Section A Directions: In this section, there is a
short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage
carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest
possible words. Please write your answers on Answer Skeet 2.
Cordia Harrington was tired of standing up all day and
smelling like French fries at night. A property developer, she also owned and
operated three McDonald’s franchises, but as a divorced mother of three boys,
she yearned for a business that would provide for her children and let her spend
more time with them. Her aha moment struck, after she was
nominated in 1992 to be on the McDonald’s bun committee. "The other franchisees,
all men, thought that was funny because of the word bun," she recalls. "But the
joke was on them: They didn’t know the company would be picking me up in a
corporate jet to see bakeries around the world!" The experience
opened her eyes to business possibilities. When McDonald’s decided it wanted a
new bun supplier, Harrington became determined to win the contract, even though
she had no experience running a bakery. Harrington studied the
bakery business and made sure she was never off executives’ radar. "If you have
a dream, you can’t wait for people to call you," she says. "So I’d visit a mill
and send them photos of myself in a baker’s hat and jacket, holding a sign that
said ’I want to be your baker.’" After four years and 32 interviews, her
persistence paid off. Harrington sealed the deal with a
handshake, sold her franchises, invested everything she owned, and borrowed
$13.5 million. She was ready to build the fastest, most automated bakery in the
world. The Tennessee Bun Company opened ahead of schedule in
1997, in time for a slump in U. S. fast-food sales for McDonald’s. Before
Harrington knew it, she was down to her last $20,000, not enough to cover
payroll. And her agreement with McDonald’s required that she sell exclusively to
the company. "I cried myself to sleep many nights," she recalls. "I really did
think I am going to go bankrupt." But Harrington worked out an
agreement to supply Pepperidge Farm as well. "McDonald’s could see a benefit if
our production went up and prices went down, and no benefit if we went out of
business," she says. "That deal saved us." Over the next eight
years, Harrington branched out even more: She started her own trucking business,
added a cold-storage company, and now has three bakeries producing fresh buns
and frozen dough. Grateful for the breaks she’s had, Harrington
is passionate about providing opportunities to all 230 employees. "Financial
success is the most fun when you can give it away," she says. "We had a project
that came in under budget one year, and we gave each of our project managers a
car with a big bow!" To Cordia Harrington, the major benefit of the experience in McDonald’s bun committee was
________________________.