Text 23

Read the article. Choose the correct answers to the questions below the text.

In the bad old days, working mothers had to learn to lie. Returning to work after having a baby, they had to prove that nothing had changed. On those black days when the child was ill or the childminder did not turn up, it was better to pretend to be sick themselves than to admit to any problem at home. Some people still live like this. But most companies now recognize that employees may have families. They know, in theory at least, that the old way meant their workers were unhappy, stressed out and likely to leave. Yet despite the new family-friendly policies, most companies are still getting it wrong. At one extreme, individual managers consider that any woman who has a family is not serious: at the other, the new militant working mothers behave as if it is their right to put their families first and let their colleagues cover for them.

We need help, and today we are getting some. Cary Cooper, professor of organizational psychology at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, is publishing a pamphlet called “Finding the Balance”, containing 10 handy tips on how to balance work and family.

First, Prof Cooper says, you should alert your boss to the idea that you have family to look after. You should spell out how much you like your job and how committed you are. You should plan your approach in advance, thinking about what your employer’s reaction is going to be. When problems arise you should give your employer an idea how long it is going to take to sort them out, and maybe offer to take some of the time off as holiday. You should suggest a way around a particular crisis that will allow you both to be at home and get some work done at the same time. When you come back you should try extra hard, and then point out to your employer how being flexible has allowed you to deal with the crisis at home, without your work suffering.

1. If you publish a book, brochure, pamphlet, etc., you

1. make it available for people to obtain and read

2. advertise it

3. force people to buy it

2. If you alert someone to something, you

1. try to hide it from them

2. bring their attention to it

3. talk about it casually

3. If you spell something out, you

1. give a general outline of it

2. give the letters of the words in the sentences you are using

3. make it very clear

4. If a problem arises, it

1. occurs

2. is solved

3. goes away

5. If you suggest a way round a problem, you

1. tell someone else to solve it

2. suggest a way of solving it

3. refuse to deal with it

Text 24

Read the article. Choose two correct answers to each question below the text.

Venture capitalists (VCs) act as headhunters. An entrepreneur who approaches a VC for finance will not typically have management experience. “If you hire a good CEO, the business will take care of itself; but usually an entrepreneur has no network and no idea who to hire,” says Mr Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Associates. So the venture capitalist usually takes on the role of recruiter, finding the entrepreneur some experienced executives.

Second, VCs provide advice and support. Accel Partners, for instance, gives office space and time to entrepreneurs so that they can develop their business plans. For inexperienced entrepreneurs, VCs are advisers, too. “We are professional coaches”, says Ms Ann Windblad, co-founder of Hummer Winblad.

Third, an active venture capitalist puts the companies in which it invests in touch with professional services firms such as lawyers and accountants specializing in information technology. Start-ups backed by a well-known venture capital firm can often obtain legal and other professional advice at a lower rate, until they have the revenues to cover full fees.

Fourth, the backing of a leading venture capital firm, which has identified technology trends correctly in the past, brings credibility with commentators and the start-up’s potential customers. “Far from just providing money, the venture industry brings contacts and confidence”, says Mr Neil Weintraut of 21^st Century Venture Partners. “We create markets as much as we create companies”.

Finally, the most ambitious venture capitalists act as boosters, not just of a few companies, but of the whole category into which an investment falls. They attempt to create excitement around a particular concept, such as the Java computer language, which will make people take it seriously as a business.

The best venture capitalists

1. a) help just one company at a time.

b) help whole areas of activity.

c) help whole industries.

2. a) get people interested in products.

b) have no effect on marketing.

c) create excitement about products.

3. a) make people take a business seriously.

b) give credibility to a business.

c) have no effect on how people consider a business.

4. a) have played an important part in the development of the Internet.

b) have played no part in the development of the Internet.

c) have been one of the major factors in the success of the Internet.

5. a) make things happen faster than other sources of finance.

b) have no effect on how fast things happen

c) speed up the development of new companies.