BEC中级阅读测试一Reading T est 1
PART ONE
Questions 1-7
●Look at the statements below and the economic news reports on the opposite
page.
●Which news report (A, B, C or D) does each statement 1-7 refer to?
●For each ntence 1-7, mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet.
●You will need to u some of the letters more than once.
1This company’s executives have been lling shares successively.
生物多样性保护2Promotion plan has been ud to keep customers’ loyalty.
白菜炖粉皮3This company is expanding its rearch spending.
4The executive of this company entered a sale contract for cash.
5This company is in the mid-stage of new drug test.
6Selling some of the company’s shares will not undermine the ownership.
7One of the executives of this company will leave for no reason.
电脑入门基础教程
泳池
中国与日本的关系
PART TWO
Questions 8-12
●Read the article below about changes in working hours.
●Choo the best ntence from the opposite page to fill in each of the gaps.
●For each gap (8-12), mark one letter (A-G) on your Answer Sheet.
●Do not u any letter more than once.
●There is an example at the beginning, (0).
李宥真BRANDS AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
(0)_____D____. The brand culture concept helps us e why this is so. Brand cultures are “sticky.”
(8)__________. Unless they have product experiences or encounter brand stories that profoundly contradict conventions, people are usually happy to maintain the taken-for-granted understandings. There are two reasons for this durability.
Psychological rearch demonstrated that brand cultures are durable becau people are cognitive mirs. Becau we are so overloaded with information – far more information than we can reasonably digest even if we wanted to –we rely upon a variety of heuristics to simplify the world. (9)__________. Brand cultures work as one such heuristic. Once we determine that the conventional wisdom of a brand culture “works” for us (e.g. a detergent who conventional brand story is that it performs great in all temperatures ems to do so), we are not interested in eking out new information that would contradict this assumption. The heuristic provided by the brand works well, so we go on using it.
(10)__________. Brand cultures are shared by many people and expresd in a variety of contexts (talk, product experiences, ads, and so on). Brand cultures are maintained as the brand’s stories, images, and associations pul through the networks. Hence, it is quite difficult for an individual to opt out of the conventional wisdom of a brand culture and assign the brand alternative meanings. (11)__________. Becau of this network effect, brand meanings maintain a tenacious hold until a critical mass of customers and influencers join together to transform conventions.
(12)__________. A strong brand culture gives the firm considerable leverage in configuring channel policies and provided leverage in negotiating with retailers.
旧地板如何翻新Example:
A From an economic point of view, brands rve as containers of reputation.
B We ek ways to minimize the amount of thinking and arching that we must do to make good decisions.
C Just as brand cultures are formed collectively, to decommission a brand is also a collective decision.
D Branding is a potent means to establish competitive advantage.
E Sociological rearch demonstrates another reason why brand cultures are durable.
F Powerful brand cultures provide competitive advantage not only with respect to consumers but also in negotiations with channel partners.
G Once they have accepted them as conventional wisdom, people are usually reluctant to abandon t
he conventions of the brand culture.
PART THREE
Questions 13-18
•Read the article below and the questions on the opposite page.
•For each question (13-18), mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet.
CITIGROUP WON’T BE GETTING A NEW CORPORATE JET AFTER ALL
Under pressure from President Barack Obama, one of the nation’s largest banks reverd cour, announcing that it will not take delivery of the jet it had planned to purcha before the credit crisis unfolded. The canceled deal came as many politicians voiced concern about how banks are spending government bailout money.
The White Hou reached out to Citigroup on Monday to reiterate Obama’s position that such jets are not “the best u of money at this point,” calling them “outrageous”spending for a company getting taxpayer dollars, said a White Hou official who spoke on condition of anonymity becau the official was describing private conversations.
In a statement late Monday, Citigroup Inc. said it paid a deposit in 2005 to acquire the jet. The New Y ork-bad bank said it did not plan to u government money for the purcha, and it noted that any cancellation of the deal would probably lead to multimillion-dollar penalties.
With the cancellation of the jet deal, a deposit on the plane will be lost, but is recoverable once the jet is sold, according to a person familiar with the situation. Citi was in the process of purchasing a Dassault Falcon 7X for $50 million, the person said.
Citi is planning to cut the number of corporate jets in its existing fleet from five to two, said the person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity becau the details have not been made public.
Corporate jets have become controversial during the credit crisis as critics of large companies question the cost of owning and operating the aircraft, especially for business receiving government help.
In November, executives of automakers Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC were sharply criticized for flying on corporate jets to Washington to ask Congress for federal bailout money.
Amid the credit woes, Citi has been working to streamline its operations and shed asts to regain profitability. The bank has posted five concutive quarterly loss, including a fourth-quarter loss of $8.29 billion. Earlier this month, Citi reached a deal to ll a majority stake in its Smith Barney brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley. Citi has also announced plans to split its operations into two units, parating its traditional banking business from its riskier operations.
无所谓
Citi may have to wait a while to recover its deposit on the canceled jet deal, as the market for corporate aircraft has softened with the economy.
