Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30. In today's business world, companies often pay other (26) ________ to perform certain tasks or evenwhole projects in order to save money or time. This practice is known as outsourcing and iscommon in several (27) ________, particularly information technology, customer services and marketresearch. Outsourcing is not a ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.

In today's business world, companies often pay other (26) ________ to perform certain tasks or evenwhole projects in order to save money or time. This practice is known as outsourcing and iscommon in several (27) ________, particularly information technology, customer services and marketresearch. Outsourcing is not a new phenomenon. It has been occuring in the manufacturing sector for decades, but the 1990s saw a huge expansion in outsourcing in the service sector. Advances in the Internet and communications technology made it possible to assign routine tasks to workers in countries such as India, (28) ________ has the largest educated English-speaking population in the world. Another benefit is the 12-hour time difference between India and the United States, which means that a job that is submitted at the end of America’s working day arrives in India early in the morning, and can be completed (29) ________ the American company opens for business again the next day.

In (30)________ cases work is outsourced overseas,which results in financial gains as salaries are often considerably lower, not to mention the savings made by not maintaining office space.