Lesson seventeen

LESSON SEVENTEEN

A. PHONETICS

Daunting / dónting /

Known / noun /

Complex / kómplèks /

Sales department / séilz dipártmənt /

Seem / siim /

Effect / ifékt /

Stand / stænding /

Instead / instéd /

Tantamount / tántəmòunt /

B. VOCABULARY

1. Describe a daunting situation

2. Which animal is known to like bananas a lot?

3. Do you find industrial engineering complex?

4. Is the sales department important for a company?

5. How does your teacher seem today?

6. What effects would the Free Trade Treaty (TLC) have on Colombian’s economy?

7. What is the person’s standing next to you name?

8. Do you like to read instead of listening to music?

9. Is studying English in the university tantamount to studying in the meyer?

C. GRAMMAR

WORDS TAKING PREPOSITIONS

TEACHER STUDENTS

tired of They are tired of walking

listen to Some students never listen to the teacher

rely on The engineer is relying on the plan he designed

pleased with The CEO is not pleased with results

Adapted by Yair Herrera Fernández

LESSON SEVENTEEN

D. READING

In business, of course, our task is even more daunting. Not only do we have to deal with our own set of independent variables, we have to deal with many more independent variables. In comparison with most of the technical systems that engineers might try to optimize, most business systems present us with a relative infinity of independent variables. Business systems, also known as organizations, are highly complex systems. Yet, despite all the complexity, we face a very similar optimization problem. We need to determine optimum settings for the many independent organizational variables.

What are these independent organizational variables? Here are just a few: the capacity of the purchasing department, the capacity of the sales department, the capacity of the mechanical engineering group, the capacity of the electrical engineering group, the

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