ECONOMICS REPORT - Ford Motor Company to Cut Jobs in North America

Lesson 6 Disappearing Through the SkylightOsborne Bennet Hardison Jr.1 Science is committed to the universal. A sign of this is that the more successful a science becomes, the broader the agreement about its basic concepts: there is not a separate Chinese or American or Soviet thermodynamics, for example; there is simply thermodynamics. For several decades of the twentieth century there was a Western and a Soviet genetics, the latter associated with Lysenko's theory that environmental stress can produce genetic mutations. Today Lysenko's theory is discredited, and there is now only one genetics.2 As the corollary of science, technology also exhibits the universalizing tendency. This is why the spread of technology makes the world look ever more homogeneous. Architectural styles, dress styles, musical styles--even eating styles--tend increasingly to be world styles. The world looks more homogeneous because it is more homogeneous. Children who grow up in this world therefore experience it as a sameness rather than a diversity, and because their identities are shaped by this sameness, their sense of differences among cultures and individuals diminishes. As buildings become more alike, the people who inhabit the buildings become more alike. The result is described precisely in a phrase that is already familiar: the disappearance of history.3 The automobile illustrates the Point With great clarity. A technological innovation like streamlining or all-welded body construction may be rejected initially, but if it is important to the efficiency or economics of automobiles, it will reappear in different ways until it is not only accepted but universally regarded as an asset. Today's automobile is no longer unique to a given company or even to a given national culture, its basic features are found, with variations, in automobiles in general, no matter who makes them.4 A few years ago the Ford Motor Company came up with the Fiesta, which it called the "World Car." Advertisements showed it surrounded by the flags of all nations. Ford explained that the cylinder block was made in England, the carburetor in Ireland, the transmission in France, the wheels in Belgium, and so forth.5 The Fiesta appears to have sunk Without a trace. But the idea of a world car was inevitable. It was the automotive equivalent of the International Style. Ten years after the Fiesta, all of the large automakers were international. Americans had Plantsin Europe, Asia, and South America, and Europeans and Japanese had plants in America and South America, and in the Soviet Union Fiat Fiat (= Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torino ) workers refreshed themselves with Pepsi-Cola). In the fullness of time international automakers will have plants in Egypt and India and the People's Republic of China.6 As in architecture, so in automaking. In a given cost range, the same technology tends to produce the same solutions. The visual evidence for this is as obvious for cars as for buildings. Today, if you choose models in the same price range, you will be hard put at 500 paces to tell one makefrom another. In other words, the specifically American traits that lingered in American automobiles in the 1960s--traits that linked American cars to American history--are disappearing. Even the Volkswagen Beetle has disappeared and has taken with it the visible evidence of the history of streamlining that extends from D'Arcy Thompson to Carl Breer to Ferdinand Porsche.7 If man creates machines, machines in turn shape their creators. As the automobile is universalized, it universalizes those who use it. Like the World Car he drives, modern man is becoming universal. No longer quite an individual, no longer quite the product of a unique geography and culture, he moves from one climate-controlled shopping mall to another, from one airport to the next, from one Holiday Inn to its successor three hundred miles down the road; but somehow his location never changes. He is cosmopolitan. The price he pays is that he no longer has a home in the traditional sense of the word. The benefit is that he begins to suspect home in the traditional sense is another name for limitations, and that home in the modern sense is everywhere and always surrounded by neighbors.8 The universalizing imperative of technology is irresistible. Barring the catastrophe of nuclear war, it will continue to shape both modern culture and the consciousness of those who inhabit that culture.9 This brings us to art and history again. Reminiscing on the early work of Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp, Madame Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia wrote of the discovery of the machine aesthetic in 1949:"I remember a time ... when every artist thought he owed it to himself to turn his back on the Eiffel Tower, as a protest against the architectural blasphemy with which it filled the sky.... The discovery and rehabilitation of ... machines soon generated propositions which evaded all tradition, above all, a mobile, extra human plasticit y which was absolutely new....”10 Art is, in one definition, simply an effort to name the real world. Are machines "the real world" or only its surface? Is the real world that easy to find? Science has shown the in substantiality of the world. It has thus undermined an article of faith: the thingliness of things. At the same time, it has produced images of orders of reality underlying the thingliness of things. Are images of cells or of molecules or of galaxies more or less real than images of machines? Science has also produced images that are pure artifacts. Are images of self-squared dragons more or less real than images of molecules?11 The skepticism of modern science about the thingliness of things implies a new appreciation of the humanity of art entirely consistent with Kandinsky's observation in On the Spiritual in Art that beautiful art "springs from inner need, which springs from the soul." Modern art opens on a world whose reality is not "out there" in nature defined as things seen from a middle distance but "in here" in the soul or the mind. It is a world radically emptied of history because it is a form of perception rather than a content.12 The disappearance of history is thus a liberation--what Madame Buffet-Picabia refers to as the discovery of "a mobile extra-human plasticity which [is] absolutely new." Like science, modern art often expresses this feeling of liberation through play--in painting in the playfulness of Picasso and Joan Miro and in poetry in the nonsense of Dada and the mock heroics of a poem like Wallace Stevens's "The Comedian as the Letter C."13 The playfulness of the modern aesthetic is, finally, its most striking--and also its most serious and, by corollary, its most disturbing--feature. The playfulness imitates the playfulness of science that produces game theory and virtual particles and black holes and that, by introducing human growth genes into cows, forces students of ethics to reexamine the definition of cannibalism. The importance of play in the modern aesthetic should not come as a surprise. It is announced in every city in the developed world by the fantastic and playful buildings of postmodernism and neo-modernism and by the fantastic juxtapositions of architectural styles that typify collage city and urban adhocism.14 Today modern culture includes the geometries of the International Style, the fantasies of facadism, and the gamesmanship of theme parks and museum villages . It pretends at times to be static but it is really dynamic. Its buildings move and sway and reflect dreamy visions of everything that is going on around them. It surrounds itscitizens with the linear sculpture of pipelines and interstate highways and high-tension lines and the delicate virtuosities of the surfaces of the Chrysler Airflow and the Boeing 747 and the lacy weavings of circuits etched on silicon, as well as with the brutal assertiveness of oil tankers and bulldozers and the Tinkertoy complications of trusses and geodesic domes and lunar landers. It abounds in images and sounds and values utterly different from those of the world of natural things seen from a middle distance.15 It is a human world, but one that is human in ways no one expected. The image it reveals is not the worn and battered face that stares from Leonardo's self-portrait much less the one that stares, bleary and uninspired, every morning from the bathroom mirror. These are the faces of history. It is, rather, the image of an eternally playful and eternally youthful power that makes order whether order is there or not and that having made one order is quite capable of putting it aside and creating an entirely different or the way a child might build one structure from a set of blocks and then without malice and purely in the spirit of play demolish it and begin again. It is an image of the power that made humanity possible in the first place.16 The banks of the nineteenth century tended to be neoclassic structures of marble or granite faced with ponderous rows of columns. They made a statement" "We are solid. We are permanent. We are as reliable as history. Your money is safe in our vaults."17 Today's banks are airy structures of steel and glass, or they are store-fronts with slot-machinelike terminals, or trailers parked on the lots of suburban shopping malls.18 The vaults have been replaced by magnetic tapes. In a computer, money is sequences of digital signals endlessly recorded, erased, processed, and reprocessed, and endlessly modified by other computers. The statement of modern banks is "We are abstract like art and almost invisible like the Crystal Palace. If we exist at all, we exist as an airy medium in which your transactions are completed and your wealth increased."19 That, perhaps, establishes the logical limit of the modern aesthetic. If so, the limit is a long way ahead, but it can be made out, just barely, through the haze over the road. As surely as nature is being swallowed up by the mind, the banks, you might say, are disappearing through their own skylights.(from Disappearing Through The Skylight )--------------------------------------------------------------------NOTES1. Hardison: Osborne Bennet Hardison Jr. was born in San Diego, California in 1928. He was educated at the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin. He has taught at Princeton and the University of North Carolina. He is the author of Lyrics and Elegies (1958), The Enduring Monument (1962), English Literary Criticism: The Renaissance(1964), Toward Freedom and Dignity: The Humanities and the Idea of Humanity(1973), Entering the Maze: Identity and Change in Modern Culture (1981) and Disappearing Through the Skylight (1980).2. Ford Motor Company: one of the largest car manufacturing companies of America3. International Style: as its name indicates, an architectural style easily reproduced and accepted by countries throughout the world. These structures use simple geometric forms of straight lines, squares, rectangles, etc., in their designs. It is often criticized as a rubber-stamp method of design. These structures are meant to be simple, practical and cost-effective.4. Fiat: the biggest Italian car manufacturing company. Fiat is an acronym of the Italian name, Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torina.5. Pepsi-Cola: a brand name of an American soft drink. It is a strong competitor of another well-known American soft drink, Coca-Cola.6. Volkswagen Beetle: model name of a car designed and manufactured by the German car manufacturing company, Volkswagen7.D'Arcy Thompson: D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) placed biology on a mathematical foundation. In his book On Growth and Form. Thompson invented the term Airflow to describe the curvature imposed by water on the body of a fish, The airflow or streamling influenced the future designing of cars and airplanes to increase their speed and reduce air friction.8. Carl Breer: auto-designer, who designed the Chrysler Airflow of 1934.9. Ferdinand Porshe: auto-designer of the original Volkswagen10. Holiday Inn: name adopted by a hotel chain11. Picabia: Francis Picabia (1878-1953). French painter. After working in an impressionist style, Picabia was influenced by Cubism and later was one of the original exponents of Dada in Europe and the United States.12.Duchamp: Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), French painter. Duchamp is noted for his cubist-futurist painting Nude Descending a Staircase, depicting continuous action with a series of overlapping figures. In 1915 he was a cofounder of a Dada group in New York.13. Madame Gabrille Buffet-Picabia: perhaps wife of Francis Picabia14. Eiffel Tower: a tower of iron framework in Paris, designed by A.G. Eiffel and erected in the Champ-de-Mars for the Paris exposition of 188915. self-squared dragons: a picture of a four-dimensional dragon produced by computer technique16. Kandinsky: Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian abstract painter and theorist. He is usually regarded as the originator of abstract art. In 1910 he wrote an important theoretical study, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.17. Picasso: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish painter and sculptor, who worked in France. His landmark painting Guernica is an impassioned allegorical condemnation of facism and war.18. Miro: Joan Miro (1893-1983), Spanish surrealist painter. After studying in Barcelona, Miro went to Paris in 1919. In the 1920s he came into contact with cubism and surrealism. His work has been characterized as psychic automatism, an expression of the subconscious in free form.19. Dada: a movement in art and literature based on deliberate irrationality and negation of traditional artistic values; also the art and literature produced by this movement20. Stevens: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), American poet, educated at Harvard and the New York University Law School. A master of exquisite verse, Stevens was specifically concerned with creating some shape of order in the "slovenly wilderness" of chaos.21. game theory: a mathematical theory of transactions developed by John Von Neumann. He called this theory, which has important applications in economic, diplomacy, and national defense, "game theory". Even though they are serious, however, the games are often so intricate and their rules so strange that the game becomes overtly playful.22. virtual particles: particles that serve all practical purposes though they do not exist in reality23. black hole: A star in the last phases of gravitational collapse is often referred to asa "black hole". Even light cannot escape the black hole but is turned back by the enormous pull of gravitation. Therefore it can never be observed directly.24. lunar lander: a vehicle designed to land on the surface of the moon25. collage city: Collage City (1975) by Colin Rowe. In it he calls for a city that is a rich mixture of styles. It also implies the preservation of many bits and pieces of history. collage: an artistic composition made of various materials (as paper, cloth or wood) glued on a picture surface26. adhocism: This is a key term used by Charles Jencks in his book. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). The ad hoc city is intended to avoid the horrors of the totally planned city. The ad hoc city clearly shows a fondness for clashing styles and queer postmodern buildings as well as fantastic architectural complexes.27. facadism: It is a form of mosaic architecture. In mosaic architecture bits and pieces of older buildings are combined with bits and pieces of modern buildings. In facadism fronts of nineteenth-century buildings may be propped up while entirely new buildings are created behind them and often beside and above them.28. theme parks and museum villages: Such places try to reproduce history certain themes through architectural complexes. For example, Disneyland Anaheim, California, tries to reproduce the main street of a typical nineteenth centutry American town, but everything is stage set and nothing is real.29. Chrysler Airflow: a car model manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation of America30. Boeing 747: an airplane model manufactured by the Boeing Company of America31. Tinkertoy: a trademark for a toy set of wooden dowels, joints, wheels etc., used by children to assemble structures32. Crystal Palace: building designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and erected in Hyde Park, London, for the great exhibition in 1851. In 1854 it was removed to Sydenham, where, until its damage by fire in 1936, it housed a museum of sculpture, pictures, and architecture and was used for concerts. In 1941 it demolition was completed because it served as a guide to enemy bombing planes. The building was constructed of iron, glass, and laminated wood One of the most significant examples of 19th century proto-modern architecture, it was widely imitated in Europe and America.。

《商务英语阅读》期末考试复习资料一、词汇翻译题（课内词汇+课外高频商务词汇）1.entrepreneur 企业家2.specification 规格详述3.human resources 人力资源4.institution 机构5.orientation 方向，导向，新员工入职培训6.decline 消减，衰亡7.bonus 奖金unch 推出，投放市场munity 社区，共同体10.necessities （生活）必需品11.stock 股票12.liquidity 流动性，变现性13.risk 风险14.potential 潜在的15.act of God 不可抗力y off 使……下岗17.listed company 上市公司18.log on 登入、连接（上网）19.absolute interest 绝对产权20.keyboard skills 打字技能21.human resources 人力资源22.account for 解释某事物的原因，占……比例23.executive 高级管理人员，执行总裁24.logo 企业或公司等专用的标记、标识25.administration 管理26.budget 预算27.feasible 可行的28.industry 产业，行业29.ingredient 成分，要素30.securities 证券mission 佣金32.dividend 股息，红利33.mature 到期，成熟34.accounts receivable 应收账款35.job description 岗位描述36.letter of intent 意向书37.living wage 基本生活工资38.bar code 条形码39.acid test 决定性的考验40.executive 高管，主管41.administrative expenses 行政管理费用42.jet lag 飞机时差反应43.customized 用户化的，按客户要求定制的44.keep-fit market 保健市场45.lecture theatre 梯形教室，梯形报告厅46.local adaptation 本土化47.balance sheet 资产负债表48.benefits package 福利套餐,整体福利49.bill of lading 提单、提货单50.access fee 使用费二、单项选择题（课内）1.Factors of production refer to _______.A.natural resources and capitalbor and entrepreneursC.both A and B2.The structure of a large manufacturing company and that of a small service firmshould be __________.A. the sameB. differentC. similar3. Organization charts show employees where they ______.A. start their workB. report to the bossC. fit into the company’s operation4. The basic management skills are ________.A.technical skills, human relations skills and conceptual skillsB.performing skills, marketing skills and planning skillsanizing skills, controlling skills and leading skills5. ________ programs include wages and salaries, incentives, and benefit forworkers.A. CompensationB. MarketingC. Orientation6. The firm’s ________ covers all the products it offers for sale.A. product lineB. product lifeC. product mix7. A nation’s ______ is the difference between the flow of money into and outof the nation.A.balance of tradeB.balance of paymentsC.payment of balance8. China is in the _______ regional economy.A. North AmericaB. EuropeC. Asia/Pacific9. A corporation can also obtain equity financing by selling securities directlyto current stockholders. “Equity” here means ______.A. reasonable qualityB. ordinary stocks and sharesC. principles of equality10.Most short-term financing is unsecured. “unsecured” here means _______.A.no interest chargeB.no collateral is requiredC.no bank loans11.The funds needed to operate an enterprise are referred to as _______.A.capitalB.resourcesbor12. Organization charts show employees where they ______.A. start their workB. report to the bossC. fit into the company’s operation13. The basic management skills are ________.A.technical skills, human relations skills and conceptual skillsB.performing skills, marketing skills and planning skillsanizing skills, controlling skills and leading skills14. ________ programs include wages and salaries, incentives, and benefit forworkers.A. CompensationB. MarketingC. Orientation15. The firm’s ________ covers all the products it offers for sale.A. product lineB. product lifeC. product mix16. _______ may be established based on costs, demands, the competitions’prices,or some combination of these.A. ProductsB. BrandsC. Prices17. A nation’s ______ is the difference between the flow of money into and outof the nation.A.balance of tradeB.balance of paymentsC.payment of balance18. China is in the _______ regional economy.A. North AmericaB. EuropeC. Asia/Pacific19.People can buy stocks from _____.A.securities marketsB. a secure marketC.financial markets20. High-risk investment techniques can provide greater returns, but they entailgreater risk of loss. “Entail” here means _________.A. retailB. investC. involve（答案自己在书上找）三、阅读理解题（课外）Passage 1Global Recession Hits the Developing WorldBoth the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund expect the world economy to shrink this year for the first time since World War Two. As recently as January, the I.M.F. had predicted growth of one-half percent. But this week its chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said the world has entered what he called “a great recession”.A new World Bank report says the recession may hurt the developing world the most. Those countries depend on trade for economic growth. But world trade is expected to fall at the fastest rate in eighty years.East Asia has been hardest hit. In February, exports from China fell twenty-six percent from a year ago.Rich nations are expected to borrow heavily in world credit markets to finance spending at home. But investors are demanding very high returns if they are willing to lend to the developing world at all. Jeff Chelsky, a World Bank senior economist, says investors are avoiding higher risk debt in a flight to quality.The bank estimates that up to three trillion dollars of public and private loans in developing countries must be repaid this year. Some nations have enough foreign currency reserves, but others will struggle to find new financing to pay their existing debts.The World Bank estimates that developing nations will need between two hundred seventy and seven hundred billion dollars in financing. The amount depends on the depth of the recession.The I.M.F. is seeking to expand its lending ability. And World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called on rich nations to put some of their economic recovery spending into a crisis fund to help poor countries.Bank economist Jeff Chelsky says the poorest countries are in the greatest danger. They cannot borrow in credit markets and they depend on exports of commodities like crops or minerals. But falling commodity prices mean they now depend more than ever on foreign aid.Finance ministers and central bankers from major industrial and developing countries meet this weekend outside London to discuss the financial crisis. President Obama wants all countries in the Group of Twenty to coordinate their separate efforts to strengthen their economies.There was some good news this week, including better-than-expected reports on spending by Americans in January and February. And financial stocks rose after Citigroup reported a profit for those two months.And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.1. According to the passage, the world economy will _______ for the first timethis year since the World War Two.A. developB. growC. expandD. become smaller2. _______may be hurt the most by the recession.A. the developing worldB. the developed countriesC. the rich countriesD. Asian countries3. Who are easier to borrow money in the world credit market?A. Rich nationsB. Poor countriesC. the World BankD. the International Monetary Fund4. What does the underlined “flight”mean in the fourth paragraph?A. travelB. flyingC. escapeD. movement through the air5.___________ has called on rich nations to help poor countries.A. President ObamaB. President Robert ZoellickC. Jeff ChelskyD. the International Monetary FundPassage 2A Rough Road for ToyotaToyota became the world's largest automaker in two thousand eight. But after years of building loyalty, the Japanese company may have put its quality brand name at risk, at least temporarily.Toyota is recalling millions of cars and trucks around the world because of cases where vehicles have sped up unexpectedly. Last August, a driver in California was unable to stop. The crash killed him and three of his family members.Toyota says the problem is rare and caused by accelerator pedals becoming stuck open. On January twenty-sixth, the company suspended sales of eight of its top-selling vehicles in the United States, its largest market. Toyota dealers have been receiving parts to make repairs.General Motors and Ford both reported increased sales in January. But Toyota sales in the United States have fallen, and so has its stock price. Toyota says it expects costs and lost sales from its recent safety recalls to total two billion dollars by the end of March.Louis Lataif spent twenty-seven years in the car industry at Ford. Now he is dean of the School of Management at Boston University.LOUIS LATAIF: “It’s Toyota’s biggest such recall. It’s voluntary incidentally, it’s not mandated. So, in that respect, they are doing something fairly bold, namely, taking the hit of shutting production and correcting the vehicles that are in inventory on which they have stopped sales.”A recall late last year involved floor mats that Toyota said could cause the accelerator to get stuck. One of the vehicles in the floor mat recall was the Prius, the world’s top selling hybrid.Now American officials are investigating the brake system on the twenty ten Prius. The Transportation Department says it has received more than one hundred twenty reports, including reports of four crashes.Toyota says it found a software problem that could briefly affect the “feel” of the anti-lock brakes on rough or slippery roads. It says it fixed the brake problem last month.But a growing number of legal cases claim Toyota knew for a long time about the sudden acceleration issue with other vehicles. The problem reportedly has led to more than eight hundred crashes and nineteen deaths in the past ten years. Congress is preparing for hearings.Greg Bonner is a marketing professor at Villanova University. He says to regain trust, Toyota will have to make public everything it knows about the problems and show it accepts responsibility.The recall has also intensified questions about all the computer control systems used in modern cars.6. Toyota may have put its quality brand name at risk because__________.A. vehicles have sped up unexpectedlyB. last August, a driver in California was unable to stop.C. Toyota is recalling millions of cars and trucks around the worldD. All of the above.7. Which of the following ways is not one Toyota solves its problem about accelerator pedals?A. Toyota stopped sales of eight of its top-selling vehicles in the UnitedStatesB. Toyota is recalling millions of cars and trucks around the worldC. Toyota increased salesD. Toyota dealers have been receiving parts to make repairs.8. Whose sales decreased in January?A. General MotorsB. FordC. General Motors and FordD. Toyota9. From what Louis Lataif said about Toyota, we can infer that _________.A. Toyota didn’t solve its problem positively.B. Louis Lataif didn’t think that Toyota solved its problem properly.C. Louis Lataif thought highly of Toyota’s way of solving its problem.D. Toyota couldn’t solve its problem.10. The underlined word in the last paragraph “intensify” means ________.A. increase in degreeB. decrease in degreeC. make the questions more tenseD. become more intensePassage 3Stock Sectors - How to Classify StocksOne of the ways investors classify stocks is by type of business. The idea is to put companies in similar industries together for comparison purposes. Most analysts and financial media call these groupings “sectors” and you will often read or hear about how certain sector stocks are doing.One of the most common classification breaks the market into 11 different sectors. Investors consider two of these sectors “defensive” and the remaining nine “cyclical.” Let’s look at these two categories and see what they mean for the individual investor.DefensiveDefensive stocks include utilities and consumer staples. These companies usually don’t suffer as much in a market downturn because people don’t stop using energy or eating. They provide a balance to portfolios and offer protection in a falling market.However, for all their safety, defensive stocks usually fail to climb with a rising market for the opposite reasons they provide protection in a falling market: people don’t use significantly more energy or eat more food.Defensive stocks do exactly what their name implies, assuming they are well run companies. They give you a cushion for a soft landing in a falling market.Cyclical stocksCyclical stocks, on the other hand, cover everything else and tend to react to a variety of market conditions that can send them up or down, however when one sector is going up another may be going down.Here is a list of the nine sectors considered cyclical:∙Basic Materials∙Capital Goods∙Communications∙Consumer Cyclical∙Energy∙Financial∙Health Care∙Technology∙TransportationMost of these sectors are self-explanatory. They all involve businesses you can readily identify. Investors call them cyclical because they tend to move up and down in relation to businesses cycles or other influences.Basic materials, for example, include those items used in making other goods – lumber, for instance. When the housing market is active, the stock of lumber companies will tend to rise. However, high interest rates might put a damper on home building and reduce the demand for lumber.How to UseStocks sectors are helpful sorting and comparison tools. Don’t get hung up on using just one organization’s set of sectors, though. uses slightly different sectors in its tools, which let you compare stocks within a sector.This is extremely helpful, since one of the ways to use sector information is to compare how your stock or a stock you may want to buy, is doing relative to other companies in the same sector.If all the other stocks are up 11% and your stock is down 8%, you need to find out why. Likewise, if the numbers are reversed, you need to know why your stock is doing so much better than others in the same sector –maybe its business model has changed and it shouldn’t be in that sector any longer.ConclusionYou never want to be making investment decisions in a vacuum. Using sector information, you can see how a stock is doing relative to its peers and that will help you understand whether you have a potential winner or loser.11. According to this passage, an investor should buy _____________in a falling market.A. cyclical stocksB. defensive stocksC. technology stocksD. transportation stocks12. According to this passage, an investor should buy _____________in a rising market.A. cyclical stocksB. defensive stocksC. stocks of utilitiesD. stocks of consumer staples13. ______________sectors belong to cyclical stocks.A. 11B.2C.9D.314. Utilities and consumer staples belong to _______________.A. cyclical stocksB. defensive stocksC. technology stocksD. transportation stocks15. ___________tend to move up and down in relation to businesses cycles or other influences.A. cyclical stocksB. defensive stocksC. stocks of utilitiesD. stocks of consumer staplesPassage 1America's biggest carmaker accepted fifty billion dollars in federal aid from the Obama and Bush administrations. People joked that GM meant "Government Motors." Now, General Motors could be on the road to recovery.The company recorded over two and a half billion dollars in profit in the first half of the year. The government still owns sixty-one percent of GM as a result of the bailout. Canada is also a shareholder. But now GM plans to sell stock to the public again.GM spent just forty days in bankruptcy. It sought protection from its creditors in June of last year. GM restructured. It discontinued some vehicles and closed dealerships and factories.In April, GM repaid almost seven billion dollars in government loans. Many of its creditors are waiting to see how much they get.GM plans an IPO, an initial public offering of stock, later this year. The company could raise as much as fifteen billion dollars.Chief executive Edward Whitacre is leaving September first. He wants the government to sell all of its shares in the company during the IPO. Many experts believe the Treasury will act slowly over time after the public offering is completed.If the stock price rises, the government could profit from the rescue. But the IPO is risky for the company. The offering will test the willingness of investors to take an equity share in the “new GM”.Buying equity is not like buying bonds. Bonds represent a loan. Equity represents ownership. Investors willing to buy equity shares in a company expect one thing -- growth.GM believes it can make that happen, in part with a new electric-and-gas hybrid.COMMERCIA L: “Chevy Volt, a car that can go up to forty miles before it uses any gas at all. That's an American revolution.”The Volt is expected to start arriving in showrooms later this year.GM is also looking overseas. The world's fastest growing car markets are in developing nations. GM is now selling more cars in China than in the United States. GM still leads the American market, though Toyota is now the biggest car company in the world.There are signs that America's big three may have put the worst of their recent troubles behind them.Chrysler also went through bankruptcy and says its sales are up. Italy's Fiat holds a twenty percent share.Ford Motor Company avoided bankruptcy and refused government help. Ford reported close to five billion dollars in profit for the first six months of the year.1. America’s biggest carmaker is _________________.A. ToyotaB. ChryslerC. GMD. Ford Motor Company2. GM stands for __________.A. Government MotorsB. General MotorsC. Both A and BD. Neither A Nor B3. People joked that GM meant “Government Motors” because _____________.A. The government still owns sixty-one percent of GM as a result of the bailout.B. They accepted fifty billion dollars in federal aid from the Obama and Bushadministrations.C. Both A and BD. Neither A Nor B4. Now, General Motors could be on the road to recovery. It plans ___________.A. to restructure.B. an IPO, an initial public offering of stock, later this yearC. to seek protection from its creditors.D. to discontinue some vehicles and closed dealerships and factories.5. According to the passage, what is not true about Chevy Volt?A. GM believes it will bring profit growth.B. It is a new electric-and-gas hybrid.C. It is a car that can go up to forty miles before it uses any gas at all.D. It has been produced.Passage 2The digital revolution, as exemplified by the Internet and electronic commerce, has shaken marketing practices to their core. In a recen t paper, Wharton’s Jerry Wind, director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, and co-authorVijay Mahajan, a marketing professor at the College of Business Administration of the University of Texas at Austin, examine the impact of digital marketing on concepts like pricing, when customers can propose their own prices (), or buyers and sellers can haggle independently in auctions ().The paper provides an overview of some of the emerging realities and new rules of marketing in a digital world, and outlines what the new discipline of marketing may look like in the early part of the new century.To begin with, say the authors, the rapid-fire growth of the Internet is helping to drive changes. “It is not just our comp uters that are being reprogrammed; it is customers themselves,” says Wind. “These emerging cyber consumers are like an alien race that has landed in the midst of our markets. They have different expectations and different relationships with companies from which they purchase products and services.”For one thing, cyber consumers expect to be able to customize everything —from the products and services they buy and the information they seek, to the price they are willing to pay. And with digital technology opening new channels for gaining information, they are more knowledgeable and demanding than previous consumers. Digital customers can also sort products based on any desired attribute, price, nutritional value, or functionality, and they can easily obtain third-party endorsements and evaluations, tapping the experience of other users. “Companies that cannot meet their demands and expectations will be at a loss,” says Wind.Questions:6. The passage was most likely to be quoted from______.A.an overview of a paperB.an introduction to a bookC. a book on digital revolutionD. a paper discussing digital revolution7. The paper mentioned in this paper was written by______.A.Jerry WindB.Vijay MahajanC.Jerry Wind and Vijay MahajanD.an anonymous8. From the third paragraph, we can infer that______.A.the customers are also reprogrammed by computersB.e-business companies need be more knowledgeable about cyber consumersC.cyber consumers are a group of strange peopleD.cyber consumers came from outer space9. Compared with traditional customers, the emerging cyber consumers______.A.are more difficult to satisfyB.have less knowledge about businessC.have more problems with pricesD.are less willing to buy products and services10. What is mainly discussed in the passage? ______A.digital revolutionB.digital marketingC.cyber consumersD.the impact of digital marketing on concepts like pricingPassage 3Greece, economically, is in the black. With very little to export other than such farm products as tobacco, cotton and fruit, the country earns enough from ‘invisible earnings’ to pay for its needed, growing imports. From the sending out of things the Greeks, earn only $285 million; from tourism, shipping and the remittances of Greeks abroad, the country takes in an additional #375 million and this washes out the almost $400 million by which imports exceed exports.It has a balanced budget. Although more than one drachma out of four goes for defense, the government ended a recent year with a slight surplus -- $66 million. Greece has a decent reserve of almost a third of a billion dollars in gold and foreign exchange. It has a government not dependent on coalescing incompatible parties toobtain parliamentary majorities.In thus summarizing a few happy highlights, I don’t mean to minimize the vast extent of Greece’s problems. It is the poorest country by a wide margin in Free Europe, and poverty is widespread. At best an annual income of $60 to $70 is the lot of many a peasant, and substantial unemployment plagues the countryside, cities, and towns of Greece. There are few natural resources on which to build any substantial industrial base. Some years ago I wrote here:“Greek statesmanship will have to create an atmosphere in which home and foreign savings will willingly seek investment opportunities in the back ward economy of Greece. So far, most American and other foreign attempt have bogged down in the Greek government’s red tape and shrewdness about small points.”Great strides have been made. As far back as 1956, expanding tourism seemed a logical way to bring needed foreign currencies and additional jobs to Greece. At that time I talked with the Hilton Hotel people, who had been examining hotel possibilities, and to the Greek government division responsible for this area of the economy. They were hopelessly deadlocked in almost total differences of opinion and outlook.Today most of the incredibly varied, beautiful, historical sights of Greece have new, if in many cases modest, tourist facilities. Tourism itself has jumped from approximately $31 million to over $90 million. There is both a magnificent new Hilton Hotel in Athens and a completely modernized, greatly expanded Grande Bretagne, as well as other first-rate new hotels. And the advent of jets has made Athens as accessible as Paris or Rome –without the sky-high prices of traffic-choked streets of either.Questions:11. The title below that best expresses the ideas of this passage is_________.A. Greek income and expendituresB. The improving economic situation in GreeceC. The value of tourismD. Military expenditures12. Many peasants earn less than _________.A. $60 a weekB. $2 a weekC. $1 a dayD. $10 a month13. The Greek Government spends __________.A. more than 25%of its budget on military termsB. More than its collectsC. A third of a billion dollars in goldD. Less than 25% of its budget on military terms14. According to the passage, Greece has _________.A. a dictatorshipB. a monarchyC. a single majority partyD. too much red tape15. Greece imports annually goods and materials __________.A. totaling almost $700 millionB. that balance exportsC. that are paid by touristsD. costing $66 million四、篇章翻译题（课外）Passage A纳斯达克开设北京代表处随着各方吸引迅速增长的中国公司赴海外上市的争夺战愈演愈烈，纳斯达克(Nasdaq)昨日成为最新一个在北京开设代表处的全球证交所。

剑桥大学开学典礼致辞第一篇：剑桥大学开学典礼致辞Experts estimate that by the end of the century, half of the 6,000 languages spoke on our planetwill have disappeared.In west Africa, academics in T ogo are trying to protect the small country'srich cultural and language heritage.At the University of Lome, Professor N'bueke Adovi Goeh-Akue shows a visitor some video groupsof Gen cultural rituals.The Professor is a cultural heritage specialist, he is also himself a Gen, one ofmany ethnic groups in Togo.He is making films of Gen cultural customs with financial help from the United States.He says theGen have an important place in Togo's history and culture.Gen rituals show how its people seetheir world;the interaction between the living and the dead, the seen and the unseen.“The Gen believe in numerous voodoo deities.But today Professor Goeh-Akue says fewer andfewer Gen children go through voodoo initiation ceremonies.He says that increasingly the newgeneration does not recognize the importance of these cultural traditions.He says formal education and the spread of Christianity have reduced their influence.Many youngpeople think traditional practices are uncivilized.And while the Gen language is widely spoken in thecapital Lome, The Professor says it is not taught in schools.Gen is one of about 39 languages spoke in Togo.A specialist in the UNESCO endangered languageprogram says, by the end of the century, more than half of Africa's languages will be gone.The specialist Anahit Minasyan says a language needs speakers, preferably people who speak it astheir mother-tongue or first language.But she says a language at least needs people who canspeak it as their second language.Ifthey are tiny, she says , a language is extinct.She says languages can die as a result of anincreasingly globalized world.”People switch to a language or they raise their children in a language which they think will providefor a better economic opportunity in the future.“Ms.Minasyan says in Africa, for example, people often switch to larger African languages — notnecessarily to English or French, instead, people might switch to Hausa or Swahili or Wolof, theseare more speakers and provide more economic opportunities than their mother tongues.Socio-linguist Komlan Essizewa says that today many young urban Togolese switch among severallanguages, these include the Mina language spoken in cities.”As a linguist, we have to be very worried about it.Because today, even when people move backto their village, they don't use the language of the village as it is.“ 2 China is strengthening its image as the most important market for the automobile industry.Chinese auto sales are up 13 percent from one year ago.Industry observers are predicting totalsales of over 20 million vehicles this year.By comparison, a little more than 15 million vehicles are expected to be sold in the United States.The importance of the Chinese market could be seen last month at the Shanghai auto show.Industry representatives there were showing products design to meet China's growing demandfor luxury cars and larger vehicles.Dave Schoch is with the Ford Motor Company.He welcomed the chance to meet with thousandsof possible car buyers.”So you've got 30 million customers out there, all with different tastes and different affordabilitylevels.And what Ford wants to do is bring the power and leverage of our global line-up, you know fromsmall to medium to large, into China.“However, competition can be fierce.Dieter Zetsche is the Chairman of the German automanufacturer Daimler AG.”We are increasing our local content here in this country.And next month we are opening the firstengine plant with the capacity of 250,000 units outside of Germany for Mercedes engines.“Many Chinese see cars as a sign of success.Yale Zhang is with Automotive Foresight, an industrygroup.He says the rising demand for top quality automobiles is a sign of China's rise as aneconomic superpower.”This market is becoming more like European or American style.“Demand has been especially high for larger sport utility vehicles, SUVs.Karsten Engel is head of the BMW Group in China.He says the spacious insides of SUVs appeal tothe newly rich, although some will probably never drive them.”The ultimate driving machine, you probably experience a lot from the rear seat with your driver,so you need more space, you want more space.You want to have the possibility to work in the car.“That is something Stefan Brungs understands.He is the marketing director for the automakerBugatti's.”This is what the Chinese have learned and perceived as luxury--to sit in the back and bechauffeured.“The demand for larger cars is strong, yet environmental issues and fuel concerns are leading toincreased interest in vehicles with better fuel economy.Nissan's Asia Vice President Andy Palmer:”Four years ago, when we introduced the concept of the electric car, most of our colleagues inthe industry thought that we had lost our minds.Now it doesn't look so stupid, you know?"For now, observers say new hybrid and electric technology is not a major force in the Chinesemarket.New information showssales of SUV's are up nearly 50 percent from a year ago, andexperts says SUV sales are likely to double by 2015.And that's the Economics Report.I'm Christopher Cruise.The University of Cambridge is a place, a community, and an institution.It is also a pervasive presence in the world.The Cambridge University community is preponderantly British: 75% of our academic staff are British, 85% of our undergraduates, and almost 50% of our postgraduates.Collegiate Cambridge remains deeply committed to the education of outstanding British students.That assertion is fully consonant with a Cambridge fast becoming more international in many, many ways.A wealth of research collaborations between Cambridge academics and colleagues around the world are documented in the online International Directory to be launched by the University this year.Although teaching and learning are still overwhelmingly Cambridge-based activities and relatively few students study abroad, the number of international programmes for training and education is growing.Camb ridge University’s global presence is such that already it has few if any equals.What Cambridge does well, and must keep doing, is respond to change in the world and help shape and lead it.As more and more people live and work across a range of cultures, our teaching must help prepare our students for that life.For graduate students, the potential transformation of Cambridge to a fully international University could be much closer if the decline continues in the number of British students studying for doctoral degrees, with dramatic shrinkage in certain fields.These students are not being kept out by international students: they are not applying, or not applying here.We must improve funding for UK postgraduate students as a matter of urgency.Cambridge is among the most beautiful universities inthe world, and experiencing that beauty is part of what it means to be at Cambridge.We are an integral part of a lively and interesting city.There was a time in the 1950s and 60s when things looked different, and the university was too dominant in the local economy for anyone’s health.That changed, happily.第二篇：中英文剑桥大学-江主席致辞½£ÇÅ´óѧ·ÃÎÊ-Ö÷ϯÖ´ÇÖÐÓ¢¶ÔÒ루1999£®10£®22£©Speech delivered by Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the University of Cambridge on October 22.1999У³¤ÏÈÉú£¬Í¬Ñ§ÃÇ£¬ÀÏʦÃÇ£¬Å®Ê¿ÃÇ£¬ÏÈÉúÃÇ£ºStudents and Faculty, Ladies and Gentlemen:¡¡¡¡ÎÒ¸Ðл²¼ÂÞ˹У³¤µÄÑûÇ룬ʹÎÒÓлú»áÀ´µ½¾Ã¸ºÊ¢ÃûµÄ½£ÇÅ´óѧ·ÃÎÊ¡£I would like to thank you, Sir Alec Broers, Vice-Chancellor, for the invitation, which brings me to the famous Cambridge University.Äܹ»ÓëÇàÄêÅóÓÑÃǾۼ¯Ò»Ì㬹²Í¬ÌÖÂÛÈËÀàÈçºÎÔÚÐÂÊÀ¼ÍÀïÓ-½ÓÌôÕ½¡¢´´Ôì¸ü¼ÓÃÀºÃµÄδÀ´£¬ÎҸе½Ê®·Ö¸ßÐË¡£It gives me great pleasure to be together with young friends in a discussion on how mankind should rise up to the challenge in the new century and build a better future.½£ÇÅ´óѧÊǾßÓÐ700¶àÄêÀúÊ·µÄÊÀ½çÖøÃûѧ¸®£¬ÔøÅàÑø³öÅ£¶Ù¡¢Åà¸ù¡¢ÃÖ¶û¶Ù¡¢°ÝÂס¢´ï¶ûÎĵȶÔÈËÀà½ø²½ÊÂÒµ×÷³ö½Ü³ö¹±Ï×µÄΰ´ó¿Æѧ¼Ò¡¢Ë¼Ïë¼ÒºÍÊ«ÈË¡£Cambridge University is a world-renowned university with a history of more than 700 years.It has nurtured great scientists, thinkers and poets such as Newton, Bacon, Milton, Byron and Darwin, who made outstanding contribution to the progress of mankind.½ñÌ죬½£ÇÅ´óѧ×÷Ϊ»ñµÃŵ±´¶û½±Ñ§Õß×î¶àµÄ´óѧ£¬ÔÚÊÀ½ç¸ßµÈѧ¸®ÖÐÒÀÈ»¾ÓÓÚÏÔÒªµÄµØλ¡£Today, Cambridge University, which has produced more Nobel Prize winners than any other university, still takes a significant place among all the institutions of higher learning in theworld.50¶àÄêÇ°£¬ÔÚÎÒÉÏ´óѧµÄÄǸöÄê´ú£¬¾ÍÓв»ÉÙµÄÖйúÄêÇáѧ×ÓÏòÍùµ½½£ÇŸºóÅÇóѧ¡£Over fifty years ago when I was a university student, many young Chinese students were longing for an opportunity to come and study in Cambridge.½£ÇÅ´óѧÓëÖйú½»ÍùµÄÀúÊ·£¬ÔçÔÚÉϸöÊÀ¼ÍÖ®½»¾Í¿ªÊ¼ÁË¡£This university began its contacts with China as early as the beginning of the last century.Ò»°ÙÄêÇ°£¬½£ÇÅ´óѧ¿ªÉèÁ˺ºÓï¿Î³Ì¡£A hundred years ago, Cambridge started the Chinese languagecourse.¹óУÒѹʵÄÀîԼɪ²©Ê¿ÔÚÖйúѧÊõ½çÏíÓкܸߵÄÉùÃû¡£The late Dr.Joseph Needham of Cambridge University enjoyed a high prestige in the Chinese academic circles.ËûÇã×¢±ÏÉúÐÄѪ׫дµÄ¡¶Öйú¿Æѧ¼¼ÊõÊ·¡·£¬ÊÇÒ»²¿Ñо¿Öйú¹Å´ú¿Æѧ¼¼ÊõºÍÎÄÃ÷³É¾ÍµÄºèƪ¾ÞÖÆ¡£He devoted his entire life to the writing of Science and Civilization in China, a monumental work for study on ancient Chinese science and technology and cultural achievements.100ÄêÀ´£¬Ðí¶àÖйúѧÕß²»Ô¶ÍòÀïµ½½£ÇÅÇóѧ·ÃÎÊ£¬Öйú½Ü³öµÄÊýѧ¼Ò»ªÂÞ¸ý¾ÍÊÇÆäÖÐ×îÖøÃûµÄ´ú±í¡£For 100 years, many Chinese scholars, best represented byMr.Hua Luogeng, an outstanding Chinese mathematician, have traveled long distances to study in Cambridge.½ñÌ죬ÖйúѧÊõ½çºÍ½£ÇÅ´óѧ¼ÌÐø±£³Ö×ÅÁ¼ºÃµÄ½»Á÷ÓëºÏ×÷¡£Today, the Chinese academic community still maintains good exchanges and cooperation with Cambridge.Õâ¶Ô¼ÓÇ¿ÖÐÓ¢ÈËÃñµÄÎÄ»¯½»Á÷ºÍÓÑÒ꣬Íƽø¿Æ¼¼ºÍ˼Ïë½ø²½²úÉúÁË»ý¼«µÄ×÷ÓúÍÓ°Ïì¡£This has played a positive role in and exerted a sound influence on enhanced cultural exchanges and friendship between the Chinese and British people and progress in science and technology as well as in thinking.20ÊÀ¼Í£¬ÈËÀà´´ÔìµÄÎïÖʺ;«Éñ²Æ¸»£¬³¬¹ýÁËÒÔÍùÈκÎÒ»¸öʱ´ú¡£In the 20th century, mankind has created material and spiritual wealth unmatched by any other time in history.ÁîÈËÒź¶µÄÊÇ£¬ÈËÀàÔÚÕâ100ÄêÖÐÒ²¾-ÀúÁËÇ°ËùδÓеĿàÄÑ£¬ÌرðÊÇÔâÊÜÁËÁ½´ÎÊÀ½ç´óÕ½µÄºÆ½Ù¡£Regrettably, it is also in these 100 years that humanity has experienced unprecedented hardships, particularly the havoc of the two world wars.µ«ÊÇÊÀ½çµÄÀúÊ·´ÓÀ´ÊÇÓÉÊÀ½çÈËÃñ´´ÔìºÍÊéдµÄ£¬Òò¶øÕýÒå×Ü»áսʤа¶ñ£¬¹âÃ÷×Ü»áսʤºÚ°µ£¬½ø²½×Ü»áսʤÂäºó£¬ÈËÀà±ØÈ»»á²»¶ÏµØ¿Ë·þ¼èÄÑÏÕ×裬Ïò×ÅÃÀºÃµÄδÀ´¿ªÍØÇ°½ø¡£However, it is always the people of the world that make and write world history.In this sense, justice will inevitably prevail over evil, light over darkness and progress over backwardness.Mankind will undoubtedly keep on overcomingdifficulties and obstacles, blaze new trails and steadily move forward to a better future.21ÊÀ¼Í¾ÍÒªµ½À´£¬ÊÀ½çÈËÃñËäÈ»ÈÔÃæÁÙןܶàÑϾþµÄÌôÕ½£¬¿ÉÒԿ϶¨µØ˵£¬ÈËÀàÒ²ÃæÁÙמ޴óµÄ·¢Õ¹»úÓö¡£The 21st century is approaching.The people of the world still face many tough challenges, but definitely they also see enormous opportunities for development.Ö»ÒªÊÀ½çÈËÃñͬÐÄÐ-Á¦£¬ÐγÉսʤһÇÐÌôÕ½µÄ¾Þ´óÁ¦Á¿£¬ÈËÀàÎÄÃ÷½ø²½µÄº½´¬¾Í±Ø½«³Ë·çÆÆÀ˵ØÇ°½ø¡£So long as the people of the world work in unison and form a strong force to tackle all challenges, mankind with its civilization will continue to march forward against all odds.like a ship braving the wind and the waves.People of different countries have traversed different roads of historical development.Each nation with its own cultural background, social system and value, will continue to lead a life in its own way.ÊÀ½çÊǷḻ¶à²ÊµÄ¡£The world is colorful and diversified.¸÷¹úÈËÃñ×ß¹ýÁ˲»Í¬µÄÀúÊ··¢Õ¹µÀ·£¬ÓÐ×Ų»Í¬µÄÎÄ»¯±³¾°¡¢Éç»áÖƶȺͼÛÖµ¹ÛÄÑÓÐø×Ų»Í¬µÄÉú»î·½Ê½¡£People of different countries have traversed different roads of historical development.Each nation with its own cultural background, social system and value, will continue to lead a life in its own way.ÕâÖÖ¶àÑùÐÔÕýÊÇÊÀ½ç³äÂú¾ºÈü¡¢»îÁ¦ºÍ´´Ðµĸù±¾Ô-Òò¡£This diversity is the very reason why the world is full of competition, vigor andinnovation.¸÷¹úÖ®¼äÓ¦¸Ã¼ÓÇ¿½»Á÷ºÍÁ˽⣬ÔÚÏ໥×ðÖغÍƽµÈÏà´ýµÄ»ù´¡ÉϹ²Í¬Ç°½ø£¬¶ø²»Ó¦ÈÃÕâÖÖ¶àÑùÐÔ³ÉΪ×è°-¸÷¹úÈËÃñЯÊÖ¹²½øµÄ¸ôºÒ£¬¸ü²»Ó¦ÈËΪµØ´ÓÖÐÌôÆð¶ÔÁ¢ºÍ³åÍ»¡£Countries should enhance exchanges and understanding, and move ahead together on the basis of mutual respect and equality.They should not allow the diversity to be a barrier to their forward march, still less should they deliberately provoke confrontation and conflict.×ðÖغͷ¢Õ¹ÊÀ½çÎÄÃ÷µÄ¶àÑùÐÔ£¬²¢ÔÚÕâÖÖ¶àÑùÐÔÖÐÕÒµ½¹²Í¬ÀûÒæÖ®ËùÔÚ£¬ÊÇÈËÀàÉç»áÏòÇ°·¢Õ¹µÄΰ´ó¶¯Á¦¡£To respect and develop the diversity of world civilization and identify therefrom common interests are a great driving force propelling human society forward.ÕâÀÎÒÏë¾ÍÖйúµÄ·¢Õ¹Õâ¸öÌâĿ̸һЩÎҵĿ´·¨£¬Ï£ÍûÓÐÖúÓÚÖîλ¶ÔÖйúµÄÁ˽⡣Here, I want to share with you some of my thoughts on China's development, in the hope that it will give you a better understanding of my country.ÖлªÈËÃñ¹²ºÍ¹ú¸Õ¸Õ¶È¹ýÁË50ËêµÄÉúÈÕ¡£The People's Republic of China has just celebrated its 50th anniversary.¶ÔÓÚÃàÑÓ5000¶àÄêµÄÖлªÎÄÃ÷¶øÑÔ£¬50ÄêÖ»Êǵ¯Ö¸Ò»»Ó¼ä¡£Fifty years are but a brief moment for Chinese civilization that has been going on for more than 5,000 years.È»¶ø£¬ÔÚÕâ50ÄêÖУ¬ÖйúÕâ¸ö¹ÅÀϵĹú¶È·¢ÉúÁË·-Ì츲µØµÄ±ä»¯£¬Ãæò»ÀȻһС£第三篇：中英文剑桥大学-江主席致辞中英文剑桥大学-江主席致辞.txt12思念是一首诗，让你在普通的日子里读出韵律来；思念是一阵雨，让你在枯燥的日子里湿润起来；思念是一片阳光，让你的阴郁的日子里明朗起来。

Who Are The Greatest American Entrepreneurs Ever? 谁是最伟大的美国企业家？If U.S. presidents are studied, evaluated, and ranked, shouldn’t we do the same for our entrepreneurs and businesspeople? After all, they built the U.S. from the ground up into a great economic power. The state of business affects our quality of life as much, if not more, than whomever sits in the Oval Office. We need to know where to give the credit for American achievement and how to rank its value.如果历届美国总统都在被我们研究、评估和排名，难道不应该对美国企业家和商界人物也如法炮制吗？毕竟，是他们从根本做起，将美国打造成一个经济强权。

商业状况对我们生活质量的影响比起坐在白宫椭圆形办公室里的那个人来可谓有过之而无不及。

我们需要知道美国的成就是谁的功劳以及该如何对其价值进行排名。

Ten years ago, we asked 58 historians, economists, and management experts to rank their top ten American entrepreneurs. This poll was among the first attempts to assess greatness among American entrepreneurs, and we have repeated it again this year with surveys from 41 business experts from history, economics, and management.十年前，我们邀请58位历史学家、经济学家以及管理专家排出他们心目中的十大美国企业家。

汽车销售尽职调查报告范文英文回答：Executive Summary.The purpose of this due diligence report is to provide an overview of the automotive sales industry, with a particular focus on the company under consideration for acquisition. The report includes an analysis of theindustry's key trends, competitive landscape, and financial performance.Industry Overview.The automotive sales industry is a global industry that is driven by consumer demand for vehicles. The industry is heavily influenced by economic conditions, consumer preferences, and technological advancements. In recent years, the industry has been impacted by the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and the increasing popularity ofride-sharing services.Competitive Landscape.The automotive sales industry is highly competitive, with a number of large, well-established players. The major players in the industry include General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai. These companies compete on a number of factors, including price, quality, fuel efficiency, and features.Financial Performance.The financial performance of the automotive sales industry has been mixed in recent years. The industry has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to a decline in sales. However, the industry is expected to recover in the coming years as economic conditions improve.Target Company Analysis.The target company is a leading provider of automotivesales and services. The company has a strong track record of financial performance and a loyal customer base. The company is well-positioned to benefit from the growing demand for EVs and the increasing popularity of ride-sharing services.Due Diligence Findings.The due diligence findings indicate that the target company is a financially sound and well-managed business. The company has a strong management team and a solid financial foundation. The company is also well-positioned to benefit from the growing demand for EVs and the increasing popularity of ride-sharing services.Conclusion.The due diligence report concludes that the target company is a sound investment. The company has a strong track record of financial performance and a loyal customer base. The company is also well-positioned to benefit from the growing demand for EVs and the increasing popularity ofride-sharing services.中文回答：执行摘要。

US Automakers Ask Congress for $34 Billion in AidChiefs of Big Three return to Washington -- in hybrid vehicles this time, not private jets -- to renew appeal for a rescue. Also, the Treasury considers a plan to help increase home sales. Transcript of radio broadcast:04 December 2008This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.The United States is already one year into a recession. That was the news this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The downturn is the longest since a recession that began in nineteen eighty-one and lasted sixteen months.Economists generally wait for production to shrink for six months in a row before they declare a recession. But the bureau, a private group, uses a wider set of information to measure the economy. The news only confirmed what many people already knew: that the world's largest economy is weak and may not recover soon.Worsening conditions have led to a big drop in spending, especially on costly products like new cars. Even Japanese automaker Toyota saw its sales fall thirty-four percent in the United States in November from a year ago.The heads of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors returnedto Congress this week to again ask for federal aid.Congressional leaders denounced them two weeks ago afterthey came in private jets with no clear plans for saving theirindustry.This time, the chiefs drove to Washington in fuel-savinghybrid vehicles. And their companies presented detailedrestructuring plans. The request for aid has risen from twenty-five billion dollars two weeks ago to thirty-four billion in loans and credit lines. G.M. wants almost half of that, and says it needs four billion dollars this month. It warned that without support it cannot continue to operate. Ford is in a better position. But the sharing of suppliers means it could be affected if G.M. orChrysler fails. Ford is asking for a nine billion dollar credit line in case it needs it.G.M. chief executive Rick Wagoner steps out of the Chevrolet Malibu hybrid car in which he rode toWashingtonChrysler is the smallest and most troubled of America's Big Three. It says it needs a seven billion dollar loan by the end of the month.Two days of congressional hearings began Thursday in the Senate Banking Committee. The chairman, Democrat Chris Dodd, said he would support helping the automakers for the good of the economy. But the committee's top Republican, Richard Shelby, expressed opposition to a bailout.A main root of the world financial crisis is the weak housing market in the United States. The Treasury Department has been under pressure to help troubled homeowners. Now comes news that the department is developing a plan aimed at reducing interest rates on mortgage loans for some buyers of homes. That could be good for homeowners trying to sell.And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.Tribune, a Big US Media Group, Goes BankruptSam Zell borrowed heavily to buy the company. Now, a year later, it becomes the victim of a weak economy and decreasing newspaper readership. Transcript of radio broadcast:11 December 2008This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.One of America's largest media companies has sought protection from its creditors in bankruptcy court. The Tribune Company owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. It also owns twenty-three television stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.Sam Zell, one of the nation's biggest property owners, tookcontrol a year ago. He led a stock buyout for eight billiondollars. He borrowed almost all of it.Many buyouts in recent years were heavily financed withdebt. But Tribune was struggling with thirteen billiondollars of debt in a recession. It lost more than one hundredtwenty million dollars between July and September. Tribune sought protection Monday under Chapter Eleven ofthe bankruptcy laws. Chapter Eleven lets a businesscontinue to operate while it seeks to restructure its debt.Sam Zell blamed what he called a "perfect storm" of economic conditions including a credit crisis. But critics say he simply borrowed too much.Tribune is the country's first major newspaper group to declare bankruptcy since the rise of the Internet in the middle of the nineteen nineties. Profits have been shrinking as newspapers lose readers and advertisers to competition from new media. The Christian Science Monitor, for example, plans to publish only online by April.Newspapers have, in fact, been losing readers since the eighties. But things are a lot worse now. Circulation in the six months ending in September was down almost five percent from the year before. Some papers fell more than ten percent. The two largest newspapers, however, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, reported little change.The New York Times is third; its was down about four percent. But Executive Editor Bill Keller says the Times is still profitable and had a billion page views on its Web site in October."Good journalism does not come cheap," he says. "And, therefore, you're not going to find a lot ofblogs or nonprofit Web sites that are going to build a Baghdad bureau."The Tribune Tower in Chicago,IllinoisHe spoke recently on National Public Radio. NPR says it just had a year of near-record audience levels on the radio and online, as other journalism investments decreased. But over the next year, the nonprofit network predicts a big deficit because of less giving by companies in the downturn. So this week it cut seven percent of its jobs and canceled two programs.And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.Fed Cuts Short-Term Rates to Nearly Zero; Now What?The U.S. central bank can follow a policy of easy money -- for now -- because inflation is no longer a concern. Transcript of radio broadcast:18 December 2008This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.The United States Federal Reserve says it will use "all available tools" to restart economic growth. The central bank's main interest rate is now the lowest in its history. This week the Fed cut its target rate of one percent for overnight loans between banks to a target range of zero to one-fourth of one percent. The Fed based its decision on weakeningeconomic conditions.Americans have decreased their spending every monthsince July -- the longest period in at least sixteen years.Unemployment grew to six and seven-tenths percent inNovember -- the highest in fifteen years.This week's cut in the federal funds rate was larger thanmany economists had expected. The Fed also cut its rate fordirect loans to banks. And it began paying interest on balances held in the Federal Reserve System.In the past, cutting rates has been a powerful tool to lift the economy. But President-elect Barack Obama says it is not enough this time.BARACK OBAMA: "We're running out of traditional ammunition that's used in a recession, which is to lower interest rates. They're getting to be as low as they can go."Some economists think the United States could face a "lost decade" like Japan in the nineteen nineties. The Bank of Japan cut rates to zero but failed to avoid a long recession.The Fed is also taking other steps. Last month, it announced a plan to buy up to six hundred billion dollars in housing-related debt. Since then, rates for home loans have fallen. The average rate for a thirty-year mortgage was five and nineteen one-hundredths percent this week. That is the lowest in at least thirty-seven years.And next year, the Fed plans to lend up to two hundred billion dollars to support credit markets for car and student loans and small businesses.For now, the bank is following a policy of easy money because there is little risk of inflation. For the last two months there were record decreases in the Consumer Price Index, which goes back to nineteen forty-seven.Federal Reserve in WashingtonPrices for goods and services were nearly unchanged in November except for a big drop in energy prices. Gasoline prices fell almost thirty percent.So far, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has failed to halt the drop in oil prices. OPEC agreed Wednesday in Algiers to a record production cut of more than two million barrels a day, or about seven percent. Even so, oil traded below forty dollars a barrel this week for the first time in four years.And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.Countrywide and Bear S tearns Started the Year’s Slide into Financial CrisisAt the start of the year, it was well-known that the housing market was in crisis. But few predicted that bad loans would bring down one of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks. Transcript of radio broadcast:25 December 2008This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.We look back at this year's bad economic news in the United States. Economic growth wasexpected to slow in two thousand eight. Housing prices had been falling in the United States since two thousand six. But few economists predicted thefinancial collapse only a few months away.Yet, Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at NewYork University, did just that. In two thousand six, he toldeconomists at the International Monetary Fund that theUnited States would likely face a housing crisis. He alsopredicted decreased consumer spending, high oil prices anda deep recession.The year started with troubling economic news.Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, was introuble. It was one of the biggest holders of risky subprime home loans. It had lost billions of dollars in bad loans the year before. Bank of America offered to buy Countrywide for four billion dollars in January. The deal was approvedin June. With the economy slowing, Congress passed a bill in February designed to ease the economic slowdown. The bill returned over one hundred fifty billion dollars to taxpayers, but did little to aid growth.The first major sign of the financial crisis developing on Wall Street came in March with the collapse of Bear Stearns. It was once the fifth largest investment bank. But Bear Stearns was forced to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase bank in a government-negotiated deal. Bear Stearns had invested heavily in securities based on risky home loans.During the summer, prices for goods such as precious metals and oil set records. Oil hit an all-time high of over one hundred forty-seven dollars a barrel on July eleventh. As a result, Americans started driving less. They rejected fuel-hungry vehicles that Detroit carmakers hadbeen selling profitably for years.New York University economist Nouriel Roubini speaking in New York earlier this yearIn September, the government was forced to take control of America's two biggest housing finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The companies hold trillions of dollars in mortgage-related securities. But concerns about their value meant that creditors were unwilling to lend to them. The rescue of Fannie and Freddie signaled the start of a severe credit crisis that would shake world financial markets.And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report written by Mario Ritter. Listen again next week for more about this year's economic news. I'm Steve Ember.。

Experts estimate that by the end of the century, half of the 6,000 languages spoke on our planetwil l have disappeared. In west Africa, academics in Togo are trying to protect the small country'srich cultural and language heritage.At the University of Lome, Professor N'bueke Adovi Goeh-Akue shows a visitor some video grou psof Gen cultural rituals. The Professor is a cultural heritage specialist, he is also himself a Gen, o ne ofmany ethnic groups in Togo.He is making films of Gen cultural customs with financial help from the United States. He says th eGen have an important place in Togo's history and culture. Gen rituals show how its people seeth eir world; the interaction between the living and the dead, the seen and the unseen."The Gen believe in numerous voodoo deities. But today Professor Goeh-Akue says fewer andfewe r Gen children go through voodoo initiation ceremonies. He says that increasingly the newgenerati on does not recognize the importance of these cultural traditions.He says formal education and the spread of Christianity have reduced their influence. Many young people think traditional practices are uncivilized. And while the Gen language is widely spoken in thecapital Lome, The Professor says it is not taught in schools.Gen is one of about 39 languages spoke in Togo. A specialist in the UNESCO endangered languag eprogram says, by the end of the century, more than half of Africa's languages will be gone.The specialist Anahit Minasyan says a language needs speakers, preferably people who speak it as their mother-tongue or first language. But she says a language at least needs people who canspeak it as their second language.If they are tiny, she says , a language is extinct. She says languages can die as a result of anincreas ingly globalized world."People switch to a language or they raise their children in a language which they think will provi defor a better economic opportunity in the future."Ms. Minasyan says in Africa, for example, people often switch to larger African languages — notn ecessarily to English or French, instead, people might switch to Hausa or Swahili or Wolof, thesea re more speakers and provide more economic opportunities than their mother tongues.Socio-linguist Komlan Essizewa says that today many young urban Togolese switch among severa llanguages, these include the Mina language spoken in cities."As a linguist, we have to be very worried about it. Because today, even when people move backto their village, they don't use the language of the village as it is."2China is strengthening its image as the most important market for the automobile industry.Chinese auto sales are up 13 percent from one year ago. Industry observers are predicting totalsales of ove r 20 million vehicles this year.By comparison, a little more than 15 million vehicles are expected to be sold in the United States. The importance of the Chinese market could be seen last month at the Shanghai auto show.Industr y representatives there were showing products design to meet China's growing demandfor luxury c ars and larger vehicles.Dave Schoch is with the Ford Motor Company. He welcomed the chance to meet with thousandsof possible car buyers."So you've got 30 million customers out there, all with different tastes and different affordabilityle vels.And what Ford wants to do is bring the power and leverage of our global line-up, you know froms mall to medium to large, into China."However, competition can be fierce. Dieter Zetsche is the Chairman of the German automanufactu rer Daimler AG."We are increasing our local content here in this country. And next month we are opening the firste ngine plant with the capacity of 250,000 units outside of Germany for Mercedes engines."Many Chinese see cars as a sign of success. Yale Zhang is with Automotive Foresight, an industry group. He says the rising demand for top quality automobiles is a sign of China's rise as aneconom ic superpower."This market is becoming more like European or American style."Demand has been especially high for larger sport utility vehicles, SUVs.Karsten Engel is head of the BMW Group in China. He says the spacious insides of SUVs appeal t othe newly rich, although some will probably never drive them."The ultimate driving machine, you probably experience a lot from the rear seat with your driver,s o you need more space, you want more space.You want to have the possibility to work in the car."That is something Stefan Brungs understands. He is the marketing director for the automakerBuga tti's."This is what the Chinese have learned and perceived as luxury -- to sit in the back and bechauffeu red."The demand for larger cars is strong, yet environmental issues and fuel concerns are leading toincr eased interest in vehicles with better fuel economy.Nissan's Asia Vice President Andy Palmer:"Four years ago, when we introduced the concept of the electric car, most of our colleagues inthe i ndustry thought that we had lost our minds. Now it doesn't look so stupid, you know?"For now, observers say new hybrid and electric technology is not a major force in the Chinesemar ket. New information shows sales of SUV's are up nearly 50 percent from a year ago, andexperts s ays SUV sales are likely to double by 2015.And that's the Economics Report. I'm Christopher Cruise.3The University of Cambridge is a place, a community, and an institution. It is also a pervasive presence in the world. The Cambridge University community is preponderantly British: 75% of our academic staff are British, 85% of our undergraduates, and almost 50% of our postgraduates. Collegiate Cambridge remains deeply committed to the education of outstanding British students.That assertion is fully consonant with a Cambridge fast becoming more international in many, many ways. A wealth of research collaborations between Cambridge academics and colleagues around the world are documented in the online International Directory to be launched by the University this year. Although teaching and learning are still overwhelmingly Cambridge-based activities and relatively few students study abroad, the number of international programmes for training and education is growing. Cambridge University’s global presence is such that already it has few if any equals.What Cambridge does well, and must keep doing, is respond to change in the world and help shape and lead it. As more and more people live and work across a range of cultures, our teaching must help prepare our students for that life. For graduate students, the potential transformationof Cambridge to a fully international University could be much closer if the decline continues in the number of British students studying for doctoral degrees, with dramatic shrinkage in certain fields. These students are not being kept out by international students: they are not applying, or not applying here. We must improve funding for UK postgraduate students as a matter of urgency.Cambridge is among the most beautiful universities in the world, and experiencing that beauty is part of what it means to be at Cambridge. We are an integral part of a lively and interesting city. There was a time in the 1950s and 60s when things looked different, and the university was too dominant in the local economy for anyone’s health. That changed, happily.。

ECONOMICS REPORT - Fortune 500 ListBy Mario RitterBroadcast: April 2, 2004This is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English Economics Report.For fifty years, the business magazine Fortune has published a list of the five-hundred biggest companies in the United States. The new Fortune five-hundred list has come out. For the third year, the magazine names Wal-Mart the biggest company in America.Wal-Mart is known for low prices in its stores. The company had sales of about two-hundred-fifty-nine-thousand-million dollars last year. Wal-Mart is first on the Fortune five-hundred list by revenue, or the total amount of money it received. Second is Exxon Mobil.But Exxon Mobil is first in profit among the five-hundred companies listed by Fortune magazine. The company recorded earnings of more than twenty-one-thousand-million dollars in two-thousand-three.Wal-Mart had a profit of nine-thousand-million dollars. That puts Wal-Mart in eighth place on the list of the most profitable companies in America.The new Fortune five-hundred list rates General Motors as the third largest company in the nation, down from second place last year. The Ford Motor Company is fourth. And fifth is General Electric.Two more oil companies are sixth and seventh on the list. Like Exxon Mobil, high oil prices helped sales at ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips last year.Citigroup is eighth on the Fortune five-hundred list by revenue. But the financial services company is second in profits. Citigroup recorded earnings of nearly eighteen-thousand-million dollars last year.Ninth on the Fortune five-hundred list is International Business Machines, the computer maker known as I.B.M. And the tenth biggest money-maker in the United States is the insurance company American International Group, or A.I.G.The Fortune five-hundred list is part of American business culture. But only public companies appear on the list. Public companies sell their shares of ownership on a stock exchange to any investor. They must also release their financial information.Together, the largest American companies had record sales last year. Low interest rates meant that people and businesses had more money to spend. Fortune also notes the tax cuts and spending increases by the Bush administration. The magazine says few observers had expected such a widespread profit recovery following two years of poor results.This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter. This is Bob Doughty.Email this article to a friendPrinter Friendly Version。