Passage: The fact that superior service can generate a competitive advantage for a company does not mean that every attempt at improving service will create such an advantage. Investments in service, like those in production and distribution, must be balanced against other types of investments on the basis of direct, tangible benefits such as cost reduction and increased revenues. If a company is already effectively on a par with its competitors because it provides service that avoids a damaging reputation and keeps customers from leaving at an unacceptable rate, then investment in higher service levels may be wasted, since service is a deciding factor for customers only in extreme situations.This truth was not apparent to managers of one regional bank, which failed to improve its competitive position despite its investment in reducing the time a customer had to wait for a teller. The bank managers did not recognize the level of customer inertia in the consumer banking industry that arises from the inconvenience of switching banks. Nor did they analyze their service improvement to determine whether it would attract new customers by producing a new standard of service that would excite customers or by proving difficult for competitors to copy. The only merit of the improvement was that it could easily be described to customers.
~~~pause~~~
Strategies during reading:
1. Avoid re-reading
2. Avoid subvocalization
3. Avoid passive reading
4. Pay attention to pivotal words (but, however, nonetheless, etc)
5. James Bond mentality: time urgency, accuracy, and confident
6. Form imagery using creative mental linking
Strategies shortly after reading:
Step 1: First impression (author's tone, choice of word, ease of comprehension)
Step 2: Form a summary from each paragraph
Step 3: Form an overview from the whole passage
Step 4: Evaluate like an university professor
Specific applications of the above strategies:
Step 1: Author speaks in a neutral tone with a light dose of authority like a critic who views the phenomenon in a broader and more objective light.
Step 2: The 1st paragraph says that better service may sometimes not improve gains in a company. The 2nd paragraph exemplifies the concept from the 1st paragraph by demonstrating how a local bank's managers fail to assess the relationship between improved customer service and its effectiveness translated into any real benefit.
Step 3: The link between service quality and resulting benefits needs to be evaluated and should not be presupposed at the face value, in order to avoid wasted resource and efforts.
Step 4: A strength of this passage is the ease to read due to the well-constructed logical flow. It also gives a specific example by showing how improved customer service does not always equate to positive gains.
1. Don't go back to the passage unless you ABSOLUTELY have to. Oftentimes, you should be able to make your decision from I) the passage summary, II) information hidden in the question stems, and III) information hidden in the answer choices.
2. Understand the question stem clearly.
3. If time allowed, paraphrase the question (through time, it will become your second nature).
4. After re-phrasing the question in your own words, ask yourself "do I know the answer?" If yes, quickly form an imagined answer; if no, just relax and get the idea from reading the question stems/answer choices themselves.
5. Ask yourself "how confident am I of this imagined answer?" 100% sure > slightly doubtful > 50/50 > highly doubtful.
6. Evaluate the answer choices. Remember to be FLEXIBLE. For example, if you are very confident and find a matching choice immediately then save your time and pick that. But if you are only 50/50, then you might have to weight other choices against it.
7. Don't pick the choice you have absolutely no idea. Some test takers are tempted to pick a choice which they don't understand at all. Don't! It's usually a psychological trap.
8. Pick the LEAST WRONG answer. Quite often, I find myself talking myself into disconfirming all answer choices. But the reading sections in standardized tests such as the MCAT, LSAT, and GMAT are meant to create a sense of cognitive dissonance. Unlike science, people often find them doubting their best answer choice even if it's right. It's a test maker's trick to fool people into wasting more time re-reading and re-analyzing. Don't fall into this trap, don't expect to find a perfect choice, but pick the least wrong choice and move on.
~~~pause~~~
Practice questions:
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) contrast possible outcomes of a type of business investment
(B) suggest more careful evaluation of a type of business investment
(C) illustrate various ways in which a type of business investment could fail to enhance revenues
(D) trace the general problems of a company to a certain type of business investment
(E) criticize the way in which managers tend to analyze the costs and benefits of business investments
2. According to the passage, investments in service are comparable to investments in production and distribution in terms of the
(A) tangibility of the benefits that they tend to confer
(B) increased revenues that they ultimately produce
(C) basis on which they need to be weighed
(D) insufficient analysis that managers devote to them
(E) degree of competitive advantage that they are likely to provide
3. The passage suggests which of the following about service provided by the regional bank prior to its investment in enhancing that service?
(A) It enabled the bank to retain customers at an acceptable rate
(B) It threatened to weaken the bank's competitive position with respect to other regional banks
(C) It had already been improved after having caused damage to the bank's reputation in the past.
(D) It was slightly superior to that of the bank's regional competitors.
(E) It needed to be improved to attain parity with the service provided by competing banks.
4. The author uses the word "only" in the last sentence most likely in order to
(A) highlight the oddity of the service improvement
(B) emphasize the relatively low value of the investment in service improvement
(C) distinguish the primary attribute of the service improvement from secondary attributes
(D) single out a certain merit of the service improvement from other merits
(E) point out the limited duration of the actual service improvement
No comments:
Post a Comment