This is the Business English Certificate Higher 4, Listening Test 1.

You will hear Jack Lester, founder of Hinde Instruments Corporation, a telescope manufacturer, giving a talk about the development of his company.

As you listen, for questions 1 to 12, complete the notes, using up to three words or a number.

After you have listened once, replay the recording.

You now have 45 seconds to read through the notes.

[pause]

Now listen, and complete the notes.

[pause]

My name is Jack Lester and I’m here to talk about the company I originally founded in nineteen seventy-two, Hinde Instruments. Today, the company, with factories in Nevada and Texas and its headquarters in California, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of telescopes. Sales have grown at a rate of thirty-six per cent for the last ten years and in two thousand and two, reached one hundred and twenty-six million dollars. But this hasn’t always been the case. In fact, in nineteen ninety-one, the threat of bankruptcy was hanging over the company.

       I’ve always been an amateur astronomer and started building my own telescopes when I was ten. After working as an engineer at WAC, it seemed quite natural to start my own telescope company, Hinde Instruments. To start with, the company imported telescopes and sold them by mail order, but by nineteen seventy-seven, the company was making its own telescopes. Almost overnight, we took a huge portion of the market, amateur astronomers being keen to buy our telescopes because of the features they offered. By nineteen eighty-three, sales reached two million dollars.