TESL-EJ 10.1 -- Business Benchmark

June 2006Volume 10, Number 1Contents TESL-EJ Top | Business Benchmark Pre-Intermediate toIntermediate (Student's Book BEC Preliminary Edition)Author: Whitby, N. (2006)Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPublisher:PressPages ISBN PriceISBN-0-521-67117-5Pp.183 £15.00(paper)Business Benchmark Upper Intermediate (Student's Book BULATS Edition + CDROM)Author: Brook-Hart, G. (2006)Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPublisher:PressPages ISBN PriceISBN-0-521-67289-9Pp.184 £20.00(paper)On the CUP website (http://www.cambridge.org) Whitby's and Brook-Hart's books areintroduced thus: "Business Benchmark is a brand new 3 level Business English course for BECor BULATS exams and can also be used independently of these exams for general BusinessEnglish courses." The first thing I find interesting about this description is the use of the "and"when which or that would seem the more obvious choice. I have to admit, I re-read theoriginal sentence repeatedly asking myself, is the "and" a deliberate marketing ploy to makethe course sound like it has something extra to offer the teacher and student, or was it just asimple error? Either way, having a somewhat unnatural sounding sentence as the firstsentence describing a new English Language course book is perhaps not the bestadvertisement.TESL-EJ 10.1, 6/2006 Whitby & Brook-Hart/Cromarty-Lawtie 1Language usage aside, according to the website descriptions of Business Benchmark, there aretwo levels of course book ...