Happy Customers: Matter of Honor among Japanese

   In an age when personal service as a significant aspect of merchandising is dying out in the Untied States, Japan clings tenaciously to it. Service is viewed by people in Japan not as a luxury, but as an essential ingredient for the success of individual companies and the Japanese economy as a whole.
   Americans who move to Japan never get used to the range of services and courtesies taken for granted here.  (1)  
   Supermarket check-out counters have two or three people ringing up and bagging groceries. Some stores deliver, with each bag arriving neatly stapled closed.  (2)  
   Television shops normally send a technician to install and fine-tune a newly purchased set.  (3)   Car salespeople are known to bring new models around to customers' homes for test drives and loaners are available for people whose cars are in for repairs.
   There are no limits to what is home-delivered — video movies, dry cleaning, health foods, rented tailcoats (this last one requires tow visits from the sales staff, first for a fitting, second for delivery of the altered and freshly pressed garment).  (4)  
   Japanese barbers often give back massages as part of an ordinary haircut.  (5)  
   Department stores seem to have twice, if not three times the floor staff of American ones.  (6)   Upscale customers don't have to come in at all — the goods are taken to their homes for display and selection.
   Perhaps the darkest spot on personal service in Japan is how remarkably impersonal it can be. Everyone is treated exactly alike.  (7)   After a month's stay in a hotel, guests may find the staff still has no idea who they are.
   Still, the Japanese view service as the glue that holds commercial relationships together. If the correct personal contact and follow-up come with the first sale, a second is sure to come. Market share and loyal customers are the first goal, not short-term profit.  (8)  
   A. The technician will rush back if anything goes wrong.
   B. If they remove a customer's eyeglasses, they may polish the lenses before returning them.
   C. Employee's cheery greetings and directions, in fact, are often memorized from a company manual.
   D. Many stores wrap everything they sell.
   E. Service may cost but it helps ensure these more important objectives.
   F. Dry ice is inserted alongside the frozen foods to ensure that they don't spoil on the way.
   G. Office deliveries are common, too, especially of lunch.
   H. To those old enough to remember how things used to be at home, life can bring on twinges of nostalgia.

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8. 

New York's Setback Expected to Be Deeper than Nation's

   1. It probably came as no surprise to most New Yorkers that the nation had officially slipped into a recession by spring, or that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 knocked the wobbly legs out from under an already shaky economy.
   2. From Wall Street to Kew Gardens, the pain has been palpable. Just as nearly every resident of the city and surrounding area knew someone who lost a life in the World Trade Center, most know someone who has been directly affected by its economic aftermath dislocations, pay cuts and job losses.
   3. That giant sucking sound? It is the gasp of collective belt-tightening across the five boroughs. Statistics confirm the anecdotes. New York City lost 44,200 jobs just in October, the New York State Labor Department said. It could lose 50,000 more by mid-2002.
   4. Economists and accountants have tried to tally the damage stemming from the attack, and though their figures do not always match, the costs are undeniably substantial. In addition to the physical damage and cleanup expenses estimated at $30 billion, the attacks could cost New York City some $20 billion in lost economic activity like retail sales and tourism services this year and $10 billion more next year, according to Economy.com, a research firm based in West Chester, Pa. The $20 billion pledged by the federal government in emergency aid and billions more in insurance payments will help offset those costs, though only about half the federal assistance has actually been appropriated. A sharp falloff in tax revenue, however, will leave the state and city with yawning budget gaps not seen since the early 1990s. The city alone projects a shortfall of $1.3 billion next 5 year and $3.6 billion in 2003.
   5. That will keep New York's prospects dim even if the national economy emerges from recession, as economists predict it will in the second half of 2002. New York, they said, will endure a deeper and more protracted downturn than the rest of the country will feel. The gross city product, a measure of the city's economic output, declined 1.6 percent in the third quarter, compared with a 0.4 percent fall for the nation as a whole.
   6. Some economists compare the situation in New York to that of cities hit by natural disasters, like Hurricane Andrew in 1992 or the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995. Initial slumps were followed by building booms that led to revived economies, said Stephen Kagann, chief economist for Gov. George E. Pataki's office.
   7. New York, however, will not be helped by a building boom, he said. Rebuilding the World Trade Center, as huge as such a project would be, is unlikely to have a significant impact on the economy, Mr. Kagann said. The original construction had 3,500 jobs at its peak, with maybe 1,500 more ancillary jobs created together, only 0.2 percent of all jobs in the region. "The city's economy is simply too large for rebuilding to be a significant boost," he said.

   A. Deeper setback for city
   B. Role of rebuilding in city's recovery
   C. Palpable pain
   D. Consequences of natural disasters
   E. Estimated economic losses
   F. Rising unemployment
   G. Economists' optimism about city's economy

9. 
Paragraph 2 ______

10. 
Paragraph 3 ______

11. 
Paragraph 4 ______

12. 
Paragraph 5 ______

13. 
Paragraph 7 ______

A. substantial damage
   B. as different
   C. the terrorist attacks
   D. the city's economy
   E. the rest of the nation
   F. clearly avoidable
   G. easily noticeable

14. 
The nation had already slipped into a recession before ______.

15. 
The pain caused by the terrorist attack is ______.

16. 
The terrorist attacks on the city have brought about ______.

17. 
Economists predict that New York will fare worse than ______.

18. 
Rebuilding won't be of much help in reviving ______.

Crash-Prone? The Solution Could Be Windows XP;
   But does It Make Sense to Upgrade Your Operating System?

   You can hardly turn on the television or click on a Web page without seeing a colorful ad for Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system, which launched on Oct. 25.
   So, now that the long-awaited XP is here, what are you going to do about it? Should you upgrade, and if you do, how hard is it and what are the potential drawbacks? The decision is pretty easy if you really need a whole new Windows PC. They all come with XP preloaded, and in my tests of a few such models, they seemed to work well. I'm writing this on my own new personal computer, a Dell that came preloaded with Windows XP, and it worked great right out of the box.
   The only downside is that if you're keeping older printers, scanners and other peripherals, you may have to download new "drivers" — the small programs that allow a PC and a peripheral to interact. XP contains many of the drivers for recent-model printers and the like, sparing you from even digging out the disks that came with them. But if you have older equipment, you may have to download new drivers, because the original software that came with the hardware might not work with Windows XP.
   It's harder to decide what to do about XP if you have a PC that doesn't need replacing. If you're happy with the way things are working, don't upgrade. It's never a trivial thing to change operating systems, and you shouldn't do it without a reason.
   However, there are two big limitations in prior versions of Windows that XP does fix, and that might make an upgrade worthwhile. These are stability — that is, the ability not to crash, or at least to do so rarely — and compatibility. Windows 98 and Windows ME, the previous consumer versions, had wide compatibility with consumer software and peripherals, but lousy stability. Windows 2000, the prior business version, had great stability, but limited compatibility with consumer software and add-on hardware.
   Windows XP is designed to combine the stability of Windows 2000 (with which it shares underlying code) with the compatibility of Windows 98 and Windows ME, and in my experience, it does a good job at that. So if you need more reliability or compatibility than your current version of Windows supplies, an upgrade may be in order.
   But there's a catch. Microsoft says that an XP upgrade will really be sensible only if your PC is two years old or less — built after 1999. And you need at least a 300MHz processor and 128 megabytes of memory, though I recommend at least 192MB, and 256MB is even better. Also, you'll need a roomy hard disk — Windows XP alone will suck up 1.5 gigabytes.
   So there are only a limited number of PCs for which upgrading makes sense, and you may have to invest in beefing yours up first.
   Not only that, but you must have Windows 98, Windows ME or Windows 2000 on your current system to upgrade. If you have Windows 95 and somehow still have a new enough machine to qualify, you have to buy a very expensive, "full" version of Windows XP, basically wipe out your whole hard disk and start from scratch with XP, losing all your installed programs and settings.
   If you're good to go, you next have to decide which upgrade version of XP is right for you — the $99 Home Edition or the $199 Professional. The differences between them are surprisingly small, and 95 percent of home and small-business users will be fine with the home version. Buy the pro version only if you are running more than a modest network or need special security features.
   Note that if you have Windows 2000, or NT 4.0, you can upgrade only to Windows XP Professional, not the Home Edition. If you have Windows 98 or ME, you can choose either flavor of XP.
   In my tests, which included five PCs running all the main older versions; the Windows XP upgrades, both home and pro, went very smoothly.
   The process took about an hour in each case, and the installation software was friendly and clear in its instructions and progress reports.

Do You Need an MBA?

   Perhaps you have seen the media stories and some of the exciting career opportunities of MBAs, and you imagine, "That could be me ... " You might be well into the career of  (26)   dreams, but you have been told you will need an  (27)   to advance. Or, you may be at a  (28)   in your career and wonder how you should make a translation.  (29)   of what initially inspired you to consider an MBA degree, you  (30)   start with a thorough self-assessment process that will help you match your personal strengths and interests with your professional ones to help you explore  (31)   an MBA makes sense for you.
     (32)   helps you focus and articulate your thinking. Exhibiting undirected thinking or behavior might  (33)   you from gaining admission to an MBA program. More importantly, you will limit your return on investment if you  (34)   choose a school or are ill-prepared to take  (35)   of its educational opportunities. The MBA is very different from many  (36)   graduate degrees, in which academic promise is  (37)   paramount in the admissions process. At a minimum, business school  (38)   officers consider career history and aspirations, evidence of leadership potential, and academic achievement.  (39)   the typical MBA candidate has several years of full-time, post-undergraduate work experience in a  (40)   capacity and can clearly articulate motivations for MBA study.
   A good self-assessment process will help you establish specific career and education goals  (41)   utilize your strengths  (42)   address your weaknesses. Lacking specific goals, you will be searching  (43)   direction for a school. How will you eliminate options, much  (44)   make a choice you will be happy with in the end?  (45)   will you determine whether the MBA experience was a good value? Whenever you are considering major changes in your life, self-assessment can help you clarify your goals and make wise decisions.

26. 
A. one's               B. your               C. my             D. yours

27. 
A. opportunity         B. aid                C. MBA           D. aspiration

28. 
A. crossroads          B. loss               C. turn             D. traffic

29. 
A. Despite             B. Doubtless          C. Regardless       D. Responsive

30. 
A. would              B. have              C. ought           D. should

31. 
A. whether            B. whenever          C. whatever        D. how

32. 
A. Self-assessment      B. MBA              C. Friendship       D. Experience

33. 
A. help               B. lead               C. prevent          D. insist

34. 
A. cautiously          B. blindly            C. honestly         D. interestingly

35. 
A. measure            B. use                C. advantage        D. stock

36. 
A. more               B. another            C. great            D. other

37. 
A. labeled             B. considered         C. posed           D. received

38. 
A. high-ranking        B. harsh              C. education        D. admission

39. 
A. However           B. Besides            C. Eventually       D. Therefore

40. 
A. responsible         B. fixed              C. minor           D. possible

41. 
A. where              B. they               C. that             D. what

42. 
A. together            B. and               C. though          D. through

43. 
A. through            B. for                C. without          D. under

44. 
A. less                B. so                 C. as              D. more

45. 
A. When              B. How              C. Whether         D. Why