2013年在职工程硕士英语阅读理解练习及答案1

  

　　If sustainable competitive advantage depends on workforce skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is not traditionally seen as central to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Skill acquisition is considered an individual responsibility. Labour is simply another factor of production to be hired—rented at the lowest possible cost—much as one buys raw materials or equipment.

　　The lack of importance attached to human-resource management can be seen in the corporate hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. The post of head of human-resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer(CEO). By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human-resource management is central—usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm's hierarchy.

　　While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work force, in fact they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. The money they do invest is also more highly concentrated on professional and managerial employees. And the limited investments that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies.

　　As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers on Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United States. More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for extensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological change, And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can't effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.

　　1. Which of the following applies to the management of human resources in American companies?

　　A. They hire people at the lowest cost regardless of their skills.

　　B. They see the gaining of skills as their employees' own business.

　　C. They attach more importance to workers than to equipment.

　　D. They only hire skilled workers because of keen competition.

　　2. What is the position of the head of human-resource management in an American firm?

　　A. He is one of the most important executives in the firm.

　　B. His post is likely to disappear when new technologies are introduced.

　　C. He is directly under the chief financial executive.

　　D. He has no say in making important decisions in the firm.

　　3. The money most American firms put in training mainly goes to .

　　A. workers who can operate new equipment

　　B. technological and managerial staff

　　C. workers who lack basic background skills

　　D. top executives

　　4. According to the passage, the decisive factor in maintaining a firm's competitive advantage is .

　　A. the introduction of new technologies

　　B. the improvement of workers' basic skills

　　C. the rational composition of professional and managerial employees

　　D. the attachment of importance to the bottom haft of the employees

　　5. What is the main idea of the passage ?

　　A. American firms are different from Japanese and German firms in human-resource management.

　　B. Extensive retraining is indispensable to effective human-resource management.

　　C. The head of human-resource management must be in the central position in a firm' s hierarchy.

　　D. The human-resource management strategies of American firms affect their competitive capacity.

　　参考答案：B D B B D

 

　　Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics—the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close.

　　As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy—far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.

　　But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves—goals that pose a real challenge. "While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error," says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, "we can't yet give a robot enough 'common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world." Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.

　　What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.

　　1. Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in .

　　A. the use of machines to produce science fiction

　　B. the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry

　　C. the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work

　　D. the elite's cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work

　　2. The word "gizmos" (line 1, paragraph 2) most probably means .

　　A. programs

　　B. experts

　　C. devices

　　D. creatures

　　3. According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can .

　　A. fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery

　　B. interact with human beings verbally

　　C. have a little common sense

　　D. respond independently to a changing world

　　4. Besides reducing human labor, robots can also .

　　A. make a few decisions for themselves

　　B. deal with some errors with human intervention

　　C. improve factory environments

　　D. cultivate human creativity

　　5. The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are .

　　A. expected to copy human brain in internal structure

　　B. able to perceive abnormalities immediately

　　C. far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information

　　D. best used in a controlled environment

　　参考答案：CCDBC

  

　　It is said that the public and Congressional concern about deceptive (欺骗性的) packaging rumpus (喧嚣) started because Senator Hart discovered that the boxes of cereals consumed by him, Mrs. Hart, and their children were becoming higher and narrower, with a decline of net weight from 12 to 10-1/2 ounces, without any reduction in price. There were  still twelve biscuits, but they had been reduced in size. Later, the Senator rightly complained of a store- bought pie in a handsomely illustrated box that pictured, in a single slice, almost as many cherries as there were in the whole pie. The manufacturer who increases the unit

　　price of his product by changing his package size to lower the quantity delivered can, without undue hardship, put his product into boxes, bags, and tins that will contain even 4-ounce, 8-ounce, one-pound, two-pound quantities of breakfast foods, cake mixes, etc. A study of drugstore (杂货店) and supermarket shelves will convince any observer that all possible sizes and shapes of boxes, jars, bottles, and tins are in use at the same time, and, as the package journals show, week by week, there is never any hesitation in introducing a new size and shape of box or bottle when it aids in product differentiation. The producers of packaged products argue strongly against changing sizes of packages to contain even weights and volumes, but no one in the trade comments unfavorably on the huge costs incurred by endless changes of package sizes, materials, shape, art work, and net weights that are used for improving a product's market position.

　　When a packaging expert explained that he was able to multiply the price of hard sweets by 2.5, from $1 to $ 2.50 by changing to a fancy jar, or that he had made a 5-ounce bottle look as though it held 8 ounces, he was in effect telling the public that packaging can be a very expensive luxury. It evidently does come high, when an average family pays about $ 200 a year for bottles, cans, boxes, jars and other containers, most of which can't be used for anything but stuffing the garbage can.

　　1. What started the public and Congressional concern about deceptive packaging rumpus?

　　A. Consumers' complaints about the changes in package size.

　　B. Expensive packaging for poor quality products.

　　C. A senator's discovery of the tricks in packaging.

　　D. The rise in the unit price for many products.

　　2. The word "undue" (Line 2, Para. 2) means " ".

　　A. improper

　　C. unexpected

　　B. adequate

　　D. excessive

　　3. Consumers are concerned about the changes in package size, mainly because .

　　A. they hate to see any changes in things they are familiar with

　　B. the unit price for a product often rises as a result

　　C. they have to pay for the cost of changing package sizes

　　D. this entails an increase in the cost of packaging

　　4. According to this passage, various types of packaging come into existence to .

　　A. meet the needs of consumers

　　C. enhance the market position of products

　　B. suit all kinds of products

　　D. introduce new products

　　5. The author is critical mainly of .

　　A. dishonest packaging

　　B. inferior packaging

　　C. the changes in package size

　　D. exaggerated illustrations on packages

　　参考答案：CDBCA

 

　　Early in the age of affluence (富裕) that followed World War II, an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, "Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption... .We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate."

　　Americans have responded to Lebow's call, and much of the world has followed.

　　Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world's two largest economies—Japan and the United States—show consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent.

　　Overconsumption by the world's fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate.

　　Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.

　　Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow—that, misled by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things.

　　Of course, the opposite of overconsumption—poverty—is no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too. Dispossessed (被剥夺得一无所有的) peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads (游牧民族) turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert.

　　If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction?

　　1. The emergence of the affluent society after World War II .

　　A. led to the reform of the retailing system

　　B. resulted in the worship of consumerism

　　C. gave rise to the dominance of the new egoism

　　D. gave birth to a new generation of upper class consumers

　　2. Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is______.

　　A. the people's desire for a rise in their living standards

　　B. the concept that one's success is measured by how much they consume

　　C. the imbalance that has existed between production and consumption

　　D. the conversion of the sale of goods into rituals

　　3. Why does the author say high consumption is a mixed blessing?

　　A. Because poverty still exists in an affluent society.

　　B. Because overconsumption won't last long due to unrestricted population growth.

　　C. Because traditional rituals are often neglected in the process of modernization.

　　D. Because moral values are sacrificed in pursuit of material satisfaction.

　　4. According to the passage, consumerist culture .

　　A. will not alleviate poverty in wealthy countries

　　B. will not aggravate environmental problems

　　C. cannot thrive on a fragile economy

　　D. cannot satisfy human spiritual needs

　　5. It can be inferred from the passage that .

　　A. human spiritual needs should match material affluence

　　B. whether high consumption should be encouraged is still an issue

　　C. how to keep consumption at a reasonable level remains a problem

　　D. there is never an end to satisfying people's material needs

　　参考答案：BBDDC