Making and selling fake copies of well-known products has been a nice little
earner for crafty craftsmen over thousands of years: In Roman Gaul, unscrupulous
potters would put the seals of better-known competitors on their urns so they
would sell better. Until the 1980s, counterfeiting was a relatively small-scale
business restricted mainly to copying luxury fashion items, such as watches and
leather goods, in limited quantities. But in the 1990s it was transformed into a
much bigger, broader industry, with large-scale production and distribution of
false versions of such everyday items as biscuits and shampoo. Modern technology
is making it ever easier to create near-perfect copies of branded goods for a
fraction of the retail price of the real thing. By its nature,
the extent of counterfeiting is hard to measure precisely, but a study by the
International Chamber of Commerce reckoned that it grew from perhaps 3% of world
trade in 1990 to 5% in 1995. John Pepper, hairman of Proter & Gamble, a
consumer-goods multinational, says it may now be 7%～9%, or over $450 billion a
year. In some developing countries, the authorities have had,
at best, an {{U}}ambivalent{{/U}} attitude towards the booming manufacture of fake
goods in their midst. After all, it creates jobs for local people and, at first
sight, appears only to hurt foreign firms. Thus the richer countries whose firms
are the main victims have had to use a mixture of persuasion and threats to get
poorer nations to crack down on the pirates. The Uruguay round of world trade
talks, which ended in 1994, resulted in agreement on the Trade Related Aspects
of intellectual Property Rights (Trips), which obliges all mender countries of
the World Trade Organization to impose penalties for counterfeiting and other
breaches of intellectual property rights; to enforce their piracy laws
adequately; and to heap firms inhibit trade in faked versions of their
products. Besides offering poorer countries trade privileges in
return for a clampdown on counterfeiting, rich countries have tried convincing
them that if they try harder to enforce intellectual property rights, they will
win more foreign investment. But, realizing that persuasion is having little
effect, they are also resorting to threats: On January 15th, America issued a
warning to the Philippines, the world's leading piracy centers, that they may
have their trade privileges taken away unless they crack down harder on the
counterfeiting gangs.
单选题
The first paragraph is written to tell us that ______.
A. the history of counterfeiting is more than thousands of years
B. counterfeiting is an effective way to make more money
C. modem technology is responsible for the booming manufacture of fake
goods
D. counterfeiting has become more and more rampant
B. the difficulty in measuring the extent of counterfeiting
C. a study by the International Chamber of Commerce
D. what John Pepper chairman of Procter & Gamble says
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 第二段首句即提出“the extent of counterfeiting”难于精确测量，但是，后面通过列举数字和事实，对其进行了估计，因此A项正确。C，D两项只是用来阐述A项的，B项则完全未曾提到。
单选题
The underlined word "ambivalent" in the third paragraph most probably
means ______.
A. critical
B. contradictory
C. positive
D. negative
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 联系此词出现的句子，可知此词代表当局对假货制造的态度，紧接着作者分析“After all, it creates jobs for local people and, at first sight appears only to hurt foreign films.”由此可知，当局对其很矛盾，应选B项。critical“批评的”，positive“积极的”，negative“消极的”。
单选题
For poorer countries to crack down on counterfeiting ______.
A. more jobs have to be created there for local people
B. rich countries resort to both persuasion and threats
C. the World Trade Organization was set up
D. the Uruguay round of world trade talks was held in 1994
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 由文中第三段中“the richer countries whose firms are the main victims have had to use a mixture of persuasion and threats to get poorer nations to crack down on the pirates.”可知，较富裕国家的公司成为主要受害者，他们不得不利用劝告和威胁的办法来制裁贫穷国家的盗版问题，所以选B。
单选题
Rich countries intend to ______.
A. offer poorer countries trade privileges
B. take away file trade privileges they have given poorer countries
C. clamp down counterfeiting in poorer countries
D. threaten the counterfeiting gangs in Philippines
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 由最后一段“...in return for a clampdown on counterfeiting... if they try harder to enforce intellectual-property rights”“...Unless they crack down harder on the counterfeiting gangs”，可知，富裕国家除了为制裁盗版的贫穷国家提供贸易优先权外，还试图让贫穷国家相信，如果他们能加强知识产权，他们将获得更多的国外投资，同时还警告菲律宾，除非他们制裁盗版团伙，他们才有可能获得被剥夺的贸易优先权，由此可知，富裕国家主要制裁贫穷国家的盗版问题，所以选C。