Part Ⅰ Listening Comprehension
For each sentence there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that best completes the sentence. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet I with a single line through the center.
I'd ______ his reputation with other farmers and business people in the community, and then make a decision about whether or not to approve a loan.
A. take into account B. account for C. make up for D. make out
PART Ⅱ Reading Comprehension
Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best answer and mark corresponding letter on Answer Sheet I with a single line through the center.
Like many of my generation, I have a weakness for hero worship. At some point, however, we all to question our heroes and our need for them. This leads us to ask: What is a hero?
Despite immense differences in cultures, heroes around the world generally share a number of characteristics that instruct and inspire people.
A hero does something worth talking about. A hero has a story of adventure to tell and community who will listen. But a hew floes beyond mere fame.
Heroes serve powers or principles larger than themselves. Like high-voltage transformers, heroes take the energy of higher powers and step it down so that it can be used by ordinary people.
The hero lives a life worthy of imitation. Those who imitate a genuine, they experience life with new depth, enthusiasm, and meaning. A sure test for would-be heroes is what or whom do they serve? What are they willing to live and die for? The answer or evidence suggests they serve only their own fame, they may be famous persons but not heroes. Madonna and Michael Jackson are famous, but who would claim that their fans find life more abundant?
Heroes are catalysts (催化剂) for change. They have a vision from the mountaintop. They have the skill and the charm to move the masses. They create new possibilities. Without Gandhi, India might still be part of the British Empire. Without Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. , we might still have segregated (隔离的) buses, restaurants, and parks: It may be possible for largescale change to occur without leaders with magnetic personalities, but the pace of change would be slow, the vision uncertain, and the committee meetings endless.
According to a survey, which was based on the responses of over 188, 000 students, today's traditional- age college freshmen are "more materialistic and less altruistic (利他主义的) "than at any time in the 17 years of the poll.
Not surprising in these hard times, the student's major objective "is to be financially well off. Less important than ever is developing a meaningful philosophy of life. It follows then that today the most popular course is not literature or history but accounting".
Interest in teaching, social service and the "altruistic" fields is at a low. on the other hand, enrollment in business programs, engineering and computer science is way up.
That's no surprise either. A friend of mine (a sales representative for a chemical company) was making twice the salary of her college instructors her first year on the job--even before she completed her two-year associate degree.
While it's true that we all need a career, it is equally tame that our civilization has accumulated an incredible amount of knowledge in fields far removed flora our own and that we are better for ear understanding of these other contributions--be they scientific or artistic. It is equally true that, in studying the diverse wisdom of others, we learn how to think. More important, perhaps, education teaches us to see the connections between things, as well as to see beyond our immediate needs.
Weekly we mad of unions who went on strike for higher wages, only to drive their employer out of business. No company; no job. How shortsighted in the long run !
But the most important argument for a broad education is that in studying the accumulated wisdom of the ages, we improve our moral sense. I saw a cartoon recently which shows a group of businessmen looking puzzled as they sit around a conference table; one of them is talking on the intercom (对讲机): "Miss Baxter," he says, "could you please send in someone who can distinguish fight from wrong?"
From the long-term point of view, that's what education really ought to be about.
New technology links the world as never before. Our planet has shrunk. It's new a "global village" where countries are only seconds away by fax or phone or satellite link. And, of course, our ability to benefit from this high-tech communications equipment is greatly enhanced by foreign language skills.
Deeply involved with this new technology is a breed of modem businesspeople who have a growing respect for the economic value of doing business abroad. In modem markets, success overseas often helps support domestic business efforts.
Overseas assignments are becoming increasingly important to advancement within executive ranks. The executive stationed in another country no longer need fear being "out of sight and out of mind". He or she can be sure that the overseas effort is central to the company's plan for success, and that promotions often follow or accompany an assignment abroad, if an employee can succeed in a difficult assignment overseas, superiors will have greater confidence in his or her ability to cope back in the United States where cross-cultural considerations and foreign language issues are becoming more and prevalent(普遍的).
Thanks to a variety of relatively inexpensive communications devices with business applications, even small businesses in the United States are able to get into international markets.
English is still the international language of business. But there is an ever-growing need for people who can speak another language. A second language isn't generally required to get a job in business, but having language skills gives a candidate the edge when other qualifications appear to be equal.
The employee posted abroad who speaks the country's principal language has an opportunity to fast-forward certain negotiations, and can have the cultural insight to know when it is better to move more slowly. The employee at the home office who can communicate well with foreign clients over the telephone or by fax machine is an obvious asset to the firm.
In recent years, Israeli consumers have grown more demanding as they've become wealthier and more worldly-wise. Foreign travel is a national passion; this summer alone, one in 10 citizens will go abroad. Exposed to higher standards of service elsewhere, Israelis are returning home expecting the same. American firms have also begun arriving in large numbers. Chains such as KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut are setting a new standard of customer service, using strict employee training and constant monitoring to ensure the friendliness of frontline staff. Even the American habit of telling departing customers to "Have a nice day" has caught on all over Israel. "Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ' Let's be nicer' "says Itsik Cohen, director of a consulting firm. "Nothing happens without competition."
Privatization, or the threat of it, is a motivation as well. Monopolies (垄断者) that until recently have been free to take their customers for granted now fear what Michael Perry, a marketing professor, calls "the revengeful (报复的) consumer". When the government opened up competition with Bezaq, the phone company, its international branch lost 40% of its market share, even while offering competitive rates. Says Perry, " People wanted revenge for ali the years of bad service." The electric company, whose monopoly may be short-lived, has suddenly stopped requiring users to wait haft a day for a repairman. Now, appointments are scheduled to the half-hour. The graceless EIAI Airlines, which is already at auction (拍卖), has retrained its employees to emphasize service and is boasting about the results in an ad campaign with the slogan, "You can feel the change in the air. "For the first time, praise outnumbers complaints on customer survey sheets.
Part Ⅲ Cloze
Fill in each of the following blanks with ONE Word to complete the meaning of the passage.
The great chariot of society, which for so long had run down the gentle slope of tradition, now found itself powered by an internal combustion engine. Transactions and gain 51 a new and startling 52 force.
What forces could have been 53 powerful to smash a comfortable and 54 world and institute in its place this new society? There was no single massive 55 . It was not great events, single adventures, individual laws, or charming 56 which 57 about the economic revolution. It was a process of internal growth.
First, there was the gradual emergence of national political 58 in Europe. A second great current of change was to be found in the slow decay of the religious spirit under the 59 of the skeptical, inquiring, humanist views of the Italian Renaissance. Still another 60 current lies in the slow social changes that eventually rendered the market system possible. In the course of this change, power naturally began to gravitate into the hands of those who understood money matters--the merchants.