Business English Vocabulary Challenge: a Shortcut, Breakthrough, Advantage, or Bottleneck?

Welcome to the Business English Vocabulary Challenge! Today, we're learning a word that describes a major obstacle—something that is preventing progress and slowing things down.

Let's see if you can guess the word!

Today's Challenge:

Choose the correct option and listen to the sentence.

Did you get it right?

SHORTCUT

noun, countable

a quicker or easier way to do something

Using automation is a shortcut to reducing manual work in data entry.

He took a shortcut by copying last year’s report instead of writing a new one.

BREAKTHROUGH

noun, countable

an important discovery or achievement that helps solve a problem

The breakthrough in supply chain management reduced costs by 30%.

Her research led to a breakthrough in customer engagement strategies.

ADVANTAGE

noun, countable

something that helps you be better or more successful than others

Having strong negotiation skills is a key advantage in sales.

Early access to market trends gives our company an advantage over competitors.

BOTTLENECK

noun, countable

a problem that slows down progress or stops things from moving forward

The hiring process became a bottleneck because approvals took too long.

A lack of resources is creating a bottleneck in product development.

So, the correct answer is d) bottleneck.

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