rather than putting all their eggs in few baskets. They are signing shorter contracts, too. But still, they need to think harder about what their core business is, and what is peripheral. And above all, newspaper editors need to say no to the temptation to outsource business columns to cheaper, hungrier writers.
1. The Ford?s River Rouge Plant case is introduced in the first paragraph to _____. A. indicate the prevalence of outsourcing B. lament over the past glory of the plant
C. explain Boeing?s adoption of a similar model D. expose the weakness of its business model
2. Which of the following statements about outsourcing is correct? A. Outsourcing in all markets has encountered difficulties. B. Outsourcing, if well operated, can help reduce the costs.
C. Recession is the major cause for less outsourcing in America.
D. The outsourcing boom will go on indefinitely in spite of problems.
3. Currently companies in America have the following concerns EXCEPT_____. A. low quality of subcontracted products and services B. the saturated outsourcing market
C. drastic increase of disputes over outsourcing D. the necessity of reforming outsourcing model
4. Which of the following solutions is NOT suggested in the passage? A. Develop several outsourcers to reduce potential risks. B. Sign short-term and flexible contracts with outsourcers. C. Rebuild the department to do the job once outsourced. D. Identify businesses appropriate for outsourcing.
5. The underlined word “peripheral” in paragraph 8 is closest in meaning to _____. A. indispensable B. temporary C. essential D. secondary
Passage Two
Of all the methods of communication invented by humanity over the centuries, none has disseminated so much information so widely at such high speeds as the internet. It is both a unifying force and a globalizing one. But, its very ubiquity makes it a localizing one too, because it is clearly not the same everywhere, either in what it provides or how it is operated and regulated.
The smartphone has liberated its users from the PC on his desk, granting him access on the go not just to remote computers and long-lost friends on the other side of the world but also to the places around him. If he lives in a city, as most users do, then his fellow city-dwellers and the buildings, cars and streets around them are throwing off almost unimaginable quantities of valuable data from which he will
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benefit. And although communications across continents have become cheap and easy, physical proximity to others remains important in creating new ideas and products—especially (and perhaps ironically) for companies offering online services. You cannot (yet) have a coffee together online.
This simultaneously more localized and more globalized world will be more complicated than the world of old. Different rules will continue to apply to different countries? bits of cyberspace. Gartner?s Mr. Prentice thinks that three basic forces will shape the mobile internet, the transport of data across it and the content available on it: politician?s demand for control; (most) people?s desire for freedom; and companies? pursuit of profit. It is possible to imagine scenarios in which one of these forces comes out on top. But it is more likely, says Mr. Prentice, that different combinations of the three forces will prevail in different places.
What seems certain is that life online will become more local without becoming any less global. With a smartphone in your hand you can find out more, if you want to, about what is going on immediately around you. The next bus goes in five minutes. The coffee shop across the street, where you haven?t been for a few weeks, is offering you a free cappuccino. Those cushions you looked at online are available in the department store around the corner. The smartphone could even help revive the high street if people knew that they could take home today what Amazon could not deliver until tomorrow.
None of this will reduce the scope or the appetite for catching up with friends, news and stories from far away. “The truth is that three things will go on at once,” says Danny Miller, an anthropologist at UCL. There will continue to be “unprecedented opportunities for homogenization and globalization”, but there are also “possibilities for great localization”—including services such as Foursquare. Lastly, there will be a new localism, thanks to an internet full of local differences that are not confined to particular places. For example, Trinidadians use Facebook in a distinctive way to reflect local concepts of scandal and gossip. But because more than half of Trinidadian families have at least one member living abroad, this form of use is not tied to Trinidad; it could just as easily be adopted by Trinidadians living in London or Toronto.
A further prediction is that, as people rely more on connected devices to explore the physical world, digital information will have a growing influence on how they see the physical realm and on how they move through it. Mr. Gramham and Mr. Zook, with Andrew Boulton, also of the University of Kentucky, begin a forthcoming paper by imagining a young woman?s progress through Dublin on a Saturday night—a kind of digital “ Ulysses”. She checks texts and tweets from her boyfriend (where is he?), passes a bar (a favorite band once played here) and looks up a review of a restaurant (seems good). But the city she sees has been digitally constructed for her. Her boyfriend sends her a text to arrange a meeting place. She knows about the band because her past online searches have prompted her smartphone to provide the details. And the restaurant review is nothing more than the sum of other people?s opinions, delivered electronically.
And this is harmless, even helpful, but there is a darker side to it. Eli Pariser, an
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American journalist, has written of a “filter bubble” in which people are presented only with ideas and opinions that their past online behavior suggests they are likely to agree with. As they make their digital way through the physical realm, something similar may happen. Being steered away from areas of high crime late at night is no bad thing. But not being pointed towards a museum or a club because you haven?t been anywhere like it before may be a missed opportunity. Standing in front of a monument and being given a version of history that reinforces your prejudice closes rather than opens the mind.
Yet on the whole it is surely a good thing for the digital and the physical worlds to become increasingly interwoven. They are complements, not substitutes for each other. The digital overlay will, in effect, allow people to see not only through walls (what?s in that shop?) and around corners (is there a taxi nearby?) but even through time (what happened here in 1945?). Each realm on its own is fascinating; together they are irresistible.
6. The passage is mainly about _______.
A. the impact of smartphones upon life online B. the globalization brought about by the internet
C. the interaction between the digital and physical worlds D. the development of localism in the era of the globalization
7. According to the passage, which of the following statements is correct? A. The digital world may shape people?s perception of the physical world. B. Indulgence in the digital world may cause delusion about the reality. C. Connected devices have turned people?s life from local to global.
D. Smartphones reduce people?s interest in getting information from far away.
8. The case of a woman?s trip in Dublin in paragraph 6 is presented to _______. A. illustrate the function of smartphones in cities
B. predict the influence of digital information upon physical life C. explain the new findings of some scholars D. mimic the life delineated in the novel Ulysses
9. The following factors EXCEPT ______ contribute to the localism in life online. A. easy exploration of the local environment B. increasingly distinctive local services
C. localized regulations regarding the internet D. adherence to the local culture and customs
10. The underlined word “ubiquity” in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to _______.
A. Uniqueness B. Strength C. Universality D. Accessibility
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Section II
Directions: Read the following two passages and answer in COMPLETE SENETNECES the questions which follow the passages. Write your answers in the corresponding space in your answer sheet.
Passage Three
The BBC has long dominated Britain?s media, but in recent years it has got even bigger, both absolutely and relatively. Many serious broadsheet and local newspapers are dying. Tabloid newspapers have been shamed by a phone-hacking scandal, and are likely to endure stricter oversight in future. The corporation gets ￡3.6 billion ($5.7 billion) a year from a licence fee levied on every household that watches television, and is therefore invulnerable to the vagaries of the media market, while the technological change that has caused other media outlets to shrivel has given the BBC new scope for expansion. It has huge online presence and a proliferation of digital television channels and radio stations. With a staff of around 23,000, it is the largest broadcaster in the world.
The BBC makes good use of some of this money. Its documentaries, serious radio output (such as “Today”) and website are excellent. Although polls show trust in it is declining, the reputations of other great British institutions, such as Parliament and the City, have fallen further still. The BBC remains respected around the world and is a handy tool for projecting British interests—cheaper and cleaner than bombs.
Yet Britons? attention has drifted to other entertainments. The BBC?s share of British viewing time has dropped from over a half three decades ago to under a third today as pay-television and free multichannel services have grown. Britons have noticed. According to a YouGov survey in 2010, 60% regard the licence fee as poor value for money. And the decline of private-sector media outlets raises questions about the impact of the BBC?s public subsidy. The Guardian, for instance, might make a go of being a British-based global online, leftish news provider, were it not for the state-funded competition.
The BBC?s size is a problem not just for the competition but for the organization itself. Its bloated management means that those at the top do not know what?s going on at the bottom, and stunts creativity. Few of its dramas or comedies are world-beaters (“Downton Abbey”, a current hit, is made by an American-owned independent studio and broadcast on ITV). Even in news, recent big stories, such as phone-hacking and MP?s expenses, have been broken by impoverished newspapers, not the sluggish state-backed monolith. Editors should edit— and be responsible for it— not report to compliance officers.
The radical solution would be to get rid of a lot of the BBC. Public broadcasting should focus on areas where the market does not provide— expensive things such as investigative journalism and foreign reporting, serious radio, some areas of arts and science broadcasting— and forget about the prime-time entertainment shows and sports where the BBC spends taxpayers? money bidding up stars? wages. A smaller, more focused organization would find it easier to take risks and innovate.
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The BBC?s defenders say that, without popular fodder like “Strictly Come Dancing”, audiences would shrink, and the licence fee become impossible to defend. It probably would; and a good thing too, since it is a regressive tax. Public-service broadcasting should be paid for by the Treasury, through a long-term grant made by a self-perpetuating independence body that kept it at arm?s length from politicians. A better objection to a complete overhaul now is that politicians have no appetite for such a radical solution, and the BBC needs a set of fixes quickly. One useful change would be to split the job of director-general into those of chief executive and editor-in-chief. The first would be a manager, charged with making the monolith more efficient; the second would be a journalist, charged with producing accurate, hard-hitting stories— and refocusing the output on quality.
Britons are naturally resistant to radical ideas. As the 20th century showed, that is, by and large, a good thing. The danger, though, is that unreformed organizations wither and die, or implode. The media business is one of Britain?s strengths. If it is to stay that way, the BBC needs to change.
11. How has the BBC “grown even bigger, both absolutely and relatively”?
12. What difficulties is the BBC confronted with, according to the passage?
13. What is the purpose of the author mentioning “Downton Abbey” and other big stories in paragraph four?
14. What suggestions have been put forward in the passage to address the current situation of the BBC?
15. What is the main idea of the passage?
Passage Four
For half a century an influential group of Western linguists, led by Noam Chomsky, have argued that language is an innate human faculty, the product of a “language organ” in the mind. Other prominent “innatists” include Steven Pinker, an evolutionary psychologist and author of “The Language Instinct”, and Derek Bickerton, a linguist at the University of Hawaii and developer of a “bioprogramme” theory of language. Innatists believe that all languages share fundamental features. And linguistic innatism is part of a wider debate about just how much of human nature is wired into the brain.
Daniel Everett, a linguist at Bentley University in Massachusetts, disagrees on both innatism and the fundamental similarity of languages. He spent years learning tiny languages in forbidding jungle villages, experiences he recounted in his 2008 memoir, “Don?t Sleep, There Are Snakes”. In his new book, “Language: The Cultural Tool”, Mr. Everett moves away from narrow linguistic anthropology to broad theory.
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