Part Ⅳ Reading Comprehension(Reading in Depth)(25 minutes)

Section A

Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following passage.

Shopping habits in the United States have changed greatly in the last quarter of the 20th century. Early in the 1900s most American towns and cities had a Main Street. Main Street was always the   47   of a town. This street was lined on the both sides with many 48   businesses. Here, shoppers walked into stores to look at all sorts of merchandise: clothing, furniture, hardware, groceries. In addition, some shops offered 49  . There shops included drugstores, restaurants, shoe repair stores, and barber or hairdressing shops. But in the 1950s, a change began to 50   place. Too many automobiles had crowded into Main Street while too few parking places were 51   to shoppers. Because the streets were crowded, merchants began to look with interest at the open spaces outside the city limits. Open space is what their car driving
customers 52  . And open space is what they got when the first shopping centre was built. Shopping centers, or rather malls, 53   as a collection of small new stores away from crowded city centers. Attracted by hundreds of free parking space, customers were drawn away from 54areas to outlying malls. And the growing55of shopping centers led in turn to the building of bigger and better stocked stores. By the late 1970s, many shopping malls had almost developed into small cities themselves. In addition to providing the 56 of the stop shopping, malls were transformed into landscaped parks, with benches, fountains, and outdoor entertainment.

［A］designed ［F］convenience ［K］cosmetics

［B］take ［G］services ［L］started

［C］heart ［H］fame ［M］downtown

［D］needed ［I］various ［N］available

［C］though ［H］popularity ［M］cheapness

Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked［A］, ［B］, ［C］and ［D］.You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.

Culture is one of the most challenging elements of the international marketplace. This system of learned behavior patterns characteristic of the members of a given society is constantly shaped by a set of dynamic variables: language, religion, values and attitudes, manners and customs, aesthetics, technology, education, and social institutions. To cope with this system, an international manager needs both factual and interpretive knowledge of culture. To some extent, the factual knowledge can be learned; its interpretation comes only through experience.

The most complicated problems in dealing with the cultural environment stem from the fact that one cannot learn culture—one has to live it. Two schools of thought exist in the business world on how to deal with cultural diversity. One is that business is business the world around, following the model of Pepsi and McDonald’s. In some cases, globalization is a fact of life; however, cultural differences are still far from converging.

The other school proposes that companies must tailor business approaches to individual cultures. Setting up policies and procedures in each country has been compared to an organ transplant; the critical question centers around acceptance
or rejection. The major challenge to the international manager is to make sure that rejection is not a result of cultural myopia or even blindness. 

Fortune examined the international performance of a dozen large companies that earn 20 percent or more of their revenue overseas. The internationally successful companies all share an important quality: patience. They have not rushed into situations but rather built their operations carefully by following the most basic business principles. These principles are to know your adversary, know your audience, and know your customer.

57.According to the passage, which of the following is true?
［A］All international managers can learn culture.
［B］Business diversity is not necessary.
［C］Views differ on how to treat culture in business world.
［D］Most people do not know foreign culture well.

58.According to the author, the model of Pepsi.
［A］is in line with the theories that the business is business the world around
［B］is different from the model of McDonald’s
［C］shows the reverse of globalization
［D］has converged cultural differences

59.The two schools of thought.
［A］both propose that companies should tailor business approaches to individual
cultures
［B］both advocate that different policies be set up in different countries
［C］admit the existence of cultural diversity in business world
［D］both A and B

60.This article is supposed to be most useful for those.
［A］who are interested in researching the topic of cultural diversity
［B］who have connections to more than one type of culture
［C］who want to travel abroad
［D］who want to run business on International Scale

61.According to Fortune, successful international companies.
［A］earn 20 percent or more of their revenue overseas
［B］all have the quality of patience
［C］will follow the overseas local cultures
［D］adopt the policy of internationalization

Passage Two

Questions 62 to 66 are based on the following passage.

There are people in Italy who can’t stand soccer. Not all Canadians love hockey. A similar situation exists in America, where there are those individuals you may be one of them who yawn or even frown when somebody mentions baseball. Baseball to them means boring hours watching grown men in funny tight outfits standing around in a field staring away while very little of anything happens. They tell you it’s a game better suited to the 19th century, slow, quiet, and gentlemanly. These are the same people you may be one of them who love football because there’s the sport that glorifies “the hit”.

By contrast, baseball seems abstract, cool, silent, still. 

On TV the game is fractured into a dozen perspectives, replays, close-ups. The geometry of the game, however, is essential to understanding it. You will contemplate the game from one point as a painter does his subject; you may, of course, project yourself into the game. It is in this projection that the game affords so much space and time for involvement. The TV won’t do it for you.

Take, for example, the third baseman. You sit behind the third base dugout and you watch him watching home plate. His legs are apart, knees flexed. His arms hang loose. He does a lot of this. The skeptic still cannot think of any other sports so still, so passive. But watch what happens every time the pitcher throws: the third baseman goes up on his toes, flexes his arms or brings the glove to a point in front of him, takes a step right or left, backward or forward, perhaps he glances across the field to check his first baseman’s position. Suppose the pitch is a ball. “Nothing happened,” you say. “I could have had my eyes closed.”

The skeptic and the innocent must play the game. And this involvement in the stands is no more intellectual than listening to music is. Watch the third baseman. Smooth the dirt in front of you with one foot; smooth the pocket in your glove; watch the eyes of the batter, the speed of the bat, the sound of horsehide on wood. If football is a symphony of movement and theatre, baseball is chamber music, a spacious interlocking of notes, chorus and responses.

62.The passage is mainly concerned with .
［A］the different tastes of people for sports
［B］the different characteristics of sports
［C］the attraction of football
［D］the attraction of baseball

63.Those who don’t like baseball may complain that.
［A］it is only to the taste of the old
［B］it involves fewer players than football
［C］it is not exciting enough
［D］it is pretentious and looks funny

64.The author admits that.
［A］baseball is too peaceful for the young
［B］baseball may seem boring when watched on TV
［C］football is more attracting than baseball
［D］baseball is more interesting than football

65.By stating “I could have had my eyes closed.” the author means (4th paragraph last sentence).
［A］the third baseman would rather sleep than play the game
［B］even if the third baseman closed his eyes a moment ago, it could make no difference to the result
［C］the third baseman is so good at baseball that he could finish the game with eyes closed all the time and do his work well
［D］the consequence was so bad that he could not bear to see it

66.We can safely conclude that the author.
［A］likes football［B］hates football
［C］hates baseball［D］likes baseball