单选题 {{B}}In this section there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer.{{/B}}
Like many unhappily married couples, Yahoo! and Alibaba have not found it easy to divorce. The American online firm owns roughly 40% of the Chinese e-commerce giant, but both sides have had misgivings about the relationship for years. All of Yahoo!'s many recent chief executives have tried to find a clever way to sell off the stake. Jack Ma, Alibaba's flamboyant boss, for his part, has been dreaming of winning outright control of the firm he founded from Yahoo! and Softbank, a Japanese firm that controls about 30% of Alibaba. But there always seemed to be something—tax issues, valuation—that got in the way of a deal.
On May 21st, the two sides at last announced an agreement that will allow the two firms to separate amicably, albeit slowly. In a first step, Yahoo! will sell half of its stake (about a fifth of Alibaba) for $6.3 billion in cash and some $800m in newly issued Alibaba shares. Because this is a taxable transaction, Yahoo! will end up with only around $4.2 billion.
The second part of the deal prescribes how Yahoo! will dispose of another quarter of its holdings in Alibaba—and sets the stage for an initial public offering (IPO) of the Chinese firm. It has long downplayed rumours of such a move, but the agreement with Yahoo! certainly pushes Alibaba in this direction. The final quarter of the American firm's holdings (another tenth of Alibaba) can be sold later, whenever Yahoo! wants to.
All this raises two important questions. The first is what Yahoo! intends to do with the proceeds. The firm has made it clear that the money will make its way to its long-suffering shareholders. The second big question is whether this deal will really unshackle Alibaba so that it can pursue a flotation of the whole group.
For a start, Mr. Ma now has a freer hand. Yahoo! agreed to give up its option for an unfilled fifth board seat and some of its voting rights. The deal also reduces the stake held by the American firm and Softbank to 49.9%. What is more, Yahoo!'s obligation to hold onto the last quarter of its original stake and to sell it at Alibaba's hypothetical IPO expires by the end of 2015. That is a powerful incentive to act.
The flotation will not happen immediately. Indeed, the Chinese firm is not bound by a specific timeline. But it appears that Alibaba is at last headed for an IPO. That could prove to be an event even bigger and more {{U}}ballyhooed{{/U}} than the flotation of Facebook—though both Alibaba and Yahoo! will hope that it will be rather more successful than the social network's listing has been thus far.

单选题 The word "flamboyant" in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to "______".

A. grumpy
B. complacent
C. canonical
D. noticeable

单选题 Which of the following can be inferred from the first three paragraphs about the relationship of the two firms?

A. Both have misconceived their relationship for years and have been concerned with it.
B. The occurrence of such separation of two firms is by no means fortuitous.
C. It is Alibaba's choice to leave Yahoo! on his own.
D. The rumor on their separation was proved to be true later.

单选题 What is the author's purpose in mentioning two important questions inherited in the separation of two firms?

A. It implies that the separation will be hard, if not impossible, to achieve.
B. It aims to highlight that the separation has created a range of major problems to be solved.
C. It proves that Alibaba will face the critical situation under the conditions of the agreement.
D. It infers that problems will inevitably arise in the process of separation.

单选题 The word "ballyhooed" in the last paragraph is closest in meaning to "______".

A. eventful
B. rantankerous
C. extravagant
D. blatant

单选题 According to the passage, what is the author's tone?

A. Dismissing.
B. Dejected.
C. Sanguine.
D. Objective.