单选题 {{U}}It's the part of the job that stock analyst Hiroshi Naya dislikes the most: phoning investor managers on a Saturday or Sunday when he's working on a report and facing a deadline.{{/U}} In Japan, placing a work call to someone on the weekend "feels like entering someone's house with your shoes on, " says Naya, chief analyst at Ichiyoshi Research Institute in Tokyo. So last year, Naya started asking his questions via messages on Facebook. While a telephone call seems intrusive, he says, a Facebook message "feels more relaxed. "
Many Japanese have become fans of Mark Zuckerberg's company in the past year. It's taken a while: Even as Facebook took off in India, Indonesia, and other parts of Asia, it's been a laggard in Japan since its local-language version debuted in 2008. {{U}}The site faced cultural obstacles in a country where people historically haven't been comfortable sharing personal information, or even their names, on the Internet.{{/U}} Homegrown rivals such as community website operator Mixi and online game portals such as DeNA allow their users to adopt pseudonyms.
The Japanese are overcoming their shyness, though. In February, Facebook had 13.5 million unique users, up from 6 million a year earlier. That puts Facebook in the No. 1 position in Japan for the first time, ahead of Twitter and onetime leader Mixi. "Facebook didn't have a lot of traction in Japan for the longest time, " says Arvind Rajan, Asia-Pacific managing director for Linkedln, which entered the Japanese market last October and hopes to emulate Face book's recent success. " They really did turn the corner, " he says. Rajan attributes the change in attitude to the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. During the crisis and its aftermath, sites such as Facebook helped parents and children locate each other and allowed people post and find reliable information. " The real-name case has been answered, " says Rajan. "People are getting it now. "
Japanese see Facebook as a powerful business tool. The real-name policy makes the site a good place to cultivate relationships with would-be partners. As more companies such as retailers Uniqlo and Muji turn to Facebook to reach Japanese consumers, the Silicon Valley company is benefiting from a viruous cycle, says Koki Shiraishi, an analyst in Tokyo with Daiwa Securities Capital Markets. "{{U}}It's a chicken-and-egg thing{{/U}}: If everyone starts using it, then more people start using it. "
As a result of Facebook's rise, investors have soured on some of its rivals : DeNA's stock price has dropped 24 percent in the past year, and Mixi's has fallen 38 percent. Growth at Twitter—which also entered Japan in 2008—has stagnated, and the San Francisco company has partnered with Mixi to do joint marketing. Twitter Japan country manager James Kondo says there's no reason to worry. Japan's social networking scene "is a developing thing, " he says. "We're not in a flat market where everyone is competing for a share of a fixed pie. "
单选题 We know from Paragraph 2 that Facebook didn't gain in stant popularity in Japan because of ______.
  • A. fierce competition from business rivals
  • B. Japanese sticking to old internet norms
  • C. legal concerns over privacy protection
  • D. a tradition of using internet anonymously
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】细节事实题 [解析] Facebook在日本之所以没有一炮而红是因为日本这个国家十分保守，人们不愿意在互联网上分享任何的个人信息(people historically haven't been comfortable sharing personal information, or even their names, on the Internet)，而Facebook又是实名网站，自然开始不受欢迎。而日本当地的社交网站例如Mixi等就允许用户使用假名，而在日本备受欢迎。因此，本题的正确答案是[D]。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that LinkedIn is ______.
  • A. a local company in Japan who wants to follow Facebook's suit
  • B. a social network adopting real-name policy
  • C. a data processing company analyzing social networks
  • D. a very successful social network in America only second to Facebook
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】推理题 [解析] 文章在第三段中提到了LinkedIn这个网站。LinkedIn去年十月进入日本市场，它对于Facebook的成功很感兴趣，想要复制它的成功(hopes to emulate Facebook's recent success)。可见，它并不是日本本土公司，[A]错误。它也不是数据处理公司，[C]错误，而是和Facebook同类型的社交网站，故[B]正确。[D]，关于LinkedIn在美国的受欢迎程度，文中并未介绍，因此无从判断。
单选题 Twitter ______ Facebook's success in Japan.
  • A. was encouraged by
  • B. was hardest hit by
  • C. was not surprised at
  • D. was not panicked by
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】人物态度题 [解析] 作者在最后一段中主要介绍了日本的各个竞争对手对于Facebook成功的反应，其中就提到了Twitter公司。在Facebook势头大涨的同时，Twitter在日本却停滞不前，并且宣布与日本当地的Mixi公司联合营销。但是Twitter公司负责人认为Twitter无需对Facebook的成功感到恐慌(there's no reason to worry)。因为他认为日本的社交网络市场很大，能够容得下多家企业竞争，因此，本题的正确答案应该选[D]was not panicked by。
单选题 Which of the following statements can be inferred from the passage?
  • A. If a company wants to succeed in a foreign country, it must make adjustment according to local customs.
  • B. Too many companies engaging in the same industry will lead to blind competition.
  • C. The successful business model in one country may have a hard time when transplanted to other countries.
  • D. The success of enterprise has a lot to do with imitating well-recognized business model.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】推理题 [解析] [A]错误，“如果一个公司想要在国外站稳脚跟，必须入乡随俗”，这种说法并不正确，Facebook就是一个典型的例子。作为一个实名制网站，当它进入日本的时候，并没有因为日本的保守文化就改变自己的实名制运营模式，反而把握住了机会，在日本一炮而红。但同样，Facebook也可以作为一个反面教材说明问题。它在美国是一种十分成功的运营模式，但是刚进入日本的时候却不受欢迎，这就说明在国外成功的商业模式被移植到其他国家不一定成功，故[C]是正确的。[B]错误，虽然本文提到了日本国内社交网络行业竞争激烈，但是并没有提到恶性竞争的问题。[D]错误，关于商业模式的复制和模仿与企业成功之间的关系，本文并没有就这个问题展开讨论。
单选题 Hiroshi Naya takes a fancy to Facebook because ______.
  • A. it enables him to reach out to business partners
  • B. it saves the trouble of face-to-face meeting
  • C. it frees him from making awkward calls
  • D. it makes him relaxed to make intrusive remarks
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】细节事实题 [解析] 根据题干中的人名锁定文章第一段的内容。Hiroshi Naya最不喜欢的事情就是在周六或周日时给投资管理人打电话。因为在日本，周末给别人打工作电话“就像是穿着鞋子闯进别人家中一样”(placing a work call to someone on the weekend "feels like entering someone's house with your shoes on")。而Facebook让他无需再打这些电话，只需要在Facebook上给客户留言就好了。这是他喜欢Facebook的原因，让他可以以一种令他感到舒适的方式与客户联系，正确答案选[C]it frees him from making awkward calls。