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ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS STUDIES

Revised Sample

SECTION A: READING COMPREHENSION [20 MARKS]

Instructions: Read the passage carefully and answer ALL questions that follow.
Rethinking Marketing Strategy for the Digital Age
1

Steve Jobs liked to say that it is not enough to kill bad ideas; you have 1
to kill good ones too. That is because good strategy is about making
choices, and it takes more than intelligence or even instinct. It takes
discipline, one of Jobs most overlooked qualities. Marketing strategy is
particularly difficult because it is a different ball game now. A generation 5
ago, brands mostly strove to create buzz and drive awareness; now, they
need to build compelling experiences that keep consumers engaged.
1.
We still need to run television (TV) advertisements and instore promotions, man conference booths and hand-out brochures, but now
on top of that we have a whole new world of algorithms, apps and devices 10
to master. Put up an attention grabbing TV campaign today and consumers
would not flock to the stores, but to the Internet. Their activity will leave a
data trail, which your competitors will use to retarget your consumers with
competing messages before a purchase event can even occur.
Therefore, by spending money to build brand awareness and walking 15
away from it, you are much more likely to enrich your competition than
yourself. To meet the new challenges, we need a new strategic approach, a
new mind-set and new organisations. In the digital age, marketers must
change their focus from grabbing attention to holding attention by focusing
on three core business objectives: awareness, sales and advocacy. Simple 20
metrics such as awareness, sales and advocacy will give you an accurate
snapshot of your brands health, and how you can best improve it. In some
high involvement categories with longer sales cycles, consideration and
loyalty can also play a role, but research has shown that loyalty especially
can be misleading.
25
Most importantly, clarifying marketing objectives is an analytical
process, not a conceptual one. You are not trying to understand the
consumer mind-set or the brand essence. 2.
What you want
to know is where you are winning, where you are losing and where you
have an opportunity to improve your competitive position. Period. Once 30
you have achieved that, you can move on.
Identifying clear objectives is important, because it allows us to set
priorities. No budget is unlimited and identifying a particular area of need
not only allows us to focus our creative energies, but budget money as well,
to where we can best improve our business. 3.
The next step now 35
is to overlay the basic objectives model with tactical strategies that will help
us create solutions targeted to a particular brands needs. Mere platitudes
and a one size fits all approach will not do. Once we have identified a
particular area of need, we want to focus on building an approach designed
for that specific task, rather than chasing the latest fad. Perhaps not 40
surprisingly, awareness and sales problems can largely be solved
with conventional strategies augmented with new digital tools. Advocacy,
however, is a largely new area and requires new thinking.
Continued

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4.
For example, when Mercedes promoted their new zero
emission F-Cell hydrogen fuel technology, they got people talking about
6 it by driving an invisible car across Germany. Mercedes goal here is not
necessarily to drive consumers directly to dealerships, but to get them to
start thinking seriously about hydrogen cars.
Marketers have also long known that to drive sales, you need to reach
people at the point of purchase. Digital retail solutions, however, are taking
7 the concept to a whole new level with Tesco showcasing its virtual stores at
Korean subway stations. Rather than trying to drive consumers into their
stores, Tesco was able to insert the shopping experience into their daily
commute. The strategy helped catapult Tesco to a leadership position in the
Korean market.
While building awareness and driving sales are objectives that most
firms are familiar with and know how to manage successfully, advocacy is a
8 relatively new area and one in which many marketers falter. Brands that
seek to increase advocacy need to create product, social and content
experiences that increase perceived value and create unique marketing asset.
For example, Nikes Fuelband not only creates a value exchange with
consumers, but also builds a community. A vibrant community has nothing
to do with how many followers you have, but how they interact with each
other. The genius of Fuelband is not in the technology, but how it allows
consumers to cheer their friends on and receive encouragement themselves.
5.
These are not simply the product of an exciting
brainstorming session followed by a few caffeine and adrenaline fuelled all9 night sessions in order to get the tapes on air by deadline. They are the
results of years of testing and learning.
All of these involved the entire organisation, not just the marketing
department and a few partner agencies. They required a series of small,
10 scalable bets across the enterprises that were integrated into a seamless
whole. The implications are clear; the era of the big idea is over. The
future belongs to organisations that can create effective collaboration across
a wide variety of skills and capabilities.
There is probably no greater creative organisation in the world today
than Pixar, whose average gross for a film (over $600 million) puts every
11 other studio to shame. Pixar founder Ed Catmull, explains that the secret to
the companys success is an open non-hierarchical environment where it is
safe for everyone to offer ideas across positional boundaries or functional
discipline. Feedback is frank, but not vicious and there are no stars at Pixar.
Now, think about a typical corporate marketing organisation, with
often adversarial relationships between departments, partner agencies and
12 suppliers, glorified turf wars and personality cults. Clearly we need a new
paradigm.
Adapted from Sattle, G. (2013, April 3). Rethinking marketing strategy for the digital age.
Retrieved from http://www.digitaltonto.com/2013/rethinking-marketing-strategy-for-thedigital-age/
Authors
Biography

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Greg Satell was the SVP Strategy & Innovation at Moxie Interactive, a division of
Publicis Groupe, one of the worlds leading marketing services organisations in the
United States. He was also the Co-CEO of KP Media, an integrated media
Continued
publishing company, where he managed brands such as Bigmir, Ukraines leading

digital platform, and Korrespondent, a news organisation that played a pivotal role in
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the Orange Revolution, as well as a variety
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6 female and lifestyle brands. He is now
a regular contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review magazine. The Digital
Toronto is his personal platform that he uses to publish his articles.

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Revised Sample

Question I (5 marks)
Instructions: Decide which of the sentences (a) (e) best fits in each of the boxes 15 in the passage.
a.

While those are worthy activities for developing positioning and

executional concepts, they have no place in a discussion of
business strategy.

b.

While all of the strategies above have won awards for their
creativity, what is most impressive about them is their complexity.

c.

Nevertheless, the old tasks of marketing and promoting your

products and services have not gone away entirely.

d.

However, simply identifying priorities is less helpful in forming a

tactical approach.

e.

While awareness has been de-emphasised in the digital age, it is

still extremely important, especially when there is a particular
brand attribute that needs to be communicated.

Question II (5 marks)
Instructions: Find a word in the passage for each of the meanings below.
a. having a powerful and irresistible effect

(Paragraph 1)

b. a brief summary
c. fail to become effective

(Paragraph 3)
(Paragraph 8)

d. spiteful and malicious

e. an example or pattern of something

(Paragraph 11)
(Paragraph 12)

Question III (10 marks)

Continued

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Revised Sample

Instructions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

a. What does their (line 12) refer to?

(1 mark)

b. It (line 47) refers to _______________________.

(1 mark)

c. What does the author mean by the statement it is a different ball

game now (line 5)?

(2 marks)

d. How did Tesco manage to position itself as the market retailing

leader in Korea?

(2 marks)

e. Why couldnt marketers master the advocacy strategy in

marketing their products?

(2 marks)

f.

(2 marks)

If the marketing practice has changed so fundamentally, why do

our marketing organisations still look so much the same?

SECTION B: CRITIQUE WRITING [10 MARKS]

Instructions: Based on the reading text, evaluate the authors and texts validity,
objectivity and credibility. Support your answers with detailed elaboration and
provide evidence from the text wherever necessary. Write your answers in 200 250
words.

SECTION C: LANGUAGE FOCUS [30 MARKS]

Continued

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Revised Sample

Question I (10 marks)

Instructions: Construct a concise sentence based on each set of sentences in the
questions below.
Example: (0)

The date of the factory inspection has been decided by the general
manager. The inspection will be led by a team of senior engineers
from the headquarters. The head engineer will also join the
inspection.
The general manager has decided on the factory inspection date, to be
led by the headquarters head and senior engineers.

1.

A thorough investigation will be conducted by the relevant authority on the

allegation of Aztels fund misappropriation. A report has been made where three
million Ringgit is alleged to have been spent irresponsibly.

2.

It was instructed that all questions are directed to the relevant managers. The
reason for such instruction is to avoid any wrong information being given, which
may result in the wrong understanding among workers.
-The manager would answer all questions himself to avoid mistakes and
misunderstanding among workers.

(2 marks)

3.

4.

5.

A million Ringgit has been allocated by the Real Bank CEO to conduct training to
improve the marketing skills of the staff. It was confirmed by the secretary in her
email. It also mentioned that all sales staff must attend the training.
-The Real Bank CEO has confirmed a million Ringgit compulsory training to
improve the marketing skills of the staff.
The construction of the new MQF office building and the installing of electrical
wiring underwent a brief halt due to some issues with the foreign workers.
Supposedly, it will resume after a mutual understanding between the Malaysian and
Indonesian governments on all pending issues, has been reached.
-The brief halt on construction and installation of the new MQF office building with
electrical wiring will resume after all pending issues between the Malaysian and
Indonesian governments on foreign workers are resolved.
The manager has made a suggestion where the company will increase the number of
operators. This action is needed in order to speed up production. This is because the
company needs to meet the customers deadline.
To speed up production and meet the customers deadline, the manager has
suggested the company to increase the number of operators.

Continued

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(2 marks)

(2 marks)

(2 marks)

(2 marks)

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ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS STUDIES

Revised Sample

Question II (10 marks)

Instructions: For each word below, add a suitable affix or affixes, and construct a
sentence set in a business context using the newly-formed word.
Example: (0)

entrepreneur (Add a suffix)

Word: entrepreneurship
Sentence: We encounter obstacles in accessing opportunities to
acquire knowledge and skills that underpin successful
entrepreneurship.

a.

fortune (Add a prefix)

b.
c.

perform (Add a prefix)

sustain (Add a suffix)

d.
e.

effective (Add a prefix and suffix)

satisfy (Add a prefix and suffix)

Question III (10 marks)

Instructions: For each idiom below, explain its meaning and construct a sentence set
in a business context using the given idiom.
Example: (0)

Blessing in disguise
Meaning: A misfortune that unexpectedly turns into good fortune, as
in
Sentence: The company presidents sudden resignation was a
blessing in disguise; it brought the three vice presidents together for
the first time in years.

a.
b.

At the drop of a hat

Let the cat out of the bag

c.
d.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket

Get out of hand

e.

Jump the gun

Continued
End of paper
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