单选题
Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as morally exceptional. When Google went public in 2004, the company"s founders penned a letter to prospective shareholders that has become the Internet industry"s version of the Magna Carta. In it, they pledged that Google was "not a conventional company" but one focused on "making the world a better place."
Though Silicon Valley"s newest billionaires may anoint themselves the saints of American capitalism, they"re beginning to resemble something else entirely:
robber barons
. Like their predecessors in railroads, steel, banking, and oil a century ago, Silicon Valley"s new entrepreneurs are harnessing technology to make the world more efficient. But along the way, that process is bringing great economic and labor dislocation, as well as an unequal share of the spoils.
Take Apple"s manufacturing practices in China. By systematically outsourcing the assembly of iPhones and other gadgets to contract manufacturers like China"s Foxconn, Apple has reduced its overall cost of production and increased profit margins for shareholders. That"s neither unique nor necessarily evil. It"s a practice regularly adopted by all kinds of industries. But establishing an arm"s-length commercial relationship does not absolve a company from moral responsibility for the way its chosen partners treat workers. Labor issues at Foxconn have attracted bad press for some time. It was not until that negative publicity on
New York Times
last year that Apple took more meaningful action, allowing the Fair Labor Association to conduct special audits of its suppliers" factories in China.
A bigger battle remains to be fought on the privacy front, where Silicon Valley"s misdemeanors are even more upsetting. Pushing the boundaries of what is generally considered acceptable, even decent, when it comes to exploiting personal information is a daily sport in the online world. That"s because a tweak here or there to the privacy settings of a social network or a tiny change to the code on a mobile application can mean a world of difference in the value of information an advertiser can access about a usually unaware user. Perhaps swayed by Silicon Valley"s altruistic spin or slow to catch up with its rapid growth, Washington has, up to now, largely left the industry to regulate itself on privacy. That"s clearly not working. Hardly a day passes without some new revelation of an Internet or mobile company stepping a byte too far into the private business of its customers.
The original robber barons had decent intentions when they built railroads to connect America"s emerging cities and drilled oil wells that fueled the nation"s growth, but their empires still needed to be regulated, reined in, and in some cases broken up by vigilant watchdogs. Lofty words and ideals are fine for motivating employees and even for spurring sales, but they can also serve as cover for motives that clash with the broader interests of consumers and society. We need more than fancy promises to ensure that the rise of the Silicon Valley engineer is good for the world.
单选题
In the author"s opinion, entrepreneurs in silicon valleys ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】作者观点题
[解析] 作者在第一段中主要介绍了硅谷高新技术产业的自我描述。他们往往将自己美化为与以往的企业完全不同、不以追求利益为最高目标，而以让世界尽善尽美为最高目标的企业。但是作者在第二段中抨击了他们的这种自我意识。作者把他们称之为“贵族式强盗”(robber barons)，和一个世纪前投身于钢铁、铁路、石油行业的企业大亨并没有本质区别。这一题问的是作者的观点，因此正确答案应该选D。A选项错误，作者在第二段中承认，和他们的前辈一样，现在的硅谷巨头们在使世界变得更高效方面也是功勋卓著。(Silicon Valley"s new entrepreneurs are harnessing technology to make the world more efficient)，不能说他们没有改变世界。B和C两个选项都是硅谷企业自我标榜的话语，而不是作者的观点。
单选题
In the case of Foxconn"s scandal, Apple"s greatest mistake lies in ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】细节事实题
[解析] 作者在第三段中列举了富士康的例子来说明硅谷巨头的不光彩行为。苹果公司将iPhone手机和其他配件的装配工作系统外包给中国富士康。这样的外包行为本身并没有什么不当(That"s neither unique nor necessarily evil)，A选项错误。但是富士康公司出现劳资纠纷，苹果公司也脱不了干系。因为苹果公司没有能够对它的外包商实施适当的监督。这是苹果最大的失误，正确答案应该选C。当然苹果公司对媒体报道置若罔闻，直到事情完全败露才采取有力措施，这也是苹果的过失，但归根结底，问题还是在它没有对外包商进行审计监督。因此，B选项不是最佳答案。D选项错误，要求苹果公司对海外公司实施监督，并不是要求它将海外分公司都置于统一的执行标准之下，D选项歪曲原文内容。
单选题
From Paragraph 4, we know that the IT companies usually access the users" private information by ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】细节事实题
[解析] 第四段中提到，互联网公司侵略用户信息的惯用伎俩是把通常认为是可接受的，甚至是有分寸的边界线向前推进。“Pushing the boundaries of what is generally considered acceptable, even decent, when it comes to exploiting personal information is a daily sport in the online world.”这句话非常抽象，作者在后面一句话中说得更加明白，“只需稍微在社交网络的隐私设置中动一点手脚，或对移动应用的代码略加变动就足以让广告人手中的用户信息发生天翻地覆的变化，而用户对这一切往往是蒙在鼓里毫不知情的”。因此，互联网公司现在获取用户信息的手段往往非常隐蔽，而不是A和B两个选项所说的那么明显，黑客入侵，盗取信息；或者直接要求客户提供信息，而应该是C选项所说的，对技术设置稍加修改，从而以客户无法察觉的方式获取信息。D选项利用advertisement，一词设置干扰，原文提到了advertiser一词，但是和这里提到的在用户浏览过的网页上加载广告毫无关系。
单选题
It is believed by the author that the loftycorporate ideals can only be achieved ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】细节事实题
[解析] 在第四段后半部分，作者提到面对互联网对用户信息的盗取，政府往往不闻不问，听由互联网行业自行调节。然而，这样放任自流的方式显然是行不通的。因此，第五段提出，Lofty words and ideas(崇高的字眼和远大的理性)既能刺激员工的积极性，但也有可能成为公司获取不义之财的遮羞布。We need more than fancy promises to ensure that the rise of the Silicon Valley engineer is good for the world. 为了保证硅谷的崛起对全世界有益，花言巧语、信誓旦旦是远远不够的。需要的是政府的监督。正确答案应该选D。而A、B和C三个选项都是公司内部自己的管理，我们是不能依靠公司自身监督自己的。
单选题
It can be inferred from the passage that the "
robber barons
" (Para. 2) are usually interpreted as ______.