考试吧昂立：2008年12月六级真题及答案(A卷)

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

　　Section A

　　Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.

　　One of the major producers of athletic footwear, with 2002 sales of over $10 billion, is a company called Nike, with corporate headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. Forbes magazine identified Nike’s president, Philip Knight, as the 53rd-richest man in the world in 2004. But Nike has not always been a large multimillion-dollar organization. In fact, Knight started the company by selling shoes from the back of his car at track meets.

　　In the late 1950s Philip Knight was a middle-distance runner on the University of Oregon track team, coached by Bill Bowerman. One of the top track coaches in the U.S., Bowerman was also known for experimenting with the design of running shoes in an attempt to make them lighter and more shock-absorbent. After attending Oregon, Knight moved on to do graduate work at Stanford University; his MBA thesis was on marketing athletic shoes. Once he received his degree, Knight traveled to Japan to contact the Onitsuka Tiger Company, a manufacturer of athletic shoes. Knight convinced the company’s officials of the potential for its product in the U.S. In 1963 he received his first shipment of Tiger shoes, 200 pairs in total.

　　In 1964, Knight and Bowerman contributed $500 each to from Blue Ribbon Sports, the predecessor of Nike. In the first few years, Knight distributed shoes out of his car at local track meets. The first employees hired by Knight were former college athletes. The company did not have the money to hire “experts”, and there was no established athletic footwear industry in North America from which to recruit those knowledgeable in the field. In its early years the organization operated in an unconventional manner that characterized its innovative and entrepreneurial approach to the industry. Communication was informal; people discussed ideas and issues in the hallways, on a run, or over a beer. There was little task differentiation. There were no job descriptions, rigid reporting systems, or detailed rules and regulations. The team spirit and shared values of the athletes on Bowerman’s teams carried over and provided the basis for the collegial style of management that characterized the early years of Nikes.

　　47. While serving as a track coach, Bowerman tried to design running shoes that were lighter and more shock-absorbent.

　　48. During his visit to Japan, Knight convinced the officials of the Onitsuka Tiger Company that its product would have potentials in the U.S.

　　49. Blue Ribbon Sports as unable to hire experts due to the absence of established athletic footwear in North America.

　　50. In the early years of Nike, communication within the company was usually carried out informally.

　　51. What qualities of Bowerman’s teams formed the basis of Nike’s early management style?

　　The team spirit and shared valves of the athlets.

　　Passage one

　　questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage

　　sustainable development is applied to just about eberything from energy to clean water and economic growth,and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use.this is especially true in agriculture,where sustainable development is often taken as the sole measure of progress without a proper appreciation of histrorcal and cultural perspectives.

　　To start with,it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history,and will continue to do so .medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed,clothed and shelered a predominantly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today.it had minimal effect on biodiversity,and any pollution it caused was typically localized.in termsof energy use and the nutrients captured in the product it was relatively inefficient.

　　Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution.competion from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields.throughout this period food became cheaper,safe and more reliable.however,these changes have alsoled to habitat loss and to diminishing biodiversity.

　　What’smore,demand for animal products in developing countrics is growing so fast that meeting it will require an extra 300 million tons of grain a year by 2050.yet the growth of cities and in dustry is reducing the amount of water available for agriculture in many regions.

　　All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th.this will require radical thinking.for example,we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are inevitably more sustainable than new ones.we also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be “zero impact”. The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static measures of sustainability,which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage.instead we need a more dynamic interpretation,one that looks at the pros and cons of all the various way land is used.there are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield:energy use, environmental costs,water purity,carbon footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example,that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from spain to the UK

　　Is less than that of producing them in the UK with additional heating and lighting.but we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity.

　　What is crucial is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production.