Vocabulary （please give pinyin or characters): exam（test）

1 The Great Western Cake Company (GWCC) is a well-established manufacturer of specialist flour confectionery

products, including cakes. GWCC sells its products to national supermarket chains. The company’s success during

recent years is largely attributable to its ability to develop innovative products which appeal to the food selectors within

national supermarket chains.

The marketing department of Superstores plc, a national supermarket chain has asked GWCC to manufacture a cake

known as the ‘Mighty Ben’. Mighty Ben is a character who has recently appeared in a film which was broadcast

around the world. The cake is expected to have a minimum market life of one year although the marketing department

consider that this might extend to eighteen months.

The management accountant of GWCC has collated the following estimated information in respect of the Mighty Ben

cake:

(1) Superstores plc has decided on a launch price of ￡20·25 for the Mighty Ben cake and it is expected that this

price will be maintained for the duration of the product’s life. Superstores plc will apply a 35% mark-up on the

purchase price of each cake from GWCC.

(2) Sales of the Mighty Ben cake are expected to be 100,000 units per month during the first twelve months.

Thereafter sales of the Mighty Ben cake are expected to decrease by 10,000 units in each subsequent month.

(3) Due to the relatively short shelf-life of the Mighty Ben cake, management has decided to manufacture the cakes

on a ‘just-in-time’ basis for delivery in accordance with agreed schedules. The cakes will be manufactured in

batches of 1,000. Direct materials input into the baking process will cost ￡7,000 per batch for each of the first

three months’ production. The material cost of the next three months’ production is expected to be 95% of the

cost of the first three months’ production. All batches manufactured thereafter will cost 90% of the cost of the

second three months’ production.

(4) Packaging costs will amount to ￡0·75 per cake. The original costs of the artwork and design of the packaging

will amount to ￡24,000. Superstores plc will reimburse GWCC ￡8,000 in the event that the product is

withdrawn from sale after twelve months.

(5) The design of the Mighty Ben cake is such that it is required to be hand-finished. A 75% learning curve will

apply to the total labour time requirement until the end of month five. Thereafter a steady state will apply with

labour time required per batch stabilising at that of the final batch in month five. The labour requirement for the

first batch of Mighty Ben cakes to be manufactured is expected to be 6,000 hours at ￡10 per hour.

(6) A royalty of 5% of sales revenue (subject to a maximum royalty of ￡1·1 million) will be payable by GWCC to the

owners of the Mighty Ben copyright.

(7) Variable overheads are estimated at ￡3·50 per direct labour hour.

(8) The manufacture of the Mighty Ben cake will increase fixed overheads by ￡75,000 per month.

(9) In order to provide a production facility dedicated to the Mighty Ben cake, an investment of ￡1,900,000 will be

required and this will be fully depreciated over twelve months.

(10) The directors of GWCC require an average annual return of 35% on their investment over 12 months and

18 months.

(11) Ignore taxation and the present value of cash flows.

Note: Learning curve formula:

y = axb

where y = average cost per batch

a = the cost of the initial batch

x = the total number of batches

b = learning index (= –0·415 for 75% learning rate)

Required:

(a) Prepare detailed calculations to show whether the manufacture of Mighty Ben cakes will provide the required

rate of return for GWCC over periods of twelve months and eighteen months. (20 marks)

Teach for America (TFA) was founded by Wendy Kopp in 1990. It is a non-profit organisation that recruits top-notch graduates from elite institutions and gets them to teach for two years in struggling state schools in poor areas.

I had thought the programme was about getting more high-quality teachers — but that, it appears, is a secondary benefit. “This is about enlisting the energy of our country’s future leaders in its long-term educational needs, and eliminating inequity,” Wendy explains. It’s great if “corps members”, as TFA calls its active teachers, stay in the classroom — and many do, and rise quickly through the ranks.

But the “alums”, as she calls those who have finished their two-year teaching, who don’t stay in schools often go on to lead in other fields, meaning that increasing numbers of influential people in all walks of life learn that it is possible to teach successfully in low-income communities, and just what it takes. “It means you realise that we can solve this problem.”

As she continues to talk I realise that TFA is — in the best possible sense — a cult. It has its own language (“corps members”, “alums”), recruits are instilled (“We tell them that it can be done, that we know of hundreds, thousands, of teachers attaining tremendous success”), go through an ordeal (“Everyone hits the wall in week three in the classroom”), emerge transformed by privileged knowledge (“Once you know what we know — that kids in poor urban areas can excel — you can accomplish different things”) and can never leave (alumni form. a growing, and influential, network). I have not seen the same zeal when talking to those on the equivalent programme in England, Teach First., in which the missionary-style. language imported from America had to be toned down, because it just didn’t suit the restrained English style. But could that favour be necessary for its success?

Chester, an alum, takes me to visit three TFA corps members at a middle school in the Bronx. They are impressive young people, and their zeal is evident. Two intend to stay in teaching; both want to open charter schools. One, a Hispanic woman, is working out with a friend how to educate migrant Hispanic labourers in Texas; the other would like to open a “green” charter, but in the meantime he has accepted a job with the KIPP charter group in Newark, New Jersey.

All three are tired. Their classrooms are not much like the rest of the school where they work, and their heroic efforts are only supported by Chester and each other, not by their co-workers. “The first year was unbelievably bad,” one tells me. “So many years with low expectations meant a lot of resistance from the kids. Eventually they saw the power and the growth they were capable of.”

The primary goal of TFA is

A．to get more high-quality teachers.

B．to help struggling state schools in poor areas.

C．to attract the future leaders to education.

D．to improve the low-income communities.

平舆的读音为()，在河南驻马店。

A.PINYU

B.PINGYU

C.BINYU

D.BINGYU

The heads of some of Russias most prestigious educational establishments yesterday admitted that students use surrogates (代理人) to gain entry to top institutes, whose qualifications are a passport to lucrative jobs. The surrogate students are only the latest symptom of an epidemic of corruption that has gripped the Russian higher education system. A report published this week by the Ministry of Education and Moscows Higher School of Economics (HSE) showed that more than $ 300m was paid in bribes to enter the countrys educational establishments last year. A direct bribe to lecturers to enter an institution can be up to $ 30 000 for a top law faculty, the HSE estimates. "In our school alone this spring we caught four impostors who were attempting to sit the entrance tests in place of others," said Grigory Kantorovich, deputy head of the HSE. "Those were not isolated cases; its a whole, specialised business. " Such corruption is multiplied by a burgeoning market in coursework and diplomas written by teachers and lecturers, which can be bought over the Internet. A police spokesman said there was no dedicated unit for tackling corruption in education, but individual cases were investigated if evidence was handed over.