.
If US software(软件) companies don’t pay more attention to quality, they could kiss their business good-bye. Both India and Brazil are developing a world-class software industry. Their weapon is quality and one of their jobs is to attract the top US quality specialists whose voices are not listened to in their country.
Already, of the world’s 12 software houses that have earned the highest position in the world, seven are in India. That’s largely because they have used new methods American software specialists refused to use. For example, for years, quality specialists, W. Edwards Deming and J.M. Juran had tried to persuade US software companies to change their attitudes to quality. But their quality call mainly fell on deaf ears in the US--but not in Japan. By the 1970s and 1980s, Japan was taking its market share with better, cheaper products. They used Deming’s and Juran’s ideas to bring down the cost of good quality to as little as 5% of total production costs. In US factories, the cost of quality then was 10 times as high: 50%. In software, it still is.
Watts S. Humphrey spent 27 years at IBM heading up software production and then quality assurance(保证). But his advice was seldom paid attention to. He retired from IBM in 1986. In 1987, he worked out a system for assessing(评估) and improving software quality. It has proved its value time and again. For example, in 1990 the cost of quality at Raytheon Electronics Systems was almost 60 % of total software production costs. It fell to 15% in 1996 and has since further dropped to below 10 %.
Like Deming and Juran, Humphrey seems to be winning more praises overseas than at home. The Indian government and several companies have just founded the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute at the Software Technology Park in Chennai, India. Let’s hope that US lead in software will not be eaten up by its quality problems.
64. Which country has the most first-class software companies in the world?
A. Germany. B. The USA. C. Brazil. D. India.
65. Which of the following statements about Humphrey is true?
A. He is now still an IBM employer.
B. He has worked for IBM for 37 years.
C. The US pays much attention to his quality advice.
D. India honors him highly.
66. By what means did Japan take its large market share by the 1970s and the 1980s?
A. Its products were cheaper in price and better in quality.
B. Its advertising was most successful.
C. The US hardware industry was falling behind.
D. Japan hired a lot of Indian software specialists.
67. What is the writer worrying about?
A. Many US software specialists are working for Japan.
B. The quality problem has become a worldwide problem.
C. The US will lose its lead in software in the world.
D. India and Japan are joining hands to compete with the US.
Have you ever thought of joining a book club and buying new books through the post? Here at the International Book Club, we already have many members buying books from us by mail.
Immediate benefits：
●As a special offer, you may choose any reduced-price books from our new members' book list, to the value of $6 in total (plus postage and packing). By doing this, you will save pounds on the publishers' prices.
●Tick the box on your form to order a free watch.
●If you reply within seven days, we will send you another free gift carefully chosen from our book list by our staff.
●Order a DVD from the many on offer in our list, at half the recommended retail price.
●When you've joined：
As a member, you'll enjoy savings of between 30% and 50% off the publisher's price on every book you buy, and what's more, they'll come straight to your door. Your free club magazine arrives once a month, to keep you up-to-date with the latest bestsellers. This means that every year we offer over 1,000 books to choose from. On the Internet, you can find all our titles for the year on our exclusive members' website.
Being a member：
All we are asking you to do while you are a member is to choose four books during your first year. After that, you can decide on the number of books you wish to take.
In each of our monthly club magazines, our experienced staff choose a Club Choice book — a work of fiction or a reference title which they feel is particularly worth buying, and which is offered at an extra-special price. However, if you do not want this book, just say so in the space provided on the form. We will always send the book if we do not receive this.
So, return your application form today, but hurry — it's not every day we can make you an offer like this. To apply to become a member, all you need to do is simply fill in the enclosed form and return it in the envelope supplied.
Before you know it, your books will be with you. Please don't send any money now, as we will send you your bill with the books. And remember, you have up to a fortnight to decide if you wish to keep the books you have ordered. You should then either return the books or send your payment. Which of the following doesn't belong to the benefits of being a club member?
| A．Order a free watch. |
| B．Get a gift for nothing. |
| C．Get four books for free in the first year |
| D．Order a DVD at a low price. |
Every month the club provides a free club magazine in order to ________.
| A．let readers know the number of books to be sold |
| B．attract more and more readers to join the club |
| C．make readers know the club's development |
| D．keep readers well informed of recent bestselling books |
If a book is worth $100, how much will a member probably save if he buys one?
| A．$40. | B．$60. | C．$20. | D．$70. |
What should you do if you want to join the book club?
| A．Just send the club an email. |
| B．Ask other club members to recommend you to the club. |
| C．Fill in an application form and return it to the club. |
| D．Apply for a membership card. |
After you get your books, you should ________.
| A．choose whether to keep them or not after you read them carefully |
| B．decide whether to keep them or not within a certain period of time |
| C．express your idea in the space provided in the book |
| D．send money to the club at once |
Generations of Americans have been brought up to believe that a good breakfast is essential to one’s life. Eating breakfast at the start of the day, we have been told, and told again, is as necessary as putting gasoline in the family car before starting a trip.
But for many people, the thought of food as the first thing in the morning is never a pleasure. So in spite of all the efforts, they still take no breakfast. Between 1977 and 1983, the latest year for which figures could be obtained, the number of people who didn’t have breakfast increased by 33%—from 8.8 million to 11.7 million—according to the Chicago-based Market Research Corporation of America.
For those who dislike eating breakfast, however, there is some good news. Several studies in the last few years have shown that, for grown-ups especially, there may be nothing wrong with omitting (省略) breakfast. “Going without breakfast does not affect work,” said Arnold E. Bender, former professor of nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College in London, “nor does giving people breakfast improve work.”
Scientific evidence linking breakfast to better health or better work is surprisingly little, and most of the recent work involves children, not grown-ups. “The literature,” says one researcher, Dr Earnest Polite at the University of Texas, “is poor.” For those who do not take breakfast, the good news is that _______.
| A．several studies have been done in the past few years |
| B．eating little in the morning is good for health |
| C．the omission of breakfast has little effect on one’s work |
| D．grown-ups have especially made studies in this field |
The sentence in paragraph 3 “nor does giving people breakfast improve work” means _______.
| A．people without breakfast can improve their work |
| B．having breakfast does not improve work, either |
| C．not giving people breakfast improves work |
| D．people having breakfast do improve their work, too |
The word "literature" in the last sentence refers to _______.
| A．stories, poems, play, etc |
| B．the films about the breakfast |
| C．newspaper articles or novels |
| D．written works on a topic |
What is implied in the passage is that _______.
| A．Breakfast does not affect work |
| B．Dr Polite works at Market Research Corporation |
| C．Not eating breakfast might affect the health of children |
| D．Professor Bender once taught college courses in nutrition in Chicago |
The main idea of the passage is that _______.
| A．breakfast has nothing to do with people’s health |
| B．breakfast is not as important as we thought before |
| C．breakfast is not as important to us as gasoline to a car |
| D．a good breakfast used to be important to us |
“I once hoped to afford a wonderful telescope, but now I wish my father would be back.” Lucy Lawrence’s letter to Father Christmas written after his father had been knifed to death outside his school gate, must have touched every heart. Lucy went on to say that without his father he couldn’t see the stars in the sky. When those whom we love depart from us, we cannot see the stars for a while.
But Lucy, the stars are still there, and one day, when you are older and your tears have gone ,you will see them again . And, in a strange way, I expect that you will find your father is there too, in your mind and in your heart . I find that my parents , long dead now , still occur in many of my dreams and that I think of them perhaps more than I ever did when they were alive . I still live to please them and I’m still surprised by their reactions. I remember that when I became a professor , I was so proud , or rather so pleased with myself , that I couldn’t wait to write to my parents . The reply was a long time in coming, but when it did, all Mother said was “I hope this means that now you will have more time for the children! ” I haven’t forgotten. The values of my parents still live on.
It makes me pause and think about how I will live on in the hearts and minds of my children and of those for whom I care. Would I have been as ready as Philip Lawrence have been to face the aggressors, and to lay down my life for those in my care ? How many people would want me back for Christmas? It’s a serious thought, one to give me pause.
I pray silently , sometimes , in the dead of night ,that ancient cry of a poet “Deliver my soul from the sword（剑）, and my darling from the power of the evil .” Yet I know the death comes to us all, and sometimes comes suddenly. We must therefore plan to live forever, but live as if we will die tomorrow. We live on, I’m sure, in the lives of those we loved, and therefore we ought to have a care for what they will remember and what they will treasure. If more parents knew this in their hearts to be true, there might be fewer knives on our streets today.According to the whole text we can see that the first paragraph .
| A．shows the author’s pity on the kid |
| B．acts as an introduction to the discussion |
| C．puts forward the subject of the text |
| D．makes a clear statement of the author’s opinions |
In the second paragraph the author mainly wants to explain to us .
| A．why his parents often appear in his dream |
| B．how much he misses his parents now |
| C．when Lucy will get over all his sadness |
| D．how proud he was when he succeeded in life |
What feeling did the author’s mother express in her reply?
| A．Proud. | B．Excited. |
| C．Uninterested. | D．Uneasy. |
What does the writer mean by the sentence taken from an old poem?
| A．Call on criminals and murderers to lay down their guns. |
| B．Advise parents stay with their children safely at home. |
| C．Try to keep violence and murder far away from society. |
| D．Spend every day meaningfully in memory of the death. |
Many people once thought that air pollution had a bad influence upon only the area immediately around large cities with factories and heavy automobile traffic. Today, we know that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is nearly worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the entire eastern half of the United States and led to health warnings even in rural areas away from any major concentration of factories and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be affected by air pollution. Some scientists feel that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide( 二氧化碳) in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) is creating a“greenhouse effect” － holding in heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be under water.
Another opinion, less widely held, is that increasing tiny substances in the atmosphere are blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature－a result that would be equally disastrous.A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to new ice age and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. At present we do not know for sure that either of these conditions will happen (though one recent government report prepared by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very likely). Perhaps, if we are very lucky, the two tendencies will make up for each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now.As pointed out at the beginning of the passage, people used to think that air pollution _____.
| A．caused widespread damage in the countryside |
| B．affected the entire eastern half of the United States |
| C．almost brought worldwide effect |
| D．existed merely in urban and industrial areas |
As far as the greenhouse effect is concerned, the author _____________.
| A．shares the same view with the scientists |
| B．is uncertain of its consequence |
| C．rejects it as being ungrounded |
| D．thinks that it will increasingly destroy the world |
It can be inferred from the passage that ____________.
| A．raising the world’s temperature a little would not do much harm to life on earth |
| B．lowering the world’s temperature a little would lead to agricultural disasters |
| C．almost no temperature changes have occurred over the past decade |
| D．the world’s temperature will remain constant in the years to come |
This passage is primarily concerned with _____________.
| A．the greenhouse effect in the world |
| B．the measures to adjust the climate |
| C．the potential effect of air pollution |
| D．the measures to protect the environment |
" Vi-Lasata!I can't believe it--a Vi-Lasata!” —You see some attractive young ladies looking at a sweater in a department store and you listen to their conversation:
“ Vi-Lasata is almost impossible to find. Isn't it beautiful? And it's a lot cheaper than the one Terry bought in Rome."
When they leave, you go over to see this unbelievable sweater. It's nice and the price is right.You've never heard of Vi-Lasata, but those girls looked really stylish. They must know. So, you buy it. You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency. They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Vi-Lasata clothes.
Every day we notice what people are wearing, driving and eating. If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too. This is the secret of undercover （暗中影响的）marketing. Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it.
Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don't pay attention to traditional advertising. This is particularly true of the “thumb generation” -- consumers between the age of 18 and 34. It is a golden group. They have a lot of money to spend, but they don't trust ads.
So advertising agencies hire young actors to "perform" in bars and other places where young adults go. Some people might call this practice cheating, but marketing director Jonathan Ressler calls it creativity. "Look at traditional advertising. Its effectiveness is falling."
However, one might ask what exactly is "real" about of young women pretending to be enthusiastic about a sweater? Advertising agent would say it's no less real than an ad. The difference is that you know an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something. You don't know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance.Vi-Lasata is __________.
| A．a very popular department store |
| B．the brand name of a sweater |
| C．a clothing company in Rome |
| D．an advertising agency |
The attractive young women were talking so that they could ________.
| A．get the sweater at a lower price |
| B．be heard by people around |
| C．be admired by other shoppers |
| D．decide on buying the sweater |
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
| A．Traditional advertising is becoming less effective as it's too direct. |
| B．The “ thumb generation” tends to be more easily influenced by ads. |
| C．The two girls are in fact clerks in the Vi-Lasata Company. |
| D．Undercover marketing is surely against the law in that country. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
| A．Performance in Shops | B．Vi-Lasata Sweaters |
| C．Ways of Advertising | D．Undercover Marketing |