单选题
Until recently, corporate ideology in the United
States has held that bigger is better. This traditional view of the primacy of
big, centralized companies is now being challenged as some of the giants of
American business are being outperformed by a new generation of smaller,
streamlined businesses. If it was the industrial revolution that spawned the era
of massive industrialized companies, then perhaps it was the information
revolution of the 1990s that spawned the era we're now in—the era of the small
company. For most of the 20th century, big companies dominated
an American business scene that seemed to thrive on its own grandness of scale.
The expansion westward, the growth of the railroad and steel industries, an
almost limitless supply of cheap raw materials, plus a population boom that
provided an ever-increasing demand for new products(although not a cheap source
of labor) all coincided to encourage the growth of large companies.
But rapid developments in the marketplace have begun to change the
accepted rules of business and have underscored the need for fast reaction
times. Small companies, without huge overhead and inventory, can respond quickly
to a technologically advanced age in which new products and technologies can
become outmoded within a year of their being brought to market.
Of course, successful emerging small companies face a potential dilemma in that
their very success will tend to turn them into copies of the large corporate
dinosaurs they are now supplanting. To avoid this trap, small companies may look
to the example of several CEOs of large corporations who have broken down their
sprawling organizations into small, semi-independent divisions capable of
surviving in today's marketplace.
单选题
The primary purpose of the passage is to ______.
A. present evidence that resolves a contradiction in business theory
B. discuss reasons an accepted business pattern is changing
C. describe a theoretical model and a method whereby that model can be
tested
D. argue that a traditional ideology deserves new attention
单选题
According to the passage, all of the following are examples of
developments that helped promote the growth of large companies earlier in this
century EXCEPT ______.
A. the growth of the railroad industry
B. American's westward expansion
C. an almost inexhaustible source of raw materials
D. the existence of an inexpensive source of labor
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 根据短文，以下进展有利于促进大公司在本世纪初的增长，D(存在廉价的劳动力)除外。前三个细节可在第二段第二句中找到，D跟第二段第二句中的although not a cheap source of labor相矛盾。
单选题
The author's attitude toward the traditional view expressed in the
first two sentences can best be described as ______.
单选题
It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following
actions would be most consistent with the traditional ideology described in the
passage?
A. Splitting a manufacturing company into several smaller divisions.
B. Bringing a new product to market within a year.
C. Creating a department to utilize new emerging technologies.
D. Expanding an existing company in anticipation of growing
demand.