Passage 1: Cultural expectations and leadership

Gabriela worked for a multinational company as a successful project manager in Brazil and
was transferred to manage a team in Sweden. She was excited about her new role but soon
realized that managing her new team would be a challenge. Despite their friendliness,
Gabriela didn’t feel respected as a leader. Her new staff would question her proposals openly
in meetings, and when she gave them instructions on how to carry out a task, they would
often go about it in their own way without checking with her. When she announced her
decisions on the project, they would continue giving their opinions as if it was still up for
discussion. After weeks of frustration, Gabriela emailed her Swedish manager about the
issues she was facing with her team. Her manager simply asked her if she felt her team was
still performing, and what she thought would help her better collaborate with her team
members. Gabriela found her manager vague and didn’t feel as if he was managing the
situation satisfactorily. What Gabriela was experiencing was a cultural clash in expectations.
She was used to a more hierarchical framework where the team leader and manager took
control and gave specific instructions on how things were to be done. This more directive
management style worked well for her and her team in Brazil but did not transfer well to her
new team in Sweden, who were more used to a flatter hierarchy where decision making was
more democratic. When Gabriela took the issue to her Swedish manager, rather than stepping
in with directions about what to do, her manager took on the role of coach and focused on
getting her to come up with her own solutions instead. Dutch social psychologist Geert
Hofstede uses the concept of ‘power distance’ to describe how power is distributed and how
hierarchy is perceived in different cultures. In her previous work environment, Gabriela was
used to a high power distance culture where power and authority are respected and everyone
has their rightful place. In such a culture, leaders make the big decisions and are not often
challenged. Her Swedish team, however, were used to working in a low power distance
culture where subordinates often work together with their bosses to find solutions and make
decisions. Here, leaders act as coaches or mentors who encourage independent thought and
expect to be challenged. When Gabriela became aware of the cultural differences between her
and her team, she took the initiative to have an open conversation with them about their
feelings about her leadership. Pleased to be asked for their thoughts, Gabriela’s team openly
expressed that they were not used to being told what to do. They enjoyed having more room
for initiative and creative freedom. When she told her team exactly what she needed them to
do, they felt that she didn’t trust them to do their job well. They realised that Gabriela was
taking it personally when they tried to challenge or make changes to her decisions, and were
able to explain that it was how they’d always worked. With a better understanding of the
underlying reasons behind each other’s behaviour, Gabriela and her team were able to adapt
their way of working. Gabriela was then able to make adjustments to her management style
so as to better fit the expectations of her team and more effectively motivate her team to
achieve their goals.

Task 1 Are the sentences True/False/Not given

1. Gabriela’s management style worked well with her team in Brazil but not with her team in
Sweden.
2. Gabriela’s team questioned her proposals and her decisions because they didn’t trust or
respect her.
3. Gabriela was thinking throughly whether her Swedish manager could help her deal with
her problem.
4. Gabriela found it helpful to talk openly with her team about the differences in their
expectations.
5. Gabriela faced a problem with her Swedish team because her management style was
old-fashioned and wrong for the modern world.
6. The author believes that people from high power distance cultures and low power distance
cultures should never work anywhere.

Task 2 - Note completion - No more than Two words

Gabriel had worked as a manager in Brazil, but after being transferred, she wasn’t treated as a
team 7. _______. In team meetings, the staff kept arguing and discussing her decisions by
openly expressing their 8.______ , which afterward made her contact the 9. _________ to
discuss the problem. Gabriel was used to working in a more 10._______ environment where
everyone was under control of the leader and manager. The social psychologist described the
way the power is distributed by using the idea called 11._________. When Gabriela realized
how different she and her team is, in terms of culture, she decided to conduct an 12. _______
about their feelings. After all, she made necessary alterations into her 13. ____________ to
meet the hopes of her team and to keep motivating them.
 Passage 2: Star Wars and the hero myth

Critics of the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens have called the film
unoriginal and predictable because the story so closely mirrors the very first Star Wars film in
1977. But, in fact, both films follow a structure that pre-dates all Hollywood films, that of the
‘hero myth’. That’s because director George Lucas based Star Wars on the ideas in Joseph
Campbell’s 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Later editions of Campbell’s book
even featured Star Wars’ hero Luke Skywalker on the front cover. In his book, Campbell
analyses myths from all over the world to describe the ‘monomyth’ – a pattern that you can
see in myths from every culture. In short, a hero sets off from home on a journey, where he
overcomes obstacles and defeats enemies to return with a prize. It’s a tale that has been told
for thousands of years, from the Ancient Greeks with The Odyssey to JK Rowling’s Harry
Potter books. George Lucas was one of the early film directors to directly base his story on
the 17 stages of the hero’s journey. Typically, the hero starts the story living an ordinary life,
but something happens that calls them to an adventure that changes everything. At the
beginning of Star Wars, Luke lives an ordinary life with his aunt and uncle, repairing robots.
When he finds Princess Leia’s message to Obi-Wan Kenobi inside the robot R2D2, it is ‘the
call to adventure’ that starts the hero on his journey.
According to Campbell, the hero at first refuses the call to adventure, but a mentor appears
who helps them and they decide to ‘cross the threshold’ and travel into the ‘special world’
where the adventure happens. The next stage consists of passing tests, fighting enemies and
meeting friends as the hero prepares to face their biggest challenge. For Luke the mentor is,
of course, Obi-Wan, the friends are Han Solo and the robots R2D2 and C3PO and the enemy
is Darth Vader inside the special world of the Death Star. Next, the hero overcomes obstacles
on the way to facing their greatest challenge. There often comes a moment when they face
death or loss and that experience gives them the strength to finally defeat the enemy. Luke
loses his mentor when he sees Darth Vader kill Obi-Wan, which helps him find the strength
he needs later on. When heroes succeed, they return from the special world, changed by their
experiences forever. Luke’s change comes when he remembers Obi-Wan saying, ‘Use the
force’, and he uses it to help him aim his laser into the heart of the Death Star. Luke takes his
first steps to becoming a Jedi, and the hero myth restarts in The Return of the Jedi, except this
time his mentor is Yoda.
Task 1 Are the sentences True/False/Not given

14. Joseph Campbell’s original book cover has links to the Star Wars films.
15. The Ancient Greeks also based their stories on Campbell’s ideas.
16. Other film directors after George Lucas have carefully followed the hero myth structure.
17. Obi-Wan Kenobi sends Luke a postcard and starts his adventure.
18. The hero is always willing to accept the call to adventure.
19. The hero often finds strength from some kind of loss.

Task 2 - Note completion - No more than A word

Critics of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens complained that the film was
20. _________.The film was so similar to the first Star Wars film that the story was really
21.__________. The front cover of later 22.________of the book The Hero with a Thousand
Faces had Luke Skywalker on the front cover. George Lucas was one of the first films
23._______ to use the ideas in Joseph Campbell’s book to plan his hero’s journey. Lucas
based Luke Skywalker’s story 24._________ on the 17 stages of the hero’s journey described
by Campbell. The hero has to overcome obstacles on the way such as 25.________ or loss.
When Luke loses his mentor, he finds the 26. __________he needs for the rest of his journey.
When heroes are finally 27.__________, they return from the special world, changed by their
experiences forever.

Passage 3: The Buy Nothing movement

A. Social media, magazines and shop windows bombard people daily with things to buy,
and British consumers are buying more clothes and shoes than ever before. Online
shopping means it is easy for customers to buy without thinking, while major brands
offer such cheap clothes that they can be treated like disposable items – worn two or
three times and then thrown away.

B. In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which
is around four per cent of their income. That might not sound like much, but that
figure hides two far more worrying trends for society and for the environment. First, a
lot of that consumer spending is via credit cards. British people currently owe
 approximately £670 per adult to credit card companies. That’s 66 per cent of the
average wardrobe budget. Also, not only are people spending money they don’t have,
they’re using it to buy things they don’t need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of
clothing a year, most of which goes into landfill sites.

C. People might not realise they are part of the disposable clothing problem because they
donate their unwanted clothes to charities. But charity shops can’t sell all those
unwanted clothes. ‘Fast fashion’ goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is
often too poor quality to recycle; people don’t want to buy it second-hand. Huge
quantities end up being thrown away, and a lot of clothes that charities can’t sell are
sent abroad, causing even more economic and environmental problems.

D. However, a different trend is springing up in opposition to consumerism – the ‘buy

nothing’ trend. The idea originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to
the US, where it became a rejection of the overspending and overconsumption of
Black Friday and Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy Nothing
Day people organise various types of protests and cut up their credit cards.
Throughout the year, Buy Nothing groups organise the exchange and repair of items
they already own.

E. The trend has now reached influencers on social media who usually share posts of
clothing and make-up that they recommend for people to buy. Some YouTube stars
now encourage their viewers not to buy anything at all for periods as long as a year.
Two friends in Canada spent a year working towards buying only food. For the first
three months they learned how to live without buying electrical goods, clothes or
things for the house. For the next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts,
eating out at restaurants or buying petrol for their cars. In one year, they’d saved
$55,000.

F. The changes they made meant two fewer cars on the roads, a reduction in plastic and
paper packaging and a positive impact on the environment from all the energy saved.
If everyone followed a similar plan, the results would be impressive. But even if you
can’t manage a full year without going shopping, you can participate in the
anti-consumerist movement by refusing to buy things you don’t need. Buy Nothing
 groups send a clear message to companies that people are no longer willing to accept
the environmental and human cost of overconsumption.

Matching Headings - List of headings

I. Unknown to the public clothing-related issue
II. Spending more than necessary
III. Possible benefits and a hope for a positive outcome.
IV. Over-consumerism in a developed world
V. A solution to the problem
VI. The positive effects of social media and examples

28. Section A
29. Section B
30. Section C
31. Section D
32. Section E
33. Section F

Task 1 Are the sentences True/False/Not given

34. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away.
35. The writer thinks it is worrying that people spend money on things they do not need.
36. The amount the average Briton owes on credit cards is one third of the amount they spend
on clothes each year.
37. Unwanted clothes are never thrown away.
38. Charities can find ways to use clothes even if they are not very good quality.
39. Buy Nothing Day is a day when everyone spends their money as the want.
40. The two friends who did the ‘buy nothing’ experiment only bought food for 12 months.
Answers

Passage 1

1. True
2. False
3. Not given
4. True
5. False
6. Not given
7. leader
8. opinions
9. Swedish (manager)
10. hierarchical
11. ‘power distance’
12. open conversation
13. management style

Passage 2
1. False 2. False 3. True 4. Not given 5. False 6. True
7. unoriginal 8. predictable 9. editions 10. directors 11. directly 12. death 13. strength
14. successful

Passage 3
I. C
II. B
III. F
IV. A
V. D
VI. E

1. False 2. True 3. False 4. Not given 5. False 6. Not given 7. False 8. True