单选题 Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs"s board as an outside director in January 2000: a year later she became president of Brown University. For the rest of the decade she apparently managed both roles without attracting much criticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms. Simmons was under fire for having sat on Goldman"s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked? By February the next year Ms. Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said.
Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful, yet less biased, advisers on a firm"s board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive"s proposals. If the sky, and the share price, is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises.
The researchers from Ohio University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the researchers concentrated on those "surprise" disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increased by nearly 20%. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms. Although a correlation between them leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinking ship. Often they "trade up." Leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms.
But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms. Simmons, once again very popular on campus.

单选题 According to Paragraph 1, Ms. Simmons was criticized for ______

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 第一段, Simmons在2009年受到了激烈批评(under fire)，其中的原因并不是她自己拿到多少奖金，而是她身为公司薪酬委员会的一员(sit on这里指担任委员)，眼看着公司支出如此多奖金而没有发表任何言论(unremarked)，也就是说，她没有履行自己的职责。注意：这个题主要指向第一段第三句这个转折句，转折句往往表达文章重要信息。

单选题 We learn from Paragraph 2 that outside directors are supposed to be ______

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 这道题提问的仍然是文章重要信息，即外部董事的特点。第二段提到，人们通常期待外部董事能在董事会上发挥作用，但同时不带有先入之见或个人倾向。他们被认为有足够的独立性，能对公司总裁的建议提出不同意见。第二段实际上介绍了外部董事的主要职责，由此可见，外部董事最大的特点就是比内部董事的独立性更强，他们可以借助自己在其他公司获得的管理经验，对公司的一些决定进行更客观的评价，表达不同意见。

单选题 According to the researchers from Ohio University after an outside director"s surprise departure, the firm is likely to ______

单选题 It can be inferred from the last paragraph that outside directors ______

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 这是一道推理题，也就是说，考生不能根据文章的内容直接获得答案，必须要经过一定的逻辑推理才能选出正确答案。最后一段提到，虽然调查发现在不良状况发生的时候外部董事仍然在董事会里，但是如果他们在坏消息泄露(break这里意为“泄露，暴露”)之前离开，就能避免他们的名誉受损。如果公司想在困难时期挽留外部董事，不得不提供激励，否则，他们就要像Simmons一样一走了之。由此推断，如果公司提供incentives(指物质激励，如增加薪金)，这些外部董事有可能留下来，继续为公司服务。

单选题 The author"s attitude toward the role of outside directors is ______

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 这是一道态度题，回答这类题要注意抓住作者的基本观点。作者似乎对外部董事没有好感。第一段提到Simmons的经历，她黯然离开了Goldman Sachs(一家金融投资公司的名字)，虽然她自己说当外部董事占用了她很多时间，但真正原因是她受到批评被迫离开。俄亥俄州立大学的调查也发现，伴随外部董事的突然离开经常出现一些不好的事情。这些人在公司出现不良状况时离开，但他们往往又能高就。在第三段中，trade up原意是“通过买卖使价格提高”，这里指这些人换一个公司能获得更好的待遇。结果，他们就离开更危险、更小的公司，到更大、更稳定的公司中就职。最后一段还提到他们可能受到incentives的诱惑。