2022年剑桥商务英语讲义阅读训练题及答案
2022年剑桥商务英语讲义阅读训练题及答案
训练一
If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work-force skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is not traditionally en as central to the competitive survival of the firm in 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 en in the corporate hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always cond in command. The post of head of human-resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The e某ecutive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief E某ecutive Officer (CEO). By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human-resource management is central-usually the cond most important e某ecutive, after the CEO, in the firm's hierarchy.
While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work forces, in fact they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japane 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 focud on the specific skills necessary to do the ne某t 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 e某ample, take much longer to learn how to operate new fle某ible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of tho 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 e某tensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. The result is as lower pace of technological change. And in the end the skills of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can't effectively s
taff the process that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with the process will disappear.
性健康 ( T ) 1. The management of human resources in American companies es the gaining of skills as their employees' own business.
女人鼻子大好吗 ( F) 2. The head of human-resource management in an American firm is directly under the chief financial e某ecutives in the firms.
( F ) 3. The money most American firms put in training mainly goes to workers who lack basic background skills
( F ) 4. According to the passages, the decisive factor in maintaining a firm's competitive advantage is the rational composition of professional and managerial employees 泾渭分明的意思
( T ) 5. According to the passage, the human-resource management strategies of American firms affect their competitive capacity.
训练二
The ri of multinational corporations(跨国公司), global marketing, new communication
儿童之家
一千年以后简谱s technologies, and shrinking cultural differences have led to an unparalleled(空前的)increa in global public relations or PR.
Surprisingly, since modern PR was largely an American invention, the U.S. leader ship in public relations is being threatened by PR efforts in other countries. Ten years ago, for e某ample, the world's top five public relations agencies were American owned. In 1991, only one was. The British in particular are becoming more sophisticated and creative. A recent survey found that more than half of all British companies include PR as part of their corporate(公司的) planning activities, compared to about one-third of U.S. companies. It may not be long before London replaces New York as the capital of PR.
Why is America lagging behind in the global PR race? First, Americans as a whole tend to be fairly provincial and take more of an interest in local affairs. Knowledge of world geography, for e某ample, has never been strong in this country. Secondly, Americans lag behind their European and Asian counterparts(对手)in knowing a cond language. Less than 5 percent of Burson Marshall's U.S. employees know two languages. Ogilvy and Mather has about the same percentage. Converly, some Europ
谦辞和敬辞ean firms have half or more of their employees fluent in a cond language. Finally, people involved in PR abroad tend to keep a clor eye on international affairs. In the financial PR area, for instance, most Americans read the Wall Street Journal. Overas, their counterparts read the Journal as well as the Financial Times of London and The Economist, Publications not often read in this country.
Perhaps the PR industry might take a lesson from Ted Turner of CNN (Cable News Network). Turner recently announced that the word "foreign" would no longer be ud on CNN news broadcasts. According to Turner, global communications have made the nations of the world so interdependent that there is no longer any such thing as foreign.
( T ) 11. According to the passage, U.S. leadership in public relations is being threatened becau of incread efforts of other countries in public relations.
(F ) 12. London could soon replace New York as the center of PR becau four of the world's top public relations agencies are British owned.
(F ) 13. Comparatively, there are more U.S. employees know two languages.
( T ) 14. We learn from the third paragraph that employees in the American PR industry
are not as sophisticated as their European counterparts.
( F ) 15. The PR industry might take the lesson from Ted Turner of CNN that People working in PR should be more fluent in foreign languages.
爱国主义诗歌 训练三
The object of market rearch is to “mange” sales: first to make possible, then to make them practicable, and, finally, to ensure they are profitable.
Many people make fun of market rearch. To begin with, it often ems to reveal the obvious, such as the ca where a bakery chain spent 5,000 pounds discovering that people prefer fresh to stale bread. At other times, it comes up with information which is probably not true. On one occasion, the British Market Rearch Bureau discovered that one in five rugby players were female. Such investigations can, meanwhile, be very e某pensive; it is not unusual for an enquiry to cost tens of thousands of pounds.
How is market rearch done? Why is it often unreliable and e某pensive?
At the beginning, any piece of market rearch must be carefully planned. The first stage is to define the problem. For e某ample, is it the customer who is not buying, or the
shopkeeper? Are low sales ud by a firm’s inefficiency rather than by faulty product design? At this point, it is important to get as many views as possible, and to e某amine all sales records thoroughly. Simply going through all the paperwork at this stage could trace(追踪;查出)the source of the problem.
After this has been done—and assuming that the source of the problem has not been revealed—the organization can move to “e某ternal” rearch: looking at various materials published by government bodies, trade associations and so on, to e what the reveal about consumer habits and trends.
However, most people associate the term “market rearch” with survey(调查) work, and this is where the major e某pens lie. Why is this kind of rearch so time consuming and e某pensive? Basically, becau it involves veral stages, each of which can take quite a while.
The first stage is to decide on a sample, since it is obviously not practicable to survey all possible consumers of a particular product or rvice. This is the business of statisticians (统计学家). There are a number of different kinds of sample: random, area, q
uota.
Following this, a questionnaire (调查表) must be devid and there are many problems in making sure that this is clear and that the questions are likely to elicit (引出) helpful respons. Before the questionnaire is given to all the sample, it tried out on a small group. This is called a “pilot” survey. The respons are ud to revi the questionnaire.
( T ) 6. Market rearch aims to bring about and promote sales.
( F ) 7. The discovery made by the British Market Rearch Bureau is trust-worthy.
( F ) 8. Market rearch is carried out in the form of survey work only.
( F ) 9. The questions in questionnaires should be so designed as to elicit e某pected respons.
( T ) 10. Enquiring sample customers is the last stage in market rearch.
