Unit 13

Task 1:

【答案】

A.

1) In Brazil.

2) It intended to create and exchange social and economic projects.

B.

1) F

2) T

3) T

4) T

C.

1) c

2) b

 

【原文】

The World Social Forum met for the first time at the end of last month in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The World Social Forum is a new international conference that will meet every year. Its goal is to create and exchange social and economic projects. The projects will support human rights, social justice and development that does not waste natural resources.

Most of the representatives at the recent World Social Forum oppose globalization. They do not agree with the economic theory of a worldwide economy. That theory says ending trade restrictions to help international business also helps the most people. Some people attending the forum wanted to end the movement toward a global economy. Others wanted to reform it.

Activists at the World Social Forum say globalization policies have caused a greater inequality between the poorest and the richest people in the world. The Forum met to find ways to support economic policies based on the needs of poor people and the environment.

United Nations studies show that the poorest twenty percent of the world's people have lost half their share of the world's income since Nineteen-Sixty. Their share of total world income dropped from two-point-four percent to one-point-one percent. During the same years, income increased for the richest twenty percent of the population. The richest people increased their share of world income from sixty-nine percent to eighty-six percent.

The World Social Forum brought together non-governmental groups, local government leaders, students and professors. The meeting organizers invited everyone who wanted to take part. About ten-thousand people from all over the world attended the five-day meeting.

The main idea for the conference was "Another world is possible". The organizers planned three kinds of discussions. Some discussions were very large and included everyone. Other discussions were for economists, labor leaders, environmental activists and others to compare methods and experiences. Still other discussions were designed for people to plan ways to keep strong communication links and to begin work on the next World Social Forum.

Task 2:

【答案】

A.

1) a

2) d

B.

1) F

2) T

3) F

4) F

5) T

【原文】

I needed to get some money, so, after Christmas, I took a job in the clothes department at Graham’s for the first fortnight of the January sale. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but it was an experience I’ll never forget.

I could never understand why there were many things in the sales; where did they come from? Now I know the secret! Firstly, there is the special winter sack and the stock that people buy all the year round; some of these things are slightly reduced. Secondly, there are the summer clothes they couldn’t sell last year; these are heavily reduced to clear them. Thirdly, there are cheap clothes bought in especially for the sales; these are put at high prices ten days before the sale begins and then are reduced by 60% in the sale. Clever! Lastly, they buy in “seconds”( clothes not in perfect condition) for the sale and they are sold very cheaply.

When I arrived half an hour before opening on the first day of the sale, there were already queues around three sides of the building. This made me very nervous.

When the big moment arrived to open the doors, the security guards, looking less confident than usual, came up to them, keys in hand. The moment they had unlocked the doors, they hid behind the doors for protection as the noisy crowd crowded in. I couldn’t believe my eyes: this wasn’t shopping, it was a battlefield. One poor lady couldn’t keep her feet and was knocked over by people pushing from behind.

Clothes were flying in all directions as people searched for the sizes, colors and styles they wanted. Quarrels broke out. Mothers were using their small children to craw through people’s legs and get hold of things they couldn’t get near themselves.

Within minutes I had half a dozen people pushing under my nose, each wanting to be the first served. Where had the famous queue gone? The whole day continued like that, but I kept my temper! I was taking money hand over fist and began to realize why, twice a year, Graham’s is happy to turn the expensive store into a battlefield like this.

In the sale fever, people were spending money like water without thinking whether they needed what they were buying. As long as it was bargain it was OK.

You won’t believe this, but as soon as I got home I crashed out for four hours. Then I had dinner and went back to bed, feeling the sound of the alarm which would tell me to get ready for the second day of the sale.

 

Task 3:

【答案】

A.

 

Name of Product	Accepted(Yes/ No)	Reason Given
"Jumbo" rain gauge	Yes	Easy to read from the house
Self-balancing drinks holder	Yes	Would appeal to people
Car-shaped slippers	Yes	Fun item
Aerated jeans	No	Wouldn't sell
Spectacles for dogs	No	Kept falling off
Luminous animal collars	No	Material dangerous to animals
Jumping balloon	No	Too dangerous
Motor-powered roller-skates	No	Too dangerous

 

B.

a，b，c，e

【原文】

A: At home we all look forward to receiving the latest catalogue from Eureka! We love reading it. Is that deliberate?

B: Oh yes! We write it so that it is humorous and fun to read.

A: What do you look for in a product?

B: Well, basically we look for several things. Often it is a case of a new way of looking at an existing problem.

A: Such as?

B: All kinds of things, but one I particularly like, because it is so English, is the "jumbo" rain gauge. As you know, a rain gauge allows you to measure the amount of rain that falls on your garden. However, this one made the catalogue because we loved the idea of a gauge which was so big that it would be easy to read from the house when it was raining. We also try to use innovative thinking from the past in a lot of new inventions.

A: Can you give us an example?

B: Er, yes. One of our newer products is a really clever drinks holder for the car. The inventor used the idea of a self-balancing mechanism which is often used in ships, to create something that always keeps your can, glass, or cup steady, even if you are braking or turning sharply. It fixes to any convenient surface in the car. We thought it would appeal to people who were tired of the kind of mess you get when your passengers spill drinks.

A: What other criteria do you use for deciding which products to include?

B: Well, 1 suppose the main consideration is whether the product will sell or not However, we do like to include fun items, such as a pair of car-shaped slippers which have headlights that switch on when you step in. The light provides safety, but basically we thought the slippers might appeal to people looking for a bit of fun!

A: Do you get lots of ideas'?

B: We get thousands each year, and we can't include all of them.

A: Can you remember any examples of things failed to make the catalogue?

B: Oh, yes. There was the man who came in with the idea of aerated jeans

A: What did they look like?

B: They looked like jeans with holes in them! We didn't think anyone would buy them.  Another guy came in with spectacles for dogs, and we had to reject those as well.

A: Why?

B: Well, they were basically a fashion item and they kept falling off when we tried them on some dogs. We don't include anything that we don't test thoroughly.

A: Are all these ideas that you reject silly ones?

B: No, far from it. We also had to mm down some luminous animal collars which were designed to reflect lights in the dark. This was a good idea, because the majority of cats and dogs which are lit by cars are victims of drivers who don t see them until it s too late. However, we discovered that the material used to reflect the light was radioactive and dangerous to animals, and at the moment the inventor is trying to find a safe alternative.

A: Is safety an important consideration?

B: Oh, yes. We can't market products that are likely to be unsafe. For example, one man came to with a jumping balloon that is filled with a special gas. You can jump up to 30 meters high with and we thought this would be far too dangerous. We also had to turn down some motor-power, roller-skates for the same reason.

 

Task 4:

【答案】

A.

1) Leaflets and free offers.

2) They do this in order to give a first impression of freshness and brightness.

3) So that shoppers can be tempted by other goods they pass on the way.

4) They do this so that shoppers have to spend more time looking for the things they want to buy. This means more potential buying.

B.

1) impulse buying

2) extra clean and hygienic

3) hot spots，more quickly

4) use trolleys

5) near checkouts

【原文】

A: Have you ever entered a store and come away with more than you intended to buy? With the help of John Ellsworth from the Consumer's Action Group, Streetwise reveals the selling techniques that are designed to make you spend, spend, spend!

B: Well, some of the techniques such as leaflets, free offers and other sales promotions are very obvious, but others are less apparent.

A: For example...

B: Well, supermarkets know from their research that the idea of "freshness" is important to customers even though most of the things they sell, such as soap powders and tins, are clearly quite different from this image. So they place their fruit and vegetables near the entrance to give a first impression of freshness and brightness. In addition, many larger stores have an in-store bakery because the smell of fresh bread makes you hungry, and encourages impulse buying. The smell also attracts you into the store! They also use high intensity lights which make the shop seem extra clean and hygienic.

A: I get annoyed because I have to go through the whole store to get the things I want.

B: That's deliberate. Supermarkets are laid out to make you pass as many shelves as possible. This is why the entrance corridor usually goes straight to the back of the store, blocking any short-cuts to the check-outs.

A: Why does it take me so long to get the things I really need?

B: When people go to a supermarket their plan is often to buy things like bread, butter, eggs and so on, so these staples and other cheaper items are separated and placed throughout the store—often a long way from the entrance so that shoppers can be tempted by the other goods they pass on the way.

A: I've noticed that they often place bargains at the, end of aisles.

B: Ah yes. The end of aisles are called' hot spots because products here sell twice as quickly as anywhere else. Supermarkets use these to display products they want to sell quickly. They work because shoppers have to slow down in order to mm into the next aisle so there is more time to catch their attention.

A: I find I get used to the layout and then they change it.

B: Some shoppers get into a routine and walk past tempting goodies, and that is why some supermarkets change the layout from time to time, so that shoppers have to spend more time looking for the things that they came in, to buy. You see, the longer you spend in the shop, the higher your bill will be. Of course this doesn’t always work because some people get annoyed and impatient. They may even leave!

A: It is so difficult wheeling a huge trolley around when the store is crowded.

B: The trolleys are about a third bigger than they were ten years ago Supermarkets like people to use trolleys rather than baskets, because most people stop when the basket is full. Larger trolleys encourage you to buy more.

A: I see! Do you approve of these sales techniques?

B: I think we can all benefit from some of them. I mean shopping is a lot more pleasant than it was a few years ago, isn't it? However, it's worth being aware of what's happening so that you can get some of the worst practices changed. For example, in some supermarkets you will find chocolates and sweets placed near check-outs so that parents bay them for bored children. In others, they have been removed because customers complained. If you know what they are up to, it might help you to resist temptation the next time, or at least inject some fun into your next visit. See how many techniques you can spot in your local store!

 

Task 5:

【答案】

A.

1) They always came up with some suggestion.

2) They wanted to show that they had done what they had been asked to and the proposal was important to them.

3) They thought that their Japanese counterparts were finding fault in their proposals.

4) She doesn’t think that there are such things as universal management “truths”.

B.

I.

an individual，a collectivity

II.

holistic，break

 

【原文】

Patricia: There are numerous cases of culture getting in the way of ordinary business practices. Even the ways in which meetings are run, decisions made, memos written and titles used will vary depending on the culture. Sam Heltman, head of human resources for Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Kentucky (USA), explained how American managers initially misinterpreted the behavior of Japanese managers they worked with.

Heltman: Initially some people thought that the Japanese managers were picking apart their proposals and even perhaps being overly critical. But what we didn't realize at the time was that if you go to Japanese managers and ask their opinion about a proposal you've given them, if they don't give you something, they're going to feel that they haven't done what you’ve asked of them. so even if they have to struggle to think of something they'll come up with a suggestion. As a manager, I was more accustomed that if someone brought mc a recommendation and ill was 95 percent OK with it, I bought it just to make them feel good. It’s just the opposite for them. If they didn't say something, they would think that you would feel that it wasn't important to them.

Patricia: Tadao Taguchi, chairman and chief executive officer of Toshiba America Inc., explains that even the difference between Japan and the USA in addressing business letters reveals a great deal about their ways of viewing the world.

Taguchi: In the USA, you first put the individual's status (Mr. or Ms., and so on), then their first name and then last name. The next line is the company name, then the person's title. Next comes the address, city, state and finally the country. In Japan, it is the opposite. First comes the country, then the city and address. Next you put the company name, followed by the last name of the individual to whom you are writing. The last thing is the individual's name.

Patricia: This example is illustrative on two levels, in the USA, individuals identify primarily with being an individual and then with their family, company, religion or some other larger group. In Japan, it is the opposite. Individuals identify primarily with a collectivity—their larger national group, the company they work for, their family—and then with being an individual. Consider the fact that the nearest word to 'T' in the Japanese language translates roughly as "self among others". Mr. Taguchi's example also illustrates another difference in the two cultures' approaches to solving problems. The Japanese tend to be more holistic in approaching problems, whereas Anglo-Saxon cultures tend to break a problem down into pieces and then work back toward a whole. The ineffectiveness of ordinary business practices in a different culture casts doubt on the usefulness of thinking about management as a set of "truths" that can be applied uniformly anywhere in the world. If everyday business practices are so culturally dependent, how universal can other, more sophisticated management practices be?

 

Task 6:

【答案】

A.

1) a，c

2) a，b

B.

1) It will focus on the role of government in the Information Age economy.

2) The changes, especially in the global economy and in the technologies of the information revolution.

3) It cannot hope to keep up/survive/succeed.

4) He wants to show that the information revolution is reaching every corner of the globe.

5) Half or more of the cost.

【原文】

Good morning and welcome to this "first of its kind" 21st Century hearing on the 21st Century economy.

America and the world are embarking on a journey into a new age of human endeavor and achievement. This era will experience tremendous change in every aspect of our lives. We are already witnessing unparalleled change in the global economy, in technology and communications, in business and industry, and in communities and families.

These changes mean that Industrial Age government is obsolete. Government in the Information Age must become dramatically smarter, smaller, and simpler. An Information Age government shouldn't just be more efficient in meeting Industrial objectives, as some propose. Instead, government must be redesigned and its policies reformed to maximize freedom for innovators and entrepreneurs, and to build new avenues for individual creativity and prosperity. If we can successfully redesign our government, especially its economic policies, then the new technologies of today and tomorrow will help create a world of unprecedented economic opportunity and prosperity for future generations.

Today, we will explore society's transition into this new era and focus on the role of government in the Information Age economy. Maybe the most fundamental and profound fact of the technological change we are witnessing is that the power of the compute chip now doubles every year and a half. That pace will get even faster. In the next ten years, micro chip power will increase by a million times. And the power of global computer networks increases geometrically as millions of new users are linked together every month.

What does that mean for government? It means a bureaucratic, heavy-handed, Industrial Age government can't hope to keep up. Today's government is trying to manage yesterday's economy. That is not only a waste of increasingly scare resources, it creates barriers to future growth and prosperity. Clearly, a government built on old notions of regulation and control cannot hope to survive, much less succeed in an environment of ever-expanding individual freedom in the Information Age.

Today's hearing is a modest example of how the technologies of the information revolution are changing American government. This is the first Congressional hearing to make full use of the interactive video conference technology. Seven out of ten witnesses are testifying from remote locations around the nation and abroad over an interactive audio/video network. We are being transcribed onto the Internet and invite the C-SPAN and on-line audience to submit questions to the Committee.

I'd especially like to note the locations of two of our witnesses: Paul Johnson is testifying from London, England and Congressman Bob Walker from Ephrata, Pennsylvania. I point these out to emphasize that the information revolution is already reaching ever corner of the globe, from the biggest cities to the smallest towns. As long as we avoid creating artificial barriers to the information transformation, no one will be left behind as we embark on this exciting journey into the Information Age.

I can foresee future hearing in which all the witnesses testify from their homes and all Americans will be able to participate. And we'll cut the costs of these hearings by half or more compared to the traditional way. For example, we’ve cut the cost of today's hearing in half by using interactive technology rather than bringing everyone to the nation's capital.

 

Task 7:

【答案】

A.

1) Microeconomic and macroeconomic policies.

2) He covers two main areas: efficiency and equity.

B.

I. efficiency

A. help，regulate

B. goods and services

1. non-commercial

2. Nationalizing

3. Privatizing/Denationalizing

II.

A. Redistributing

B. at less than cost

C.

1) T

2) F

3) T

4) F

5) T

6) F

7) T

8) T

9) T

10)T

【原文】

Economic policy in the UK should be considered within the framework provided by economic theory. There are two distinct sets of policies that the government operates: One is microeconomic policies. These relate to the allocation of resources, from the viewpoints of efficiency and equity. The other is macroeconomic policies. These relate to the economy as a whole and concern one or more bf the following: general level of unemployment, general level of prices, rate of economic growth, and balance of payments.

The instruments of economic policy used by the UK government are many and varied. Today would mention some of the major policy areas here. First, let s look into the measures that are related to efficiency.

Many of the policies in this category are directed to the private sector of the economy, where the state engages in interventionist actions to help certain industries and to regulate others. For example there are subsidies for industries in need of special assistance (e.g. agriculture); loans, grants and subsidized consultancy services for small businesses; taxes to control pollution and discourage the smoking of cigarettes, measures to influence the regional location of industry; agencies for the investigation of monopolies, mergers and restrictive business practices which diminish industrial competitiveness. There are also specialized agencies, e.g. for regulating financial services; maintaining quality standards—especially in the case of dangerous products.

A major policy for economic efficiency is where the state itself engages in the provision of certain goods and services because, for one reason or another, private sector production is considered to be inappropriate. Examples under this head include the provision of the army, navy and air force for national defense, of the police and law courts for the administration of justice, and extensive parts of health and education services. These are, in the main, non-commercial activities financed by the state out of general revenues and provided free to the community.

However, there is another group, known as the nationalized industries, which are owned and operated by the state and which levy charges for their services. In the UK, nationalized industries, which possess some characteristics of commercial enterprises, have been run by specialized agencies called public corporations. They enjoy a considerable degree of independence in the conduct of their day-to-day affairs, though they are subject to ultimate ministerial control.

The first nationalized industries appeared well before the Second World War, but the major period of extension of public ownership of industry in Britain occurred between 1945 and 1951. This was the first time that the Labor Party had held a majority, of seats in the House of Commons, and coal, electricity, gas, the railways and steel were taken into public ownership.

Nationalization was, of course, a matter with strong political implications. It was, nevertheless accepted by both Conservative and Labor governments from 1945 until the 1970s. From that time on, a dramatic shift in emphasis took place. Three Conservative governments under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher and a fourth under John Major began to place much greater reliance on the working of market forces. They set off a major policy reversal with a programme for returning many of the nationalized industries to private ownership.

  Such denationalization formed part of the policy better known as privatization. The largest transfers have been of telecommunications (British Telecom), gas, airlines (British Airways), steel, water and electricity, with railways and coal on the agenda for the present decade. Several of the privatized industries retained elements of natural monopoly and their transfer to private ownership was accompanied by the establishment of entirely new agencies to oversee their activities in the public interest, especially with regard to the prices of their products. Quantitatively, the effects of the policy can be illustrated by the fact that employment in the nationalized industries fell from a figure representing 8 percent of the labor force to less than 3 percent during the decade 1980—1990.

Second, the UK government adopts measures that are related to equity. It tries to make the allocation of resources among individuals fairer, i.e. more equitable. Two types of instrument are available. One is directed to redistributing income, leaving people free to decide how to spend it in their own best interests. The other provides certain goods and services free, or at less than cost, to all who want them, regardless of income. Two ways of redistributing are of prime importance: One is the levying of taxes, especially on income earned and capital owned by individuals. Redistribution is enhanced if taxes are progressive—taking higher proportions of income of the rich than of the poor. The other is to provide so-called transfer benefits to persons in cash—e.g. retirement pensions, unemployment benefit, and in kind—e.g. education and health. Some benefits aim to redistribute resources in the direction of greater equality by being targeted at the poor, though this necessarily requires them to be "means-tested". Third, since the Second World War, governments...