Esercitazioni Inglese (Grammatica, lessico e comprensione)

10 SHORT STEPS TO CHINA

Examination programme valid from June 2013 to April 2014

The main aim of the course is to help students become faster and more competent readers of the kind of

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economic material they are likely to meet in their course of studies, both at 1st and 2 degree levels.

The course focuses on China’s economy from Communism through to its particular form of

capitalism, its dramatically increasing economic weight brought ever closer to us by globalization and

new business practices. The material is mainly taken from major British newspapers, specialized

journals and websites.

Set texts:

1. Lessons of Transition

2. China to 1985

3. China after Mao

4. Red Alert

5. 1898 and all that

6. Is Taiwan really part of China?

7. Remembering Tiananmen

8. Where is everybody?

9. Not playing

10. The scissor maker that has cut through Chinese history

The first six texts can be found in Arcipelago, available in the bookshops around

Focus in the Far East

the university.

Revision Pack

1. Texts 1-4; 2. Texts 5-7; 3. Texts 8-10

Maps 1. Political Europe. 2. Ex USSR/ ex-Iron Curtain countries. 3. China in regions; 4. China and

surroundings;5. 3.Political Asia

Extra Practice

Online Grammar: The British Council LearnEnglish

Online Listening and Reading: Sky Breaking News UK; BBC 6 Minute English; Youtube; The

videos and articles

Guardian

Examination

The written paper consists of a 40 item cloze test based on the set texts plus 20 items on the grammar,

morphology, and syntax of the same passages. Candidates are expected to have acquired a working

knowledge of reading strategies, a familiarity with the key lexical items and themes explored in the

texts.

Exercise 1. There are twelve words connected to brand vocabulary in the word

search below. Can you find them? (There are no diagonals, but be careful: some of

the words are in reverse direction.)

l a r a n g m m p l m c d d n

o a m u c u o i m a g e i g c

p b m i a a c d o u m t h o t

b i e s r e m u s n o c h n u

e o t u a s a o g c t b r o l

a n t b l a t n e h t e e b m

o g o l m l a o e e o m b e s

a g e i i e c i u o i i r n l

t n e m e s i t r e v d a n p

m g o i i a t o p l a t n m m

p m i n c n n m o g m t d u e

t e a a a p r o d u c t i g m

i d i l u t v r i n b l n b e

a o a m c a m p a i g n g o i

d o r t g m s t r m a h n s i

Exercise 2. Now use ten of the twelve words from the word search to complete the

sentences below.

1. If we want to sell more of our frozen yoghurt drink we need to convince --- to buy

more of it.

2. My club's --- used to be 'The Drinking Club with a Running Problem' but then we

found out that some club in Malaysia had already registered it.

3.Roger, this is the third month in a row you haven't reached your --- target. If you

don't sell at 25 insurance policies next month we are going to have to let you go.

4.--- placement is when a company gets a film or television program to use its --- in a

scene. (SAME WORD)

5.A good marketing --- is run with military-like precision.

6.--- advertisements are illegal in Australia, but there are few laws in the United

States about them, perhaps because the Americans are not as worried about their

sub-conscious.

7.The government is worried about teenage drinking, so they want to limit

marketing aimed at teenagers. For example, makers of alcoholic drinks will not be

able to put either their name or their --- on T-shirts or toys like Frisbees and beach

balls.

8.We need to consider --- our chain of restaurants because the number one

association people make with our name is 'health code violation'.

9.Sally projects this --- of just being interested in having a good time, but when we

are under deadline no one is more focused and no one works harder.

10.We have decided to delay the --- of our new computer game to mid-June because

we are having problems with the packaging.

Exercise 3 In Exercise 2, you did not use two of the words from the word search. Can

you use them to write two sentences of your own?

1.

2.

Exercise 4 Please read the passage adapted from an article by Clay Risen which

appeared in the March 13, 2005 Boston Globe, then answer the questions below.

Shortly after sept. 11, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell, concerned about rising

anti-Americanism abroad, hired Madison Ave. advertising expert Charlotte Beers to

blitz the Middle East with pro-American advertising and PR campaigns. The goal,

Powell said, was to ''rebrand American foreign policy.'' Beers responded with gusto:

During her 17-month tenure, the new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and

Public Affairs oversaw the launch of everything from a monthly pro-American,

Arabic-language newsmagazine called Hi, to be distributed around the Middle East,

to a series of TV spots featuring smiling Muslim Americans.

But Beers's PR campaign turned out to be a PR disaster, and Beers left before many

of her programs even got started.Yet Beers's failure, far from discrediting the idea of

''branding'' a country, stands out as an exception. The last few years have seen an

explosion of ''nation-branding,'' shorthand for coordinated government efforts to

manage a country's image, whether to improve tourism, investment, or even foreign

relations. Firms specializing in nation-branding have sprouted up around the world.

In collaboration with a number of such experts, Tony Blair recently established a

Public Diplomacy Strategy Board, an outgrowth of his earlier ''Cool Britannia''

campaign, to improve perceptions of the country abroad. And in November, the

Persian Gulf state of Oman signed a contract with the marketing firm Landor

Associates to develop and sell ''Brand Oman.''

What sets true nation-branding apart from Beers's efforts, according to its advocates,

is its focus on brand management rather than just brand promotion. Beers failed,

says Simon Anholt, a British marketing expert and one of the world's leading

proponents of nation-branding, because she tried to change people's minds without

changing the ''product.''

Anholt and others argue that countries looking to manage their image have to go

deeper, aligning their foreign and domestic policies with a well-researched set of

national images, much as a successful marketing campaign requires a company to

''live the brand.'' The United States, for example, might brand itself as a nation of

personal freedom, risk-taking, and cultural tolerance, and then coordinate policy

around the promotion of that brand (by, say, expanding market-friendly foreign aid

programs).

''All nations need to compete for a share of the world's attention and wealth, and that

development is as much a matter of positioning as anything else,'' Anholt wrote in

2003, ''so it makes perfect sense for governments to do everything possible to ensure

consistency of behavior in every area.'' He even recommends that countries appoint

Cabinet-level branding ministers. ''I've visited a great many countries where they

have ministers for things that are far less important than branding,'' he says.

The American business community is already taking Anholt's advice to heart. He sits

on the advisory council of Business for Diplomatic Action, a group of marketing,

academic, and corporate veterans organized in 2004 to combat anti-Americanism

abroad. BDA recently distributed thousands of ''World Citizens Guides'' to American

students headed abroad. The guides, also available online, include such tips as

''agree to disagree respectfully'' and ''dialogue instead of monologue'', just the sort of

advice Anholt would like to see the US government listen to as well.

Nation-branding as a discipline is the confluence of two seemingly distinct fields:

marketing and diplomacy. In the 1960s, marketers became interested in what is

called the ''country of origin'' effect. Why is it, they asked, that simply sticking a

''Made in Japan'' label on a stereo boosts its value by 30 percent? Clearly, they

argued, there was something about Japan itself-perhaps its reputation as a

technically savvy society-that made consumers value Japanese technology over

similar products from, say, Brazil. What are the roots of these national stereotypes,

and how can marketing take advantage of them? And what if Brazil wanted to

develop its own high-tech export industry? How could it change those stereotypes?

At the same time, throughout the Cold War the United States operated countless

programs in what is known as public diplomacy, from Voice of America radio to

CIA-funded magazines, such as Encounter and Look. Unlike propaganda, which

spoke directly about the superiority of American values, public diplomacy promoted

pro-Western sentiment through the open exchange of ideas and the dissemination of

American culture.

During the 1990s, however, public diplomacy was scaled back, a mistake that the

9/11 Commission highlighted in its report. But it's not enough simply to bring back

Cold War strategies, argues Anholt. There has to be a ''brand'' strategy-the message

has to be coordinated and consistent, and it has to respond to stereotypes already in

circulation.

Nation-branding campaigns thus far have been relatively limited in scope. During

the 1990s, Spain, in what is often cited as the most successful nation-branding effort

so far, took advantage of its exposure during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics to launch

a national marketing campaign (think of the Joan Miro sun symbol) that promoted

everything from newly privatized utilities to the films of Pedro Almodovar to Ibiza,

a Mediterranean party island. The effort, organized from Madrid, was a success.

Twenty years ago Spain was thought of as a European backwater; today it's seen as a

hip, high-design playground.

Nevertheless, Anholt says that true nation-branding has to go further. On the one

hand, it means ''harmonizing'' the brand message across the government. On the

other hand, the message has to be communicated internally as well as externally.

That means surveying citizens on the values they think should go into the ''brand,''

as well as highlighting the importance of ''living'' that brand.

True/False Questions (Remember to answer all questions on the basis of the

information in the article.)

1. Charlotte Beers was fired because many of her programs were

failures.

2. In the 1960s, people were willing to pay more for electronics

equipment from Japan.

3. Spain was able to change its brand image in the 1990s.

General Comprehension Questions

1. The Public Diplomacy Strategy Board…

a. was responsible for the ‘Cool Bri