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【单选题】
Cooperative cooperation. Competitive cooperation. Confused Airline alliances have travelers scratching their heads over what’’s going on in the skies. Some folks view alliances as a blessing to travelers, offering seamless travel, reduced fares and enhanced frequent-flyer benefits. Others see a conspiracy of big business, causing decreased competition, increased fares and fewer choices. Whatever your opinion, there’’s no escaping airline alliances: the marketing hype is unrelenting, with each of the two mega-groupings, Oneworld and Star Alliance, promoting itself as the best choice for all travelers. And, even if you turn away from their ads, chances are they will figure in any of your travel plans. By the end of the year, Oneworld and Star Alliance will between them control more than 40% of the traffic in the sky. Some pundits predict that figure will be more like 75% in 10 years. But why, after years of often ferocious competition, have airlines decided to band together Let’’s just say the timing is mutually convenient. North American airlines, have exhausted all means of earning customer loyalty at home, have been looking for ways to reach out to foreign flyers. Asian carriers are still hurting from the region-wide economic downturn that began two years ago-just when some of the airlines were taking delivery of new aircraft. Alliances also allow carriers to cut costs and increase profits by pooling manpower resources on the ground and code-sharing—the practice of two partners selling tickets and operating only one aircraft. So alliances are terrific for airlines—but are they good for the passenger Absolutely, say the airlines: think of the lounges, the joint FFP (frequent flyer program) benefits, the round-the-world fares, and the global service networks. Then there’’s the promise of "seamless" travel: the ability to, say, travel from Singapore to Rome to New York, all on one ticket, without having to wait hours for connections or worry about your bags. Sounds Utopian Peter Buecking, Cathay Pacific’’s director of sales and marketing, thinks that seamless travel is still evolving. "It’’s fair to say that these links are only in their infancy. The key to seamlessness rests in infrastructure and information sharing. We’’re working on this." Henry Ma, spokesperson for Star Alliance in Hong Kong, lists some of the other benefits for consumers. "Global travelers have an easier time connections and planning their itineraries." Ma claims alliances also assure passengers consistent service standards. Critics of alliances say the much-touted benefits to the consumer are mostly pie in the sky, that alliances are all about reducing costs for the airlines, rationalizing services and running joint marketing programs. It is believed that alliances will ultimately result in decreased flight choices and increased costs for consumers. Instead of two airlines competing and each operating a flight on the same route at 70% capacity, the allied pair will share the route and run one full flight. Since fewer seats will be available, passengers will be obliged to pay more for tickets. Those who’’ve already made the elite grade in the FFP of a major airline stand to benefit the most when it joins an alliance: then they enjoy the FFP perks and advantages on any and all of the member carriers. For those who haven’’t made the top grade in any FFP, alliances might be a way of simplifying the earning of frequent flyer miles. For example, I belong to United Airline’’s Mileage Plus and generally fly less than 25, 000 miles a year. But I earn miles with every flight I take on Star Alliance member—All Nippon Airways and Thai Airways. If you fly less than I do, you might be smarter to stay out of the FFP altogether. Hunt for bargains when booking flights and you might be able to save enough to take that extra trip anyway. The only real benefit infrequent flyers can draw from an alliance is an inexpensive round-the-world fare. The bottom line: for all the marketing hype, alliances aren’’t all things to all people—but everybody can get some benefit out of them. According to the passage, which of the following categories of travelers will gain most from airline alliances
A.
Travelers who fly frequently economy class.
B.
Travelers who fly frequently business class.
C.
Travelers who fly occasionally during holidays.
D.
Travelers who fly economy class once in a while.
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【单选题】How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight10（） A. They must try to keep constructive conflict over issues from turning into nonfunctional interpersonal conflict. B. Executives Often failed to cooperat...
A.
How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight
B.
Top managers often find it very difficult to manage conflict. They know that conflict over issues is natural and even necessary. Reasonable people，making decisions under conditions of uncertainty，are likely to have honest disagreements over the best path for their company’s future. Management teams whose members challenge one another’s thinking develop a more complete understanding of the choices, cerate a richer range of options. Ultimately they are able to make the kinds of effective decisions necessary in today’s competitive environments. But, unfortunately, healthy conflict can quickly turn unproductive. A comment meant as a substantive remark can be interpreted as a personal attack. (8) Personalities frequently become closely connected with issues. Because most executives are proud of their ability to make rational decisions，they find it difficult even to acknowledge—let alone manage—this emotional，irrational dimension of their behavior.
C.
The challenge is familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a management team. (9) The managers should be encouraged to argue without destroying their ability to work as a team.
D.
In a study，in 4 of the 12 companies，there was little or no substantive disagreement over major issues and therefore little conflict to observe. But the other 8 companies experienced considerable conflict. In 4 of them，the top-management teams handled conflict in a way that avoided interpersonal hostility or discord. (10) They described the way they work as a team as‘open’，‘fun’，and ‘productive’. The executives vigorously debated the issues，but they wasted little time on carefully considering and posturing. As one put it, ’I really don’t have time. ’Another said, ’We don’t gloss over the issues：we hit them straight on. But we’re not political, ’ Still another observed of her company’s management team, ’We scream a lot，then laugh，and then resolve the issue. ’
E.
The other four companies in which issues were contested were less successful at avoiding interpersonal conflict. Their top teams were plagued by intense hostility. (11) When executives described their colleagues to us，they used words such as‘manipulative’, ‘secretive’.‘burned out’，and‘political’. The teams with minimal interpersonal conflict were able to separate substantive issues from those based on personalities. (12) How did they do that After analyzing the observations of the teams’ behavior, the experts found that their companies used the same tactics for managing interpersonal conflict. For instance，team members worked with more, rather than less, information and debated on the basis of facts.
【单选题】The author asserts that Stem’s picture about the possibility of conquering global warming（） A. is too pessimistic B. is oversimplified C. is very imaginative D. ignores the efforts by rich countries
A.
It seems impossible to have an honest conversation about global warming. I say this after diligently perusing the British government’s huge report released last week by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and now a high civil servant. The report is a masterpiece of misleading public relations. It foresees dire consequences if global warming isn’t curbed: a worldwide depression and flooding of many coastal cities. Meanwhile, the costs of minimizing these awful outcomes are small: only 1 percent of world economic output in 2050.
B.
No sane person could fail to conclude that we should conquer global warming instantly, if not sooner. Who could disagree Well, me. Stem’s headlined conclusions are intellectual fictions. They’re essentially fabrications to justify an aggressive anti-global-warming agenda. The danger of that is that we’d end up with the worst of both worlds: a program that harms the economy without much cutting of greenhouse gases.
C.
Let me throw some messy realities onto Stern’s tidy picture. In the global-warming debate, there’s a big gap between public rhetoric and public behavior. Greenhouse emissions continue to rise despite many earnest pledges to control them. Just last week, the United Nations reported that of the 41 countries it monitors (not including most developing nations), 34 had increased greenhouse emissions from 2000 to 2004. These include most countries committed to reducing emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
D.
Why is this In rich democracies, policies that might curb greenhouse gases require politicians and the public to act in exceptionally "enlightened" ways. They have to accept "pain" now for benefits that won’t materialize for decades, probably after they’re dead. And even if rich countries cut emissions, it won’t make much difference unless poor countries do likewise and so far, they’ve refused because that might jeopardize their economic growth and poverty-reduction efforts.
E.
The notion that there’s only a modest tension between suppressing greenhouse gases and sustaining economic growth is highly dubious. Stern arrives at his trivial costs—that 1 percent of world GDP in 2050—by essentially assuming them. His estimates presume that, with proper policies, technological improvements will automatically reconcile declining emissions with adequate economic growth. This is a heroic leap. To check warming, Stern wants annual emissions 25 percent below current levels by 2050. The IEA projects that economic growth by 2050 would more than double emissions. At present, we can’t bridge that gap.
F.
The other great distortion in Stern’s report involves global warming’s effects. No one knows what these might be, because we don’t know how much warming might occur, when, where, or how easily people might adapt. Stern’s horrific specter distills many of the most terrifying guesses, including some imagined for the 22nd century, and implies they’re imminent. The idea is to scare people while reassuring them that policies to avert calamity, if started now, would be fairly easy and inexpensive.
【单选题】Insurance Whole life is permanent insurance protection that protects you for your whole life, from the day you purchase the policy until you die, as long as you pay the premiums (保险费). Whole life can...
A.
A life insurance agent.
B.
Nobody except yourself.
C.
Your family members.
D.
Your lawyer.
【单选题】Passage ThreeQuestions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard. Passage ThreeQuestions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
A.
The games shouldn’t be held in Salt Lake City.
B.
The games have met their environmental goals.
C.
The games did little to protect the environment.
D.
The games have caused lasting damages to the area.