Business English Exercises: Modal Verbs and Vocabulary

Posted on Mar 7, 2025 in Administration and Management

Modal Verbs Practice

1. Underline the correct modal verb in brackets.

  1. The government says companies (have to / should) follow certain rules when advertising.
  2. You (mustn’t / don’t have to) say your product does something that it doesn’t.
  3. I don’t think you (should / need to) ignore the student market because they are your future customers.
  4. You (don’t have to / mustn’t) work late because George said he can if you don’t want to.
  5. They cancelled the meeting so we (shouldn’t / don’t need to) go.
  6. They (don’t need to / shouldn’t) invest in that company because it isn’t doing well at the moment.

Business Vocabulary

2. Write in the missing letters in the words below. They are all words about money.

  1. If you buy today, we’ll give you a ten percent discount.
  2. My bank gave me a personal loan today.
  3. I think it’s important we help Africa with its debt to other countries.
  4. He wants an extra ten thousand a year, and he already has a salary of over a hundred thousand a year!
  5. How much do you earn a month?
  6. The type of customer we want has enormous spending power.
  7. My house is worth about two hundred thousand pounds.

Marketing and Sales Methods

3. Combine words from A and B to complete the description below.

AB
public / personal / direct / advertisingmedia / marketing / selling / relations

“There are various methods of selling, starting with the most expensive, like TV commercials, radio adverts, and other (14) advertising media. A cheaper way to sell is through (15) direct marketing, such as direct mail, when you send out leaflets to people’s houses. Face-to-face contact with the customer is obviously important. For example, (16) personal selling with sales representatives can be very effective, and it’s easy to measure. It’s more difficult to see if (17) public relations is effective. This is because it’s about creating good contacts rather than selling directly.”

Word Completion Exercise

4. Write in the ends of the words in these sentences.

  1. Consumption of coffee has increased every year since 1950.
  2. Clever marketing made designer coffee very popular.
  3. Market analysts are warning that the economy doesn’t look good.
  4. Did we get the results from the market research agency?
  5. Cigarette companies often sponsor sports events.
Sales Discussion

5. Write in these phrases to complete the discussion.

That’s a good / I like / How about / Brilliant / I’m not sure / we could / why not / What about inviting

A: We need to decide how to increase sales this month. Any ideas?

B: (23) How about offering some discounts?

C: (24) That’s a good idea, but our prices are already cheaper than our competitors.

B: So (25) why not send some advertising to customers? We could tell them about our prices.

B: (26) I like that. I think we also need to use the Internet and email more.

C: What do you mean?

B: Well, perhaps (27) we could email some of our old customers and update the website?

C: That’s true. Our website is the same as it was six months ago.

A: OK. I’ll deal with that.

C: (28) What about inviting someone from the local newspaper to visit the factory and show them our new range?

A: (29) Brilliant! But I think we should invite all the newspapers.

C: (30) I’m not sure about that. Do you think they would come?

B: We could try…