properties Pomegranate juices are claimed to contain antioxidants that can help to fight diseases like cancer. “Pomegranate seems to be the new trend forward,” Schweppes said. Fruit juice company Pomegreat recently teamed up with distiller Diageo, owner of the Pimm’s brand, to create “PimPom”, a Pimm’s mix (…) Sales of Schweppes beverages rose 7.3 per cent last year to 95.9m pounds (142 m euros), putting it 55th in AC Nielsen’s survey of the top 100 British grocery (…) The Schweppes changes come as Britvic, one of Coke’s chief rivals, struggles with poor sales of fizzy drinks as consumers ditch sugary beverages for Companies have been trying to revive interest in soft drinks by adapting their (…) A great British tradition has succumbed to foodie fashion: Schweppes, the maker of fizzy drink mixers, would like you to start drinking pomegranate tonic Schweppes, owned by Coca- Cola, is undertaking a multi-million pound marketing campaign this month to introduce new flavours to its Indian tonic (…) Schweppes says flavoured tonics now account for some 20 per cent of the UK’ tonic market. Flavoured bottle water are also becoming more common, and even brewers are stretching their brands into flavoured drinks with Scottish & Newcastle recently introducing a lime-flavoured version of Foster’s beer, Foster’s B. Which of the following statements are true: 1. (…) The Schweppes is not one of Coke’s chief rivals. 2. (…) Schweppes states that pomegranate seems to be the new trend forward. 3. (…) The Pepsi would like customers start drinking pomegranate tonic with 4. (…) More and more people seem to enjoy drinking falvoured bottle water. 5. (…) Britvic products are drunk by people over the age of 30. 6. (…) “PimPom” is a Pimm’s mix containing pomegranate juice. 7. (…) Pomegranate and juniper are the new “secret” flavored ingredients which Schweppes intends to use to extend its market. 8. (…) Flavored tonics now account for some 20 per cent of the UK’ tonic 9. (…) Schweppes spent millions to introduce new flavors to its Asian tonic 10. (…) Reviving interest in soft drinks is a main concern for many companies that dispute a top place on the international beverage market. C. Speaking
1. Which are the most popular soft beverages in your country? To whom are 2. Are you satisfied with what you find on the domestic market? Would you invest in a Romanian company producing soft beverages? Why? Why 3. What soft beverages company has considerable markets share in D. Language work
1. Give a synonymous for each of the following words: account for, (to) acquire, to woo, survey, customer, stretch. 2. Choose from the following words only those that match with the following sentences (there are two intruders): players, outlook, stretched, health, escalating, market, survey and hand. “The business ……. is undeniably difficult. The domestic cigarette …… is falling by 1.6 per cent a year and competition is ……. Even the thriving ginseng business is vulnerable as more …… grab a slice of Korea’s $4.4bn …. food market. KT&G has played a smart hand, but there are a time when even that is E. Grammar point
Present Tense Simple and Present Tense Continuous
1. The Simple Present Tense is used to discuss permanent situations and the
"Where do you live?" "I live in Germany."
"Where does he live?" "He lives in Germany."
"What do you do?" "I'm a teacher." "What does he do?" "He's a teacher."
2. The Simple Present Tense is used to show how often something happens with adverbs of frequency - always, usually, often, sometimes, occasionally, seldom, rarely, never, etc. And when discussing daily, weekly, monthly etc. routines. "I always get up at 6.00."
"I never drink coffee before 12.00."
"I work on my website every day."
"Every Monday and Thursday I go to the gym."
3. The Simple Present Tense is used to ask for and give instructions or to How do I make pancakes?" Well, first you take 4 eggs and crack them into a bowl, then you weigh out 100 grams of flour and sieve it into the eggs. 4. The simple present tense can also be used to discuss future events. F. Practice
1. Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verbs in brackets:
1. She usually ………. (catch) the 12.10 train. 2. They never ……… (miss) the English classes. 3. She ………. (cash) a cheque every month. 4. She can’t answer the phone. ………. (have) a shower at the moment.
It’s Mike. He ………. (change) the furniture. 6. Why you ………. (make) the beds? Someone ………. (come) to visit us? 8. It ………. (be) a fine day on the 1st of May and the people ………. (rush) to the 9. There was a collision and men ………. (carry) the injured people to an 10. I went into the house to see what the boy ………. (do). He ………. (play) on 2. Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verbs in brackets:
1. We. (sell) our products into many markets. 2. They . (offer) a 20% discount for the duration of the trade fair. 3. Competition . (bring) out the best in products and the worst in people. 4. My boss . (deal) with your enquiry but you will not get rapid answer. 7. Neil Armstrong . (land) on the surface of the moon in 1969. 8. We . (talk) about safety procedures when the fire alarm went off. 9. When I was at business school, we often . (work) on case studies. 10. Last year our company . (experience) great loss. Spinner of McDonald’s plate
Vocabulary
stand out = 1. be obvious: His work stands out from all the others; 2. to be
obvious against a background: The tour stood up against the clear blue sky. soar = 1. increase quickly: Prices usually soar when wars break out.
be blunt = honest without trying to be polite: He is a blunt man. concoct = 1. prepare something by mixing things together 2. to invent (a story
complacency = the feeling you have when you are satisfied with yourself: His
complacency was absolutely disgusting. upturn = an upward movement or trend as in business activity; upturn=boom let=
Reading comprehension
A. Put the following paragraphs in the right order:
(…) In spite of the upturn, Mr. Skinner worries about complacency. “That somehow we’ll forget how we got here . . . Everybody gets tempted by success.” To keep staff motivated, he has created the McDonald’s Leadership Institute. While the company’s Hamburger Universities train restaurant staff, the institute is designed to provide finance, strategy and “talent management” education to 1,400 McDonald’s directors globally. Mr. Skinner’s own management skills were acquired by learning from the mistakes of others, he says. “You take the good and leave the bad . . . Whenever I thought I was ready for another job, I spent most of my time thinking critically of the decisions that had been made by my (…) But when Charlie Bell resigned as chief executive in November 2004 after being diagnosed with cancer, Mr. Skinner was asked to take on the job. Mr. Bell had held the post for less than a year since Jim Cantalupo died from a heart attack the previous April. Mr. Skinner’s appointment was unexpected but not unwelcome. “Did I think I was going to be CEO of the company? Probably not,” Mr. Skinner has masterminded a comeback at the global restaurant chain. McDonald’s lost customers in the late 1990s and early 2000s as it focused on expansion at the expense of the quality of its food and service. Its failings were illuminated in books and films such as Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me. (….) Two women leave the Ronald McDonald House Charities meeting and get into a lift at the Marriott hotel in Chicago. Neither seems to notice that they are standing in front of Jim Skinner, chief executive of the restaurant chain. He had addressed their meeting just an hour earlier and assured more than 1,000 participants that “behind you is a brand that cares just like you do”. The 62-year- old manager does not stand out in a crowd. He is short with pale skin and graying hair. And until 2004, he was very much the number two man at McDonald’s as chief operating officer and vice-chairman, having worked his way (…) The company is back in favour with customers and investors. Sales have soared, bringing record profits of $3.5bn (£1.75bn) last year. The stock price hit a new high of more than $53 a share in July. McDonald’s claims to serve 6m more people each day than five years ago. “My results speak for themselves,” Mr. Parts of the reason for the revival are well-publicized changes to its menu and decor, elements of a strategy introduced in 2003 called Plan to Win. Restaurants offer salads made with edamame (soybeans pods) and snow peas alongside Big Macs and fries. The group is also investing $1bn a year in such things as comfortable seats, soft lighting, plasma TV screens and wireless internet access. There have also been significant changes to the group’s management and organisation. Mr. Skinner has reshaped the top team and appointed to senior positions people he believes “can really drive the business effectively”. (…) In the past, Mr. Skinner says, McDonald’s would set unrealistic growth targets then neglect its core business as it tried to meet them. “We sought out a lot of other things. Should we be in the chicken business? Should we buy other restaurants? Should we be in other services? Should we sell our real estate expertise? All the while [we were] not focusing where the real money was, and that’s on the core.” He wants his team to attend to what he calls “the basics”: serving simple food quickly. “It’s not magic,” he says. “Every customer wants the same thing. They want hot food. They want it fast.” (….) Instead of opening its menu to dozens of new products, McDonald’s has been concentrating on improving existing ones. Even its successful “snack wrap”, launched last year and sold in North America and Germany, has been concocted from current menu items such as chicken and salad, Mr. Skinner says. McDonald’s should not be “too creative” with food, he says, although he is “overwhelmed” by McDonald’s “innovation laboratory” in Romeoville, Illinois, (…) A fast talker who likes to use his hands to emphasize a point, he is blunt about the kind of person he wants. “I don’t want to be hanging around anybody that doesn’t get up today wanting to do it better than yesterday.” In the past two years, he has promoted Denis Hennequin, a Frenchman, to run McDonald’s Europe (the first non-American to hold the position); hired Mary Dillon from PepsiCo to be chief marketing officer; moved Tim Fenton from the US to Hong Kong to run Asia, Middle East and Africa; and appointed Ralph Alvarez president and chief operating officer. Mr. Alvarez, who previously ran McDonald’s North America and replaced Mike Roberts last year, is “the best restaurateur” in the business, Mr. Skinner says. “It’s not because Mike Roberts was not an effective chief operating officer but [he] left and that gave us an opportunity to put someone in there that I thought was better.” (…) “What you have to decide is what is going to have the biggest impact on the business. So you have to make some bets there and get on it.” Coffee sales rose 30 per cent after McDonald’s changed the way it blended its beans and introduced thick styrofoam cups emblazoned with the words “fresh brewed custom blend . . . rich, bold and robust”. Mr. Skinner is reluctant to say whether McDonald’s is taking market share from specialist coffee chains such as Starbucks. But the restaurant group’s scale gives it an advantage, he says. “When you can sell coffee at the speed of McDonald’s and the price of McDonald’s, who can challenge us really?” As well as trying to improve its food, McDonald’s is selling it faster by extending opening hours (more than 30 per cent of its 13,000 US restaurants are open 24 hours a day) and encouraging restaurants to add drive-through service. (…) But he says his experience of becoming CEO without warning is not something that should be repeated. As with thousands of management positions across the group, corporate staffs are asked to provide the names of two potential replacements. “We have learnt through our own distress regarding potential leaders at McDonald’s that it’s important to have people available to do Asked about his own successor, Mr. Skinner shows a touch of humour. “We have a lot of people who could do this job. Probably none as well as me.” B. Which of the following statements are true:
1. (…) Mr. Skinner does not think that McDonald’s revival is partly due to well- publicized changes to its menu and décor. 2. (…) Before being the chief executive of the restaurant chain, Mr. Skinner was chief operating officer and vice-chairman. 3. (…) McDonald’s has a good price for coffee being a real competitor for other 4. (…) The restaurant chain has an Asian operating manager. 5. (…) Extending opening hours may be a secret for a successful business. 6. (…) Jim Skinner is interviewed by a journalist from “The Financial Times”. 7. (…) McDonald’s opens its menu to dozens of new product each year. 8. (…) The stock price hit a new high of more than $53 a share in July 9. (…) Jim Skinner considers himself to be the best chief manager whom 10. (…) The chief operating manager states that McDonald’s is taking market share from specialist coffee chains such as Starbucks. C. Speaking
1. What do you know about McDonald’s regarding the managerial style? 2. What other food restaurant chains are becoming famous for their characteristics? (KFC, Snack Attack, Starbucks) D. Language work
1. Give a synonymous for each of the following words: upturn, (to) provide, specialist, distress, customer, staff. 2. Choose from the following words only those that match with the following sentences (there are two intruders): insurers, scrutinize, bidders, rates, tightening, failed and investors. “……… will ……. the European Central Bank’s monthly bulletin today for clues as to the future direction of interest ……. Last week the ECB raised rates by a quarter point to 3 per cent but ……. to describe its stance as “vigilant” – a word that markets have to associate with further ……. in the near future. “ E. Grammar Point
Past Tense Simple vs. Past Tense Continuous
1. The past tense simple is used to express the idea that an action started and
finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention the specific time, but they do have one specific time in mind. I saw a movie yesterday. I didn't see a play yesterday.
Last year, I traveled to Japan. Last year, I didn't travel to Korea.
Did you have dinner last night?
She washed her car. He didn't wash his car.
2. Use the Simple Past to list a series of completed actions in the past. These actions happen 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on. I finished work, walked to the beach, and found a nice place to swim.
He arrived from the airport at 8:00, checked into the hotel at 9:00, and met the
Did you add flour, pour in the milk, and then add the eggs?
3. The Simple Past can be used with a duration which starts and stops in the past. Duration is a longer action often indicated by expressions such as: for two years, for five minutes, all day, all year, etc. I lived in Brazil for two years.
Shauna studied Japanese for five years.
They sat at the beach all day.
They did not stay at the party the entire time.
We talked on the phone for thirty minutes.
A: How long did you wait for them?
B: We waited for one hour.
1. The Past Tense Continuous is used to indicate actions in progress at a
We were working in the garden this time yesterday.
2. Use the Past Tense Continuous to indicate a point in time. It is followed by a It was raining at dinner time.
The sun was shining when I got up this morning. 3. A period of time indicated by FOR…, FROM…TO, ALL DAY I was reading for 2 hours yesterday.
4. Past action going on for a longer period of time When I went to Brasov, I was living in a hotel in the centre of the city.
5. There are contexts when verbs not normally used in the continuous aspect Peter was hoping that Ann would phone him. (the hope had been in his mind for
6. Repeated actions – criticism (+ frequency adverb) When Jane was at school, she was always losing things.
7. Use Past Tense Simple to interrupt a past action, usually in the continuous Tom was reading the lesson when the teacher opened the door. 8. Use Past Tense Continuous for two actions going on at the same time in the While Sandra was washing the dishes, Mary was cleaning the rooms.
F. PRACTICE
1. Use the past tense simple in the following sentences:
My grandfather had a very exciting life. When he was young, he. (live) on a farm in the country. His parents. (raise) cattle and he . (look) after the cows. When he was eighteen, he went to also. (play) the trumpet in a jazz band. When the war .(end) up in the Navy. In the Atlantic, a German torpedo. (rip) a hole in the side of his ship, and the ship sank. Only five men. (escape). They. (sail) in a they. (marry) after only three weeks. He says now that he. (want) to marry her very quickly in case he 2. Choose the correct answer from those given.
A. Wasn't B. Weren't C. Were being D. Was been A. weren't B. wasn't C. was being not D. was not being 3. Yesterday, he. all day at the office. A. works B. worked C. is working D. work 4. . she answer the telephone when you called? 5. He. his car in time to avoid the accident. A. didn't stop B. don't stop C. not stopped D. not doing stop 6. She. to the bank to deposit a cheque. 7. We. orange juice when we needed refreshment. 9. I. took some work home from the office. 10. They. hymns together in the church choir. 11. She. a bicycle until she had an accident. 12. I. to the airport to meet my friends when the tyre burst. A. were driving B. was driving C. were drive D. was drive 3. Use the past tense simple in the following sentences:
2. They (do) .their homework last night. 4. That woman (buy) . a new book this morning. 5. The janitor (clean) .the blackboard yesterday. 7. This morning my teacher (teach) .English. 9. The gardener (cut) .the trees last month. 13. The birds (fly) .in the sky this morning. 15. The joiner (make) .tables and chairs yesterday. 17. Two weeks ago the boy (have) . a new 20. The students (meet) .in the hall last 4. Give the past forms of the following irregular verbs:
swim; stand; grow; drink; rise; read; cry; understand; eat; tell.

Source: http://file.ucdc.ro/cursuri/F_2_N25_Polish_up_your_Bussiness_Enghish_Lazar_Catrinela_Andreea.pdf