The principle of “Unreservedness” observed in writing a letter for placing an order requires the writer to ____.

1 I believe that we all accept the principle that an affluent society must do what it can to prevent hunger and misery, and also to provide equality of opportunity to those who have been denied it. But how far can a society go in the redistribution of wealth without changing the very nature of society? I think this is a problem that we've got to face. I do not think that a majority in Congress are trying to face it, or realize that it is a problem, because so many of them are still hard at work at this business of redistributing income.

2 All that reminds me of what happened in the universities during the 1960's and 1970's- events that I witnessed from a ringside seat. During this period we had a fashion of giving A's to every student--there were no failures. The effect on academic life was devastating. When illiterate or lazy students could get an A average, good students stopped studying. The result was a profound change in academic life: formerly dropouts were those who failed in their studies; in the 1960's and 1970's most of the dropouts were the most gifted and brilliant students, who found that college had become meaningless.

3 What happens in the schools is not unlike what happens in society at large when the penalties of improvidence, laziness, or ignorance are not just softened, but removed. When there is no such thing as failure, there is no such thing as success either. Motivation, the desire to excel, the urge to accomplishment—all these disappear. The dynamism of society is lost.

4 This, I'm afraid, is the direction in which our society has been going steadily for many years. The biggest losers are the brightest and most capable men and women. But the average person is a loser too. Faced with no challenge, assured of a comfortable living whether they work or not, such persons become willing dependents, content with a parasitical relationship to the rest of society.

5 What is significant in our time is that there is a whole class of people interested in encouraging this parasitism. Many welfare officials and social workers are threatened with a loss of their power if there is a marked reduction in the number of their clients, so they are motivated to increase rather than decrease welfare dependency.

6 Politicians, too, have flourished by getting increased federal grants for this or that disadvantaged group. They go back to their constituents and say, "Look what I've done for you," and get reelected. These are the officeholders who are far more interested in being reelected than in doing what is good for people, good for the economy, good for the nation.

7 If everybody is rewarded just for being alive, you get the same sort of effect as you do when you reward every student just for being enrolled. You destroy not only education, you destroy society by giving A's to everyone. This is a philosophical consideration that bothers me very much as I sit in the United States Senate and see its great budget allocation going through.

At the very beginning, the author seems to suggest that ______.

A．America is still not an affluent county

B．America has not done enough for those underprivileged

C．some people do not uphold the stated principle

D．America has a wrong idea of welfare

The Institute of Independent Analysts (IIA), an examining body, is considering replacing its conventional assessment process with computer-based assessment which produces instant results to the candidate. A business case has been developed for the computer-based assessment project. Figure 1, extracted from the business case, shows the financial appraisal of the project. It uses a discount rate of 8%. The NPV of the project is $10,925.

Figure 1: Financial cost/benefit of the computer-based assessment project

An explanation of the costs and benefits is given below.

Initial software – refers to the cost of buying the computer-based assessment software package from the vendor. The software actually costs $375,000, but a further $25,000 has been added to reflect bespoke changes which the IIA requires. These changes are not yet agreed, or defined in detail. Indeed, there have been some problems in actually specifying these requirements and understanding how they will affect the administrative processes of the IIA.

Software maintenance – This will be priced at 10% of the final cost of the delivered software. This is currently estimated at $400,000; hence a cost of $40,000 per annum.

Question bank – refers to the cost of developing a question bank for the project. This is a set of questions which the software package stores and selects from when producing an examination for an individual candidate. Questions will be set by external consultants at $50 for each question they successfully deliver to the question bank. It is expected that further questions will need to be added (and current ones amended) in subsequent years.

Security – refers to security provided at computer-based assessment centres. This price has already been agreed with an established security firm who have guaranteed it for the duration of the project.

Disruption – refers to an expected temporary decline in IIA examinations staff productivity and staff morale during the implementation of the computer-based assessment solution.

Marker fees – manual marking is undertaken in the current conventional assessment process. There will no longer be any requirement for markers to undertake this manual marking. All examinations will be automatically marked.

Admin saving – concerns reduction in examinations staff at IIA headquarters. The actual savings will partly depend on the detailed requirements currently being discussed with the software package provider. It is still unclear how this will affect the administrative process.

Extra income – the IIA expects candidates to be attracted by the convenience of computer-based assessment. Other competing institutions do not offer this service. The extra income is the IIA’s best guess at the amount of income which will result from this new assessment initiative.

The IIA is also putting in place a benefits management process for all projects. The IIA director is concerned that project managers are just moving on to other projects and not taking responsibility for the benefits initially established in the business case.

Required:

(a) Critically evaluate the financial case (cost/benefit) of the computer-based assessment project. (15 marks)

(b) Benefit owners, benefits maps and benefits realisation are important concepts in benefits management process.

Explain each of these concepts and their potential application to the computer-based assessment project. (10 marks)

An attempt towards the rectification of the rot that has set in the social and national life of the country is being made, with great enthusiasm, through judicial activism. However judicial activism alone does not suffice for the rectification of this all-pervading malaise. What is urgently needed is the support of other social agencies/institutions. A very important role in this matter can be played by media activism, the topic under discussion today.

It is undoubtedly true that the position of media or journalism is not that of a mission but of a commercial industry. The truth of the matter, however, is that our present journalism is used to presenting only half side of the picture. This is the root cause of all our problems. In view of the present circumstances media activism would amount to present a balanced reporting of the situation abandoning the present policy of selective reporting.

The principle of modern journalism can be understood from this saying: "When a dog bites a man it is no news, but when a man bites a dog, it is news". One practical example of this method is provided by our present journalism which is constantly engaged in giving maximum coverage to any hot news created by an unruly section of Muslims. If the percentage of hot news forms only one percent the percentage of soft news is not less than 99 percent. But the readers of the newspapers aretotally in the dark about this 99 percent of the picture, whereas the one percent is being repeated. Similarly if an extremist Hindu creates hot news, this will find a place in all the newspapers the next day. Whereas even in the Hindu world there is 99 percent soft news while hot news forms not more than one percent.

As a result of this one sided study, unreal opinion is formed by both the communities regarding one another. Taking extreme forms this unreal opinion at times turns into communal riots. The selective reporting of this nature remains a permanent obstacle to the path of national integration.

For the rectification of this state of affairs a powerful journalists organization-as we already have formed for our rights-based on the principles of social responsibilities is required. Media Relations Forum is an organization which aims at working for this goal.

Along with this I should like to put forward a proposal for bringing about an atmosphere of support and cooperation between the newspapers and social workers. Whenever a rumor spreads or a group indulges in any activity which may lead to disrupting peace, social workers should immediately engage themselves in a thorough investigation of the matter and then through the full support of the newspapers the actual version is published in the newspapers. This is the only way to maintain peace and harmony in communities.

The word "malaise" (Line 3, Paragraph 1) most probably means ______.

A．problem

B．definition

C．rectification

D．enthusiasm

Which policies pay the full price of replacing possessions?

When it comes to placing an interest hook in your elevator pitch and making it more contagious, you should speak proudly about your story as the listener is experiencing it.()

The word ( ) means "a practice among different political entities (as countries, states, or courts of different jurisdictions)" involving the "mutual recognition of legislative, executive, and judicial acts".

A、statute

B、enforce

C、comity

D、procedural

A、separated commercial and investment banking.

B、made it illegal for a commercial bank to buy or sell securities on behalf of its customers.

C、made it illegal for investment banks to engage in the underwriting of corporate securities.

D、did all of the above.

E、did only A and B of the above.

Dinla Co has the following capital structure.

The ordinary shares of Dinla Co are currently trading at $4·26 per share on an ex dividend basis and have a nominal value of $0·25 per share. Ordinary dividends are expected to grow in the future by 4% per year and a dividend of $0·25 per share has just been paid.

The 5% preference shares have an ex dividend market value of $0·56 per share and a nominal value of $1·00 per share. These shares are irredeemable.

The 6% loan notes of Dinla Co are currently trading at $95·45 per loan note on an ex interest basis and will be redeemed at their nominal value of $100 per loan note in five years’ time.

The bank loan has a fixed interest rate of 7% per year.

Dinla Co pays corporation tax at a rate of 25%.

Required:

(a) Calculate the after-tax weighted average cost of capital of Dinla Co on a market value basis. (8 marks)

(b) Discuss the connection between the relative costs of sources of finance and the creditor hierarchy. (3 marks)

(c) Explain the differences between Islamic finance and other conventional finance. (4 marks)

The IFAC code of professional ethics (2009), adopted as being relevant to ACCA members and students, contains the following advice.

‘A professional accountant in business or an immediate or close family member may be offered an inducement. Inducements may take various forms, including gifts, hospitality, preferential treatment, and inappropriate appeals to friendship or loyalty. Offers of inducements may create threats to compliance with the fundamental principles [of professionalism].’

Executive director and qualified accountant Ann Koo was in charge of awarding large outsourcing contracts for a large public listed company. When her family fell into debt, she looked for a way to make some additional income. When her company was seeking to place a contract for a large outsourced service, without inviting other tenders from which to select, she accepted a bid from one supplier who said it would pay her $50,000 as a ‘thank you’ once the contract was awarded. She justified her behaviour by reminding herself that she obtained her job partly because she was an accountant and that she had worked extremely hard to obtain her accounting qualification. She believed she was entitled to make a ‘higher personal return’ on her investment of time and effort in her accountancy training and through successful qualification as a professional accountant.

Required: (a) Briefly describe the five types of ethical threats in the IFAC code of professional ethics (2009) and discuss how accepting excessive ‘gifts’ or ‘hospitality’ can give rise to some of these threats within this case. (9 marks)

(b) Criticise Ann Koo’s beliefs and behaviour, and explain why accepting the $50,000 conflicts with her duty to uphold the public interest. (10 marks)

(c) The IFAC code also highlights the need for: ‘up-to-date education [for directors] on ethical issues and the legal restrictions and other regulations around potential insider trading.’

Required:

Explain what ‘insider dealing/trading’ is and why it is an unethical and often illegal practice. (6 marks)