考博英语-219
| Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following
passage. The main idea of these business-school academics is appealing. In a word wt ere companies must adapt to new technologies and source of competition, it is much harder than it used to be to often good employees job security and an opportunity to climb the corporate ladder. Yet it is also more necessary than ever for employees to invest in better skills and sparkle with bright ideas. How can firms get the most out of people if they can no longer offer them protection and promotion? Many bosses would love to have an answer. Sumantrra Ghoshal of the London Business School and Christopher Bartlett of the Harvard Business School think they have one: " Employability. " If managers offer the right of training and guidance, and change their attitude towards their underlings, they will be able to reassure their employees that they will always have the skills and experience to find a good job--even if it is with a different company. Unfortunately, they promise more than they deliver. Their thoughts on what an ideal organization should accomplish are hard to quarrel with: encourage people to be creative, make sure the gains from creativity are shared with the pains of the business that can make the most of them, keep the organization from getting stale and so forth The real disappointment comes when they attempt to show how firms might actually create such an environment. At its nub is the notion that companies can attain their elusive goals by changing their implicit contract with individual workers, and treating them as a source of value rather than a cog in a machine. The authors offer a few inspiring example of companies--they include Motorola, 3M and ABB--that have managed to go some way towards creating such organizations. But they offer little useful guidance on how to go about it, and leave the biggest questions unanswered. How do you continuously train people, without diverting them from their everyday job of making the business more profitable? How do you train people to be successful elsewhere while still encouraging them to make big commitments to your own firm? How do you get your newly liberated employees to spend their time on ideas that create value, and not simply on those they enjoy? Most of their answers are platitudinous, and when they are not they are unconvincing. |
1.We can infer from the passage that in the past an employee ______.
A had job security and an opportunity of promotion
B had to compete with each other to keep his job
C had to undergo training all the time
D had no difficulty climbing the corporate ladder
2.According to Christopher Bartlett what will improve "employability"?
A Ability to lay out one's talents to employers.
B Skills and knowledge accumulated from school education.
C Training opportunity and guidance offered by company.
D Being creative and ready to share collective wisdom.
3.What does the writer of this passage think of the ideas of Ghoshal and Bartlett?
A Very instructive.
B Very inspiring.
C Hard to implement.
D Quite harsh.
4.In their work, Ghoshal and Bartlett discuss ______.
A changes in business organizations
B contracts between employers and employees
C employment situation
D management ideas
5.This passage seems to be a (n) ______.
A book review
B advertisement
C news report
D research paper
| Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following
passage. Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard's chief executive, came out fighting on November 14th. In a conference call with analysts, she announced better-than-expected quarterly results, even though profits were down. Ms Fiorina also reiterated why she believes her $24 billion plan to acquire Compaq is the best way forward for HP, despite objections by Hewlett and Packard family members. Last week Walter Hewlett, whose father cofounded the company, expressed concern that the merger would increase HP's exposure to the shrinking PC market and would distract managers from the more important task of navigating through the recession. There are two ways to defend the deal. One is to point out its advantages, which is what Ms Fiorina did this week. Merging with Compaq, she said, would enable HP to reach its goals faster than it could on its own. The deal would improve HP's position in key markets such as storage and high-end computing, as well as the economics of its PC business. It would double the size of HP's sales force and broaden its customer base, providing more potential clients for its services and consulting arms. It would improve eashflow, margins and efficiency by adding " breadth and depth" to HP. "Having spent the last several months planning the integration of these two companies, we are even more convinced of the power of this combination," Ms Fiorina concluded. It sounds too good to be true, and it almost certainly is. But the other way to defend the deal is to point out that, even if it was a bad idea to start with, abandoning it could be even worse--a view that, unsurprisingly, Ms Fiorina chose not to advance, but is being quietly put forward by the deal's supporters. Scrapping the merger would he extremely painful for a number of reasons. Since the executive teams of both firms have committed themselves to the deal, they would be utterly discredited if it fell apart, and would probably have to go. Under the terms of the merger agreement, HP might have to pay Compaq as much as $675m if it backed out. The two firms would be considerably weakened; they would also be rivals again, despite having shared confidential technical and marketing information with each other over the past few months. In short, it would all be horribly messy. What can be done to save the deal? Part of the problem is that HP has no plan B. "They need a brand-re-covery effort immediately," says one industry analyst. HP must give the impression that it is strong and vital, rather than desperate, and that its future is not dependent on the deal going forward. That could make the merger look more attractive and bring investors back on board. This week's results will certainly help. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which owns just over one-tenth of HP's shares, will decide whether to back the merger in the next few weeks, and HP's shareholders are to vote on it early next year. The more credible HP's plan B, the less likely it is that it will be needed. |
6.What is Ms Fiorina's attitude toward the merging of HP and Compaq?
A Reserved consent.
B Strong disapproval.
C Enthusiastic support.
D Slight contempt.
7.Which of the following is NOT the good reason to promote the merger?
A The majority of the firm are in favor of the merger.
B No combination is even worse than merger.
C It can bring about a lot of advantages.
D There is no plan B to save the firm from trouble.
8.The expression "The more credible HP's plan B, the less likely it is that it will be needed. " most probably indicates ______.
A plan B can win people's trust
B the merger needs people's trust in plan B
C the reliance on plan B determines the success of the merger
D appearing not to be dependent on the merger will make the merger go well
9.What can we learn from the fourth paragraph?
A The executive teams of both firms can benefit a lot from the merger.
B The future of HP depends much on the merger.
C The two sides are eager to make this deal.
D Plan B can save HP out of trouble.
10.What is the author's attitude toward the merger of HP?
A Negative.
B Supportive.
C Objective.
D Apprehensive.
| Questions 11 to 15 are based on the
following passage. Most of us have seen a dog staring at, sometimes snarling at, and approaching a reflection of itself. For most animals, seeing their own image in a mirror acts as a social stimulus. But does the dog recognize itself, or does the reflection simply signal a potential companion or threat? This question is interest for a number of reasons. Apart from curiosity about the level of animals' understanding, research on self-recognition in animals has several benefits. It provides some insight into the evolutionary significance of this skill of self- recognition and into the level and kinds of cognitive competence that the skill requires. Such research also indicates the kinds of learning experiences that determine the development of self-recognition. In addition, work with animals fosters the use of techniques that are not dependent on verbal responses and that may therefore be suitable for use with preverbal children. The evidence indicates that dogs and almost all other nonhumans do not recognize themselves. In a series of clever experiments, however, Gallup has shown that the chimpanzee does have this capacity. Gallup exposed chimpanzees in a small cage to a full-length mirror for ten consecutive days. It was observed that over this period of time the number of self-directed responses increased. These behaviors included grooming parts of the body while watching the results, guiding fingers in the mirror, and picking at teeth with the aid of the mirror. Describing one chimp, Gallup said, "Marge used the mirror to play with and inspect the bottom of her feet; she also looked at herself up-side down in the mirror while suspended by her feet from the top of the cage; she was also observed to stuff celery leaves up her nose using the mirror for purposes of visually, guiding the stems into each nostril. " Then the researchers devised a further test of self-recognition. The chimps were anesthetized and marks were placed over their eyebrows and behind their ears, areas the chimps could not directly observe. The mirror was temporarily removed from the cage, and baseline data regarding their attempts to touch these areas were recorded. The data clearly suggest that chimps do recognize themselves, or are self-aware, for their attempts to touch the marks increased when they viewed themselves. Citing further evidence for this argument, Gallup noted that chimpanzees with no prior mirror experience did not direct behavior to the marks when they were first exposed to the mirror; that is, the other chimpanzees appeared to have remembered what they looked like and do have responded to the marks because they noticed changes in their appearance. |
11.The idea of this passage is to discuss ______.
A whether dogs recognize themselves in mirrors
B whether the grooming practices of chimps can be altered
C whether nonhumans have a self-concept
D whether chimps change their behavior when a mirror is present
12.The first sentence of Paragraph 3 may be interpreted to mean that ______.
A nearly all animals have some self-concept
B nearly all animals have no self-concept
C nearly all animals have an awareness of the uses of mirrors
D nearly all animals have a fear of mirrors
13.The writer of the passage probably ______.
A prefer dogs to chimps
B have done more research with chimps than dogs
C enjoyed the experience involved in working with animals
D want to see more research on non-human awareness
14.The author's purpose in the passage is ______.
A to compare dog behaviors to chimp behavior
B to defend an idea
C to explore recent research on nonhuman self-awareness
D to evaluate a hypothesis
15.The purpose of the experiment introduced in the last paragraph is ______.
A to prove that the chimps are not self-precognitive
B to prove that the chimps have the ability to remember their own appearance
C to prove that the chimps have realized that the figures they see in the mirrors are themselves
D to prove that the chimps are non-human
| Questions 16 to 20 are based on the
following passage. Religion consists of conscious ideas, hopes, enthusiasms, and objects of worship; it operates by grace and flourishes by prayer. Reason, on the other hand, is a mere principle or potential order, on which indeed we may come to reflect but which exists in us ideally only, without variation or stress of any kind. We conform or do not conform to it; it does not urge or chide us, not call for any emotions on our part other than those naturally aroused by the various objects which it unfolds in their true nature and proportion. Rationality is nothing but a form, an ideal constitution which experience may more or less embody. Religion is a part of experience itself, a mass of sentiments and ideas. The one is an inviolate principle, the other a changing and struggling force. And yet this struggling and changing force of religion seems to direct man toward something eternal. It seems to make for an ultimate harmony within the soul and for an ultimate harmony between the soul and all that the soul depends upon. Religion, in its intent, is a more conscious and direct pursuit of the Life of Reason than is society, science, or art, for these approach and fill out the ideal life tentatively and piecemeal, hardly regarding the foal or caring for the ultimate justification of the instinctive aims. Nevertheless, we must confess that this religious pursuit of the Life of Reason has been singularly abortive. Those within the pale of each religion may prevail upon themselves, to express satisfaction with its results, thanks to a fond partiality in reading the past and generous draughts of hope for the future ; but any one regarding the various religions at once and comparing their achievements with what reason requires, must feel how terrible is the disappointment which they have one and all prepared for mankind. To confuse intelligence and dislocate sentiment by gratuitous fictions is a short-sighted way of pursuing happiness. Thus religion too often debauches the morality it comes to sanction and impedes the science it ought to fulfill. Religion pursues rationality through the imagination. When it explains events or assigns causes, it is an imaginative substitute for science. When it gives precepts, insinuates ideals, or remoulds aspiration, it is an imaginative substitute for wisdom-I mean for the deliberate and impartial pursuit of all food. The condition and the aims of life are both represented in religion poetically, but this poetry tends to arrogate to itself literal truth and moral authority, neither of which it possesses. Hence the depth and importance of religion becomes intelligible no less than its contradictions and practical disasters. Its object is the same as that of reason, but its method is to proceed by intuition and by unchecked poetical conceits. |
16.Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
A Religion seeks the truth through imagination, reason, in its search, utilizes the emotions.
B Religion has proved an ineffective tool in solving man's problems.
C Science seeks a piece meal solution to man's questions.
D The functions of philosophy and reason are the same.
17.The author states that religion differs from rationality in that ______.
A it relies on intuition rather than reasoning
B it is not concerned with the ultimate justification of its instinctive aims
C it has disappointed mankind
D it has inspired mankind
18.According to the author, science differs from religion in that ______.
A it is unaware of ultimate goals
B it is unimaginative
C its findings are exact and final
D it resembles society and art
19.According to the author, the pursuit of religion has proved to be ______.
A imaginative
B a provider of hope for the future
C a highly intellectual activity
D ineffectual
20.As used in the passage, the author would define "wisdom" as ______.
A the pursuit of rationality through imagination
B an unemotional search for the truth
C a purposeful and unbiased quest for what is best
D a short-sighted way of pursuing happiness
1.另一个文化差异是中国人传统上爱面子、讲形式、重礼貌。在对比美国人待人接物时，他们并不经常谈论丢脸、得脸、赏脸的事。美国人关心名誉，他们的确想到了“体面”，并使别人“显得体面”。无论如何，在日常交往上，他们更注重实质方面，而不介意一个特殊行动将使某人丢脸或得脸。像个人身份地位这样的问题，在中国之所以重要是因为他想的是面子，但美国人则认为面子不如实质那么重要。
2.筷子是中餐桌上最有特色的用餐工具。几千年来我们中国人一直视筷子为一种可以将饭从碗中送入口中的最简单同时也是最有效的工具。全国各地的筷子大小基本一样，而用材的种类则各有不同。选材包括竹子、木材、象牙、塑 料、铝、银、金等。特长的竹筷通常为厨房用筷。过去人们用嵌有银器的木筷来测试是否有人在餐中下毒，因为银器碰到许多有毒品都会起变色反应。
1.