托福商业类听力话题

托福听力考试中常常会出现很多状况，很多场景大家不知道知不知道，包含了日常生活中的很多类别。如果想知道托福商业类听力话题，不妨接着往下看……

托福商业类听力话题

Business

Narrator

Listen to part of a lecture in a Business Class

Professor

Ok, as we’ve talked about a key aspect of running a successful business is knowing, um, getting a good sense of what the customer actually wants, and how they perceive your product. So with that in mind, I want to describe a very simple method of researching customer preference, and it is becoming increasingly common, it's called----MBWA----which stands for managing by wandering around. Now, MBWA, that's not the most technical sounding name you've ever heard, but it describes the process pretty accurately. Here is how it works.

Basically, Um, the idea is that business owners or business managers just go out and actually talk to their customers, and learn more about how well the business is serving their needs, and try to see what the customer experiences, because that's a great way to discover for yourself, how your product is perceived, what the strengths and weaknesses are, you know, how to you can improved it that sort of thing, you know Dortans, they make soup and can vegetables and such. Well, the head of the company, had Dortans’ topped executives walk around supermarkets, um, asking shoppers what they thought of Dortans’ soup, and he use the data to make changes to the company's product, I mean, when Dortans of all the companies, embraces something as radical as MBWA, it really show you how popular the theory has become, yes, Lisa?

Student A

But isn’t it dangerous to base decisions on information from a small sample of people? Isn’t it large scale market research safer getting data on a lot of people?

Professor

That's a good question, and well I don't want to pretend that W… MBWA is some sort of, um, replacement for other methods of customer research. Now, the market research data definitely can give you a good idea of, um, of the big picture, but MBWA is really useful kind of filling in the blanks, you know, getting a good underground sense of how you products you use, and how people need respond to them, and Yes, the numbers of opinion you get is small so you do need to be careful, but, good business managers will tell you that the big fear they have an.. .and one of the most frequent problems they come across is well becoming out of touch with what their customers really want and need, you know surveys and market research stuff like that, they can only tell you so much about what the customers actually want in their dayto- day lives. Managing by wandering around on the other hand, that get you in there give you a good sense about what customers need so. So when use combination then, MBWA and market research were the powerful tools. Oh, here is another example for you, um, senior executive for a clothing manufacture. It was, um, Lken, Lken jeans you know, they went in work in the store for a few days, selling Lken's cloths. Now that gave them a very different idea about their product, they saw how people responded to it; they could go up to customers in the store asked questions about it, yes Mike?

Student B

Well, I would think that a lot of customers will be bothered by, you know, if I'm shopping, I don't know if I want some business representatives coming up to me and asking me questions, it's.. It's like when I got phone call at home from marketing researchers, I just hang up them.

Professor

Oh, well, it's certainly true that well no one likes getting calls at home from market researchers or people like that, but I will tell you something. Most customers have exact opposite reaction when they comes to MBWA. Now, don't ask me why, because I really have no idea, but the fact is that customers tend to respond really well to MBWA, which is the key reason for a success. In fact, the techniques of MBWA works so well, they have actually been extended to all kinds of different contacts like politics for instance, Um, a few years back, the mayor of Botamore, Um.. I can guess its name is Shapher or something like that. Anyway, he decided that the best way to serve the people of the city, of his city, was actually get out there in it and experience the things that they experienced, so he ride around the city in, you know, in all parts of it, and he see all the potholes; he see how the trash was sometimes, um, not pick up but off side the street and then they go back to the office and they write these memos, Now they were memos to his staff about the problems he had seen, and how they needed to be fixed, you know that sort of thing, but the thing is he got all the information just by going around and seeing the different Botamore neighborhoods and talking to the people in them, and he called it--- small politics, we'd call it MBWA, or just, playing good customer service.

托福听力话题商业场景分析

一、概述

商业类场景往往和其他分支学科产生联系。具体可以从以下几个方面来考察：

☆ 某个商业术语的介绍 例如历史上的经济政策(如放任主义)，以及某个商业概念(如边际效益)等。

☆ 某种市场现象 例如互联网泡沫，郁金香热等。

☆ 商业案例分析 例如某个公司的营销情况介绍，兴衰原因等。

☆ 其他话题 商业容易和其他学科产生交叉，如历史，文化和政治等。

商业类的听力话题一般来说是考察考生短时间内的理解能力。虽然可能会出现比较难的术语，但不考察专业知识。有背景知识固然好，但不会因没有背景知识而做不出题目，所以考生们大可放心。但建议考生平时多关注时事，以及浏览如Economist之类的杂志，拓宽知识面。

二、案例分析

下面是一个人文学的经典案例：

TPO 6 Lecture 1 (Boom and Bust)

听力原文：

1)… Of course, booms aren’t always followed by busts. We’ve certainly seen times when local economies expanded rapidly for a while and then went back to a normal pace of growth. But, there’s a type of rapid expansion, what might be called the hysterical or irrational boom that pretty much always leads to a bust. See, people often create and intensify a boom when they get carried away by some new industry that seems like it will make them lots of money fast. You’d think that by the 90s, people would have learned from the past. If they did, well, look at tulips.

Q: What is the main purpose of the talk?

A. to show what happens after an economy has experienced a boom-and-bust cycle

B. to illustrate the conditions needed to produce a boom-and-bust cycle

C. to demonstrate how boom-and-bust cycles have changed over time

D. to explain why the boom-and-bust cycle is not a frequent historical occurrence

分析：

在前几讲中我们提到过，大部分lecture的主旨都位于开头前几句话。而在这里，我们发现，文章中好像没有一句和文章选项是相对应的。这就需要我们根据上下文的内容进行总结。在此我们可以看这几个下划线句子，“繁荣之后不一定跟随的是衰败，而这种非理性的，不正常的经济繁荣之后，难免就是衰败了”。我们不禁思考：这种非理性的扩张到底是什么样子的呢?或者说，有哪些因素导致了这种扩张，从而导致经济泡沫呢?因此总结看来，B项是最合适的。

这里句子长，语速快，还伴随生词或词组，要仔细推敲。比如be carried away的意思是“失去自制力”，“沉溺于”，这些表达方式要多看听力原文进行总结。

2) … It turns out that the Netherlands was an ideal country for growing tulips. It had the right kind of sandy soil for one thing, but also, ⑴ it was a wealthy nation with a growing economy, willing to spend lots of money on new exotic things. Plus, the Dutch had a history of gardening. ⑵ Wealthy people would compete, spending enormous amounts of money to buy the rarest flowers for their gardens. What happened then was a craze for these specialized tulips. We called that craze ‘tulip-mania’. So, here we’ve got all the conditions for an irrational boom: ⑶ a prospering economy, so more people had more disposable income - money to spend on luxuries, but they weren’t experienced at investing their new wealth. Then along comes a thrilling new commodity. Sure the first specimens were just plain ordinary tulips, but they could be bred into some extraordinary variations, like that dark purple tulip. And finally, ⑷ you have an unregulated marketplace, no government constraints, where price could explode.

Q: What were some of the factors that contributed to the tulip craze in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century? Click on three choices.

① wealthy gardeners liked to complete for rare plants

② the number of people with disposable income was growing

③ tulip bulbs were initially cheap and easy to obtain

④ tulips in the wild bloomed in unusual color combination

⑤ the tulip market was not regulated by the government

分析：

节选内容原文很长，这里只选取了和考点有关的信息。本题是一个细节题，五选三，这在lecture中比较少见(一般来说是四选二)。加粗字体提醒大家要注意表示分类，列举和次序的路标词。细节题考察大家笔记记录的条理性，所以听到speaker有列举情况，要素，种类的意图时要马上记笔记。在此，⑵句对应的是选项一，⑴ ⑶句对应的是选项二，⑷句对应的是选项五，且均采取总结和同义置换形式。还要注意，此题涉及的篇幅较长，听时注意力一定要集中，还要在听的过程中学会总结。

参考笔记形式：

1. ↑Eco spend 币

2. rich 竞→ 稀 花

3. income↑; lux

4. unrgltˉmkt; no gov

细节题考察小知识点的辨音及把握。注意力集中的同时快速记录下平时用的比较多且印象深刻的简写符号，努力做到有条理性，节省查找笔记的时间。

三、考点追踪

通过郁金香热这个例子，我们可以看出众多商业类的听力话题具有以下特点：

☆ 结合段首甚至全文总结主旨

☆ 顺序和列举路标词 考察小细节。

☆ 逻辑性强 要求考生把握全文主线，根据主题推断相关细节等内容。

大家在备考托福听力时可以多看一些商业类的段子，做到熟能生巧，在考试时如果遇到这类话题也不至于无从下手，考生们如果准备入手准备，可以点击下面的下载按钮获取我们为大家整理的全部内容。

托福听力话题商业场景分析

托福听力考试中常常会出现很多状况，很多场景大家不知道知不知道，所以今天小编向大家介绍托福听力话题之商业场景分析，我们一起来看看吧。

托福考生们都知道，新托福考听力的话题是非常具有多样性的，包含了日常生活中的很多类别，今天我们就为大家介绍其中一种比较小但又不容忽视的类别：商业类。这类话题也会经常出现，但高中生或大部分大学生对这一话题又不够熟悉，因此一旦出现，杀伤力会比较大。

托福听力商业类词汇

1. insurance保险

Police investigating a ￡10 million car insurance fiddle arrested 16 people yesterday. 调查涉及1,000万英镑的汽车保险诈骗案的警察昨天逮捕了16人。

2. contract合约

That contract proved to be a millstone around his neck. 那个合同结果成了他的一个负担。

3. verbal agreement 口头协议

I wrote a memorandum to confirm our verbal agreement. 我写了份备忘录以确认我们的口头协议.

4. repay 偿还

5. interest利息

Hopes of an early cut in interest rates bolstered confidence. 利率有望早日下调，从而增强了人们的信心。

6. merchant 商人

The ride was smooth until they got into the merchant ship's wake. 航行一直很顺利，直到他们碰上了商船的尾流。

7. merchandise商品

8. purchase采购

9. retail零售

10. debt 债务

11. establishment公司(机构)

12. commercial商业的(商业广告)

There has always been a difference between community radio and commercial radio. 社区广播电台和商业广播电台一直是有区别的。

13. infomercial电视广告

14. advertising广告

15. marketing营销

16. marketing strategy市场营销策略

17. target marketing 目标营销

Personalization, one - to - one marketing, target marketing – whatever you call it, the concept is not new. 个性化营销 、 一对一营销 、 目标营销——无论你怎么称呼它, 这都不再是一个新概念了.

18. monopoly垄断

Had he succeeded, he would have acquired a monopoly. 要是他当时成功了，他就会取得垄断地位。

19. trust托拉斯(一种垄断组织)

20. manufacture 制造

The date of manufacture of the jewellery has not been authenticated. 这些珠宝的制造日期尚未经证实.

21. powerplant 发电厂

22. mill 工厂

The mill was started up with scab labor. 罢工期间有人坚持上工，使得工厂重新开始运转。

23. company/firm/corporation 公司

24. lawfirm 律师事务所

25. label 标签

26. cost-effective 性价比高的

The government said it wanted to overhaul the employment training scheme to make it cost effective. 政府表示希望彻底改革就业培训计划以实现低成本高效益。

27. consumer/client/customer 顾客、客户

28. cost 成本

29. profit利润

30. profitable有利可图的

31. revenue收益

A government's revenue and expenditure should be balanced. 政府的财政收入和支出要平衡.

32. increment(名)增长

Each increment of knowledge tells us more of our world. 知识的点滴增长都会增进我们对世界的认知。

33. financial财务的

34. currency货币

.Inflation has turned the rouble into a toytown currency. 通货膨胀使得卢布变成了毫无价值的货币。

35. circulation流通

The supply of money in circulation was drastically reduced overnight. 流通领域的货币供应量一夜骤减。

36. banking银行业务

37. broker经纪人

He was a high-earning broker with money to burn. 他是高收入的经纪人，有花不完的钱。

38. fund 资金

39. grant津贴

She won a grant to develop her own business. 她赢得了一笔拨款，用以扩展自己的企业。

40. subsidize(动)补助

Many universities subsidize research and publications. 许多大学资助研究和出版.

41. value价值

42. valuable有价值的

43. invaluable无价的，非常有价值的

44. valueless一文不值的

45. loss损失

46. supply and demand 供求

47. supply chain供应链

48. supplier 供应商

49. fluctuation 浮动

The erratic fluctuation of market prices is in consequence of unstable economy. 经济波动致使市场物价忽起忽落。

50. recession 衰退

The economy remains deep in recession with few signs of a pick-up. 经济仍深陷衰退之中，几乎没有好转的迹象。

51. depression 萧条

52. crisis危机

The government is taking emergency action to deal with a housing crisis. 政府正采取紧急措施解决住房危机。

53. PR(public relation)公共关系

54. survey 调查

55. poll 投票

56. surplus 剩余

Japan is in the enviable position of having a budget surplus. 日本的预算盈余令人羡慕。

57. productivity生产力

Wages were rising faster than productivity and this was eating into profits. 工资的涨幅高过了生产率增长的速度，从而消耗了利润所得。

58. shipment 运输

59. distribution 分布

The cocaine was ready for distribution. 那些可卡因已经准备好进行分销了。

60. franchise 特许经营

61. budget 预算

The Budget does expose the lies ministers were telling a year ago. 预算案无疑揭穿了部长们一年前所说的谎话。

62. NGO( non-government organization) 非政府组织

63. NPO(non-profit organization) 非营利组织

64. charity慈善

65. privatize 私有化;privatization

66. nationalize(动)国有化;nationalization

67. localize(动)本地化;localization

68. state-owned 国有的

Non-state firms gradually elbow aside the inefficient state-owned ones. 非国有企业逐渐挤掉了效率低下的国有企业。

69. R&D (research and development) 研发

It is the end product of exhaustive research and development. 这是全面研发后的最终成品。

70. accounting 会计

71. merge 并购