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Passage 2
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage:
When aluminum was first produced about a hundred and fifty years ago, it was
so difficult to separate form the ores in which it was found that its price was
higher than that of gold. The price remained high until a new process was
discovered for refining the metal with the aid of electricity approximately
three quarters of a century later. The new method was so much cheaper that
aluminum because practical for many purposes, one of which was making pots and
pans.
Aluminum is lightweight, rustproof and easily shaped into different forms. By
mixing it with other metals, scientists have been able to produce a variety of
alloys, some of which have the strength of steel but weigh only one third as
much.
Today, the uses of aluminum are innumerable. Perhaps its most important use
is in transportation. Aluminum is found in the engine of automobiles, in the
hulls of boats. It is also used in many parts of airplanes. In fact, the huge
“airbus” planes would probably never have been produced if aluminum did not
exist. By making vehicles lighter in weight aluminum has greatly reduced the
amount of fuel needed to move them, Aluminum is also being used extensively in
the building industry in some countries.
Since aluminum is such a versatile (多用的) metal, it is fortunate that bauxite
(铝土矿), which is one of its chief sources, is also one of the earth’s most
plentiful substances. As the source of aluminum is almost inexhaustible, we can
expect that more and more uses will be found for this versatile metal.
6. The price of aluminum was sharply reduced when people discovered a new
refining process with the aid of .
A. wind B. solar energy C. hydraulic power D. electricity
7. Aluminum is .
A. lightweight, rustproof but not easily shaped into different forms
B. heavyweight, rustproof and easily shaped into different forms
C. lightweight, rustproof and easily shaped into different forms
D. lightweight and easily shaped into different forms but it is easy to
become rusty
8. Which of the following is NOT true?
A. Aluminum is widely used in transportation.
B. Aluminum is also used in many parts of airplanes.
C. Aluminum is being used extensively in the building industry.
D. Aluminum is not used in its pure form.
9. Aluminum is found on earth mostly in the form of .
A. pure metal B. bauxite C. gold D. liquid
10. What is the passage talking about?
A. The features of aluminum and its functions. B. The process of
aluminum.
C. The discovery of aluminum. D. The promising future of aluminum.
Section C
What a lovely place Xerox is to work Kim Moloney, a client services
executive, can’t say enough nice things about her employer. ‘It’s a very special
environment,’ she says. ‘People describe Xerox as a family and I was amazed at
the number of people who have worked here for so long.’ It’s tempting to take
Moloney’s comments with a pinch of salt, especially considering that when you’ve
been working somewhere for only two years, as she has at Xerox, everyone seems
old and established. But there’s truth behind her enthusiasm.
Take Carole Palmer, the group resources director. She joined Xerox in 1978 as
a temp and has been in her present role for seven years. ‘Xerox has been good to
me over the years,’ she says. ‘It has supported me through qualifications … and
last year I took part in the vice-president incumbent program.’ Human resources
is taken seriously at Xerox, Palmer says, and the company has a policy of
promoting from within (which would explain Moloney’s amazement at her
colleagues’ longevity). The company takes on only fifteen to twenty graduates
each year and Moloney was part of an intake who joined having already acquired a
couple of years’ work experience. She started as a project manager for Xerox
Global Services before moving into sales. Now her responsibility is to ‘grow and
maintain customer relationships’.
Moloney is based at the head office in Uxbridge. ‘It’s great in terms of
working environment,’ she says. ‘We’ve just got a new provider in the canteen
and … we have brainstorming rooms and breakout areas.’ Much of Moloney’s role is
visiting clients, so she doesn’t have a permanent desk at head office. ‘I’m a
hot-desker, which is good because you get to sit with different people in the
hot-desk areas. And you’re given a place to store your things.’ Head office
staff numbers between 1,200 and 1,500 people, Palmer says. The company has four
other main offices in the UK. The nature of the organization, which encompasses
sales and marketing, global services (the biggest division), developing markets,
research and development and manufacturing, means that the opportunities at the
company vary from service engineers to sales roles and consultants.
Perks include a final-salary pension scheme and various discount schemes. The
reward and recognition scheme is a little different, and rather nice: ‘Each
manager has a budget every year to recognize and reward staff,’ Palmer says. ‘It
can be in the form of a meal for two, or a bottle of wine. It can be up to
£1,000. There’s the recognition, and then there’s putting money behind it.’
Moloney, however, likes the non-cash rewards. ‘Xerox takes care of all its staff
but it also recognizes the people who put in the added effort,’ she says. ‘It
offers once-in-a-lifetime incentive trips, and recently I organized a sailing
trip for my team.’
The idea of working abroad with the company appeals to her, and she says that
her career goal is to be part of the senior management team. Here’s another
employee, it would seem, who is in it for the long haul.
( )1.The journalist of this article thinks that .
A. staff at Xerox are not telling the truth abut the company.
B. Xerox offers great benefits to staff.
C. Xerox is the best company in the world.
D. Xerox has the best working environment.
( )2.The company tends to find its new manager .
A. only form graduates B. on training courses
C. from existing staff D. from job markets
( )3.What does the phrase “to take on” in the sentence “The company takes on
only fifteen to twenty graduates each year and …” of the second paragraph mean?
.
A. To train B. To employ
C. To interview D. To maintain(A)
( )4.As well as recognizing its staff through promotion, Xerox .
A. gives cash bonuses
B. gives unpaid leave to take trips of a lifetime.
C. provides a number of perks.
D. provides huge end-of-year bonuses.
( )5.One common feature of Xerox staff is that they tend .
A. to work hard B. to get promoted
C. work longer hours each day D. not to change employer
Passage 3
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:
Unlike their American or European counterparts, car salesmen in Japan work hard to get a buyer. Instead of lying lazily around showrooms waiting for customers to drop by, many Japanese car salesmen still go out to get them. They walk wearily along the streets cars door-to-door. New customers are hunted with
fruit and cakes on their birthdays. But life is getting tough, and not just because new-car sales are falling.
With more Japanese women (who often control the household budget) going out to work, the salesmen increasingly find nobody at home when they call. That means another visit in the evening or the weekend. Then they face an extra problem: more people, especially the young, prefer to choose a new car from a
showroom where they can compare different models.
Even as late as the mid-1980s some 90% of new cars were sold door-to-door. In some rural areas most new cars are still sold this way. But in the big cities more than half the new cars are now sold from showrooms.
Although investing in showrooms is expensive because of the high cost of Japanese land, dealers have little choice. A labor shortage and higher among Japan’s workforce are making it difficult to hire
door-to-door salesmen. Most of a Japanese car salesman’s working day is spent doing favors for customers, like arranging insurance or picking up vehicles for servicing, rather than actually selling.
Japan’s doorstep car salesmen are not about to vanish. The personal service they provide is so deep-rooted in Japan that they are likely to operate alongside the glittering new showrooms. The two systems even complement each other. What increasingly happens is that the showroom attracts the interest of a potential buyer, giving the footsore salesmen a firm lead to follow up with a home visit.
11. Japanese car sales usually do not wait at showrooms for customers to drop by; instead, .
A. they sell cars door-to-door
B. they buy presents for their customers
C. they enjoy themselves in recreation centers
D. they go out to do market researches
12. Implied but stated: the competition in car market is .
A. light B. moderate C. fierce D. unfair
13. Young people like to buy a new car .
A. at home B. from a showroom
C. made in the U.S.A. D. made in Japan
14. The squadron of Japanese car salesmen is reducing because of .
A. a labor shortage
B. higher expectations among Japan’s workforce
C. high cost land
D. both A and B
15. Japanese car salesmen to their customers many favors such as .
A. showing them around in an exhibition
B. arranging insurance
C. paying them a visit on weekends
D. selling ole cars for them
What does the future hold for the problem of housing? A good deal depends, of
course, on the meaning of “future”. If one is thinking in terms of science
fiction and the space age, it is at least possible to assume that man will have
solved such trivial and earthly problems as housing. Writers of science fiction,
from H.G. Wells onwards, have had little to say on the subject. They have
conveyed the suggestion that men will live in great comfort, with every
conceivable apparatus to make life smooth, healthy and easy, if not happy. But
they have not said what his house will be made of. Perhaps some new building
material, as yet unimagined, will have been discovered or invented at least. One
may be certain that bricks and mortar(泥灰，灰浆) will long have gone out of
fashion.
But the problems of the next generation or two can more readily be imagined.
Scientists have already pointed out that unless something is done either to
restrict the world’s rapid growth in population or to discover and develop new
sources of food (or both), millions of people will be dying of starvation or at
the best suffering from underfeeding before this century is out. But nobody has
yet worked out any plan for housing these growing populations. Admittedly the
worst situations will occur in the hottest parts of the world, where housing can
be light structure or in backward areas where standards are traditionally low.
But even the minimum shelter requires materials of some kind and in the teeming,
bulging towns the low-standard “housing” of flattened petrol cans and dirty
canvas is far more wasteful of ground space than can be tolerated.
Since the war, Hong Kong has suffered the kind of crisis which is likely to
arise in many other places during the next generation. Literally millions of
refugees arrived to swell the already growing population and emergency steps had
to be taken rapidly to prevent squalor(肮脏)and disease and the spread crime. The
city is tackling the situation energetically and enormous blocks of
tenements(贫民住宅)are rising at an astonishing aped. But Hong Kong is only one
small part of what will certainly become a vast problem and not merely a housing
problem, because when population grows at this rate there are accompanying
problems of education, transport, hospital services, drainage, water supply and
so on. Not every area may give the same resources as Hong Kong to draw upon and
the search for quicker and cheaper methods of construction must never cease.
1.What is the author’s opinion of housing problems in the first
paragraph?
A.They may be completely solved at sometime in the future.
B.They are unimportant and easily dealt with.
C.They will not be solved until a new building material has been
discovered.
D.They have been dealt with in specific detail in books describing the
future.
2.The writer is sure that in the distant future ___.
A.bricks and mortar will be replaced by some other building material.
B.a new building material will have been invented.
C.bricks and mortar will not be used by people who want their house to be
fashionable.
D.a new way of using bricks and mortar will have been discovered.
3.The writer believes that the biggest problem likely to confront the world
before the end of the century ___.
A.is difficult to foresee.
B.will be how to feed the ever growing population.
C.will be how to provide enough houses in the hottest parts of the world.
D.is the question of finding enough ground space.
4.When the writer says that the worst situations will occur in the hottest
parts of the world or in backward areas, he is referring to the fact that in
these parts ___.
A.standards of building are low.
B.only minimum shelter will be possible.
C.there is not enough ground space.
D.the population growth will be the greatest.
5.Which of the following sentences best summarizes Paragraph 3?
A.Hong Kong has faced a serious crisis caused by millions of refugees.
B.Hong Kong has successfully dealt with the emergency caused by millions of
refugees.
C.Hong Kong’s crisis was not only a matter of housing but included a number
of other problems of population growth.
D.Many parts of the world may have to face the kind of problems encountered
by Hong Kong and may find it much harder to deal with them.
