单选题

单选题 Questions 14 to 16 are based on a talk on pruritus, so called "severe itching"—why and how body parts itch. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 14 to 16.

单选题______ is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. [A] Linguistics [B] Language [C] Psycholinguistics [D] Applied linguistics

单选题Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following talk about Immanuel Kant, who played art important role in the development of geographical thought. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 to 20.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Painting your house is like adding something to a huge communal picture in which the rest of the painting is done either by nature or by other people. The picture is not static; it changes as we move about, with the time of day, with the seasons, with new planting, new buildings and with alterations to old ones. Any individual house is just a fragment of this picture, nevertheless it has the power to make or mark the overall scene. In the past people used their creative talents in painting their homes, with great imagination and in varied but always subtly blending colors. The last vestiges of this great tradition can still be seen in the towns of the extreme west of Ireland. It has never been recognized as an art form, partly because of the physical difficulty of hanging a street in a gallery and partly because it is always changing, as paint fades and is renewed. Also it is a communal art which cannot be identified with any person, except in those many cases where great artists of the past found inspiration in ordinary street scenes and recorded them in paint. Following the principles of decoration that were so successful in the past, you should first take a long look at the house and its surroundings and consider possible limitations. The first concerns the amount of color and intensity in the daylight in Britain. Colors that look perfectly in keeping with the sunny, clear skies of the Mediterranean would look too harsh in the grayer light of the north. Since bright light is uncomfortable for the eyes, colors must be strong in order to be seen clearly. Viewed in a dimmer light they appear too bright. It is easy to see this if you look at a brick house while the sun is alternately shining and then going behind a cloud. The brick work colors look much more intense when the sun is hidden. The second limitation is the colors of the surroundings: the colors which go best with Cotswold stone and a rolling green countryside will be different from those that look best by the sea or in a red - brick/ blue - slate industrial town. In every area there are always colors that at once look in keeping. In many areas there are distinctive traditions in the use of color that may be a useful guide. The eastern countries of England and Scotland, particularly those with a local tradition of rendering of plastering, use colors applied solidly over the wall. Usually only the window frames and doors are picked out in another color, often white or pale grey. Typical wall colors are the pink associated with Suffolk and pate buffs. Much stronger colors such as deep earth red, orange, blue and green are also common. In the coastal villages of Essex, as well as inland in Hertfordshire, the house - fronts of over - lapping boards are traditionally painted black originally tarred like ships with windows and doors outlined in white. In Kent these weather boarded houses are usually white. In stone areas of Yorkshire and farther north, color is rare; the houses are usually left in their natural color, though many are painted white as they probably all were once.

单选题The service in this restaurant is very poor；　there are not enough waiters to wait ______ customers.

单选题We have had an industrial civilization for only 200 years and already we're stockpiling nuclear weapons, overpopulating the planet, poisoning the air, the water and the soil, destroying fertile land, developing an energy crisis, and running low on resources. Many think glumly that there is no solution to all this--that we are headed on a collision course with damnation and that we are the last generation of civilization. It can even be argued that this is the inevitable consequence of intelligence: that intelligent beings anywhere gradually develop a greater and greater understanding of the laws of nature until their power exceeds their wisdom and they destroy themselves. If that is so, we may find no evidence of civilizations elsewhere, not because none have developed, but because none have endured. But if we: do find evidence of a civilization, one that is further advanced than our own (or its signals would not be so powerful as to reach us, since we can't dispose of enough power to reach it), it would mean that at least one civilization had reached the crisis of power, surmounted it and survived. Perhaps it was differently constituted from our own and its beings were wiser---but perhaps it is just that the crisis that now seems so deadly to us is surmountable, given good will and strenuous effort. The receipt of such signals could give us hope, then and remove the currently gathering despair just a little. Perhaps, if we are tottering on the brink, that hope can provide the added bit of strength that can pull us through and supply the crucial feather's weight to swing the balance toward survival and away from destruction. It is impossible to get no information at all from the signal. At the very least, its characteristics should tell us the rate at which the signal-sending planet revolves about its star and rotates about its axis, together with other physical characteristics of interest. Even ff a message seems unintelligible, astronomers can still try to interpret it, and that in itself is an interesting challenge, a fascinating scientific game. Even ff we cannot reach any conclusion as to specific items of information, we might reach certain generalizations about alien psychology and that, too, is valuable knowledge. Besides, even the tiniest breaks in the code could be of interest. Suppose that from the message we get one single hint of some relationship unsuspected by ourselves that, if true, might give us new insight into some aspect of physics. Scientific advances do not exist in a vacuum. That one insight could then stimulate other thoughts and, in the end, greatly accelerate the natural process by which our scientific knowledge advances.

单选题At present, a probable inducement for countries to initiate large-scale space ventures is ______.

单选题 {{B}}{{I}} Questions 11 to 13 are based on the following talk on hygiene. You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11 to 13.{{/I}}{{/B}}

单选题According to the passage, the teens in Village Green can be called

单选题Questions 1--3 Choose the best answer.

单选题{{B}}Part C{{/B}} Answer questions 1—10 by referring to the following book reviews. Answer each question by choosing A, B or C and mark it on ANSWER SHEET I. Some choices may be required more than once. palaces an emphasis on something that can hardly be learnt at school? 71．________ is particularly helpful for those who fear changes? 72．________ tells readers it doesn't follow that those who don't have good academic achievement will not make a fortune. 73．________ is not written by a single writer? 74．________ tells a very simple story but it contains some messages? 75．________ seems not to express ideas straightforward? 76．________ is written by the one who also wrote a lot of other works with other works with other writers? 77．________ is probably full of facts? 78．________ is not only statistical but also interesting? 79．________ is not related to finance? 80．________ Section A Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives. Who Moved My Cheese? is a parable that takes place in a maze. Four beings live in that maze: Sniff and Scurry are mice — nonanalytical and nonjudgmental, they just want cheese and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Hem and Haw are "little people," mouse-size humans who have an entirely different relationship with cheese. It's not just sustenance to them; it's their self-image. Their lives and belief systems are built around the cheese they've found. Most of us reading the story will see the cheese as something related to our livelihoods — our jobs, our career paths, the industries we work in-although it can stand for anything, from health to relationships. The point of the story is that we have to be alert to changes in the cheese, and be prepared to go running off in search of new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out. Dr. Johnson, co-author of The One Minute Manager and many other books, presents this parable to business, church groups, schools, military organizations — any place where you find people who may fear or resist change. And although more analytican and skeptical readers may find the tale a little too simplistic, its beauty is that it sums up all natural history in just 94 pages: Things change. They always have changed and always will change. And while there's no single way to deal with change, the consequence of pretending change won't happen is always the same: The cheese runs out. Section B Personal-finance author and lecturer Robert Kiyosaki developed his unique economic perspective through exposure to a pair of disparate influences: his own highly educated but fiscally unstable father, and the multimillionaire, eighth-grade dropout father of his closest friend. The lifelong monetary problems experienced by his "poor dad" (whose weekly paychecks, while respectable, were never quite sufficient to meet family needs) pounded home the counterpoint communicated by his " rich dad" (that "the poor and the middle class work for money," but "the rich have money work for them"). Taking that message to heart, Kiyosaki was able to retire at 47. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, written with consultant and CPA Sharon L. Lechter, lays out the philosophy behind his relationship with money. Although Kiyosaki can take a frustratingly long time to make his points, his book nonetheless compellingly advocates for the type of "financial literacy" that's never taught in schools. Based on the principle that income-generating assets always provide healthier bottom-line results than even the best of traditional jobs, it explains how those assets might be acquired so that the jobs can eventually be shed. Section C What do you do after you've written the No.1 bestseller The Millionaire Next Door? Survey 1,371 more millionaires and write The Millionaire Mind. Dr. Stanley's extremely timely tome is a mixture of entertaining elements. It resembles Regis Philbin's hit show (and CD-ROM game) Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, only you have to pose real-life questions, instead of quizzing about trivia. Are you a gambling, divorce-prone, conspicuously consuming "Income-Statement Affluent" Jacuzzi fool soon to be parted from his or her money, or a frugal, loyal, resole your shoes and buy your own groceries type like one of Stanley's "Balance-Sheet Affluent" millionaires? "Cheap dates," millionaires are 4.9 times likelier to play with their grandkids than shop at Brooks Brothers. "If you asked the average American what it takes to be a millionaire," he writes, "they'd probably cite a number of predictable factors: inheritance, luck, stock market investments ... Topping his list would be a high IQ, high SAT scores and grade point average, along with attendance at a top college." No way, says Stanley, backing it up with data he compiled with help from the University of Georgia and Harvard geodemographer Jon Robbin. Robbin may wish he'd majored in socializing at LSU, instead, because the numbers show the average millionaire had a lowly 2.92 GPA, SAT scores between 1100 and 1190, and teachers who told them they were mediocre students but personable people. "Discipline 101 and Tenacity 102" made them rich. Stanley got straight C's in English and writing, but he had money-minded drive. He urges you to pattern your life according to Yale professor Robert Sternberg's Successful Intelligence, because Stanley's statistics bear out Sternberg's theories on what makes minds succeedand it ain't IQ. Besides offering insights into millionaires' pinchpenny ways, pleasing quips ("big brain, no bucks"), and 46 statistical charts with catchy titles, Stanley's book booms with human-potential pep talk and bristles with anecdotes — for example, about a bus driver who made $3 million, a doctor (reporting that his training gave him zero people skills) who lost $1.5 million, and a loser scholar in the bottom 10 percent on six GRE tests who grew up to be Martin Luther King Jr. Read it and you'll feel like a million bucks.

单选题The study of the rules governing the ways words are combined to form sentences is ______. A. morphology B. phonology C. syntax D. semantics

单选题{{B}}Part B{{/B}} In the following article some paragraphs have been removed. For Questions 66～70, choose the most suitable paragraph from the list A～F to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There is one paragraph which does not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1. Over breakfast Florian loan Wells, a 33-year-old aerospace engineer, and Craig Parsley, a 25-year-old environmental technician, discussed their plan for that day, May 14, 1983. They were going to climb one of Mt. Garfield's western peaks, a minor if perilous crag in the Cascade Range east of Seattle. For them it was a routine climb, and neither had bothered to pinpoint for his wife where he would be. When they reached the mountain, the sky was cloudy and the temperature was 34 degree Fahrenheit. Conditions weren't ideal, but the men decided to continue on, hoping the weather would hold. It was 8 a. m. when they started for the 4896-foot-high summit. 66. ______ . All morning, they took turns leading. The pitch of the granite face averaged 70 degrees, about the steepness of a ladder placed against a house. It began to rain-a few drops at first, then a steady downpour. Florian was troubled; if the rain continued, they would have to turn back. It was 11 a. m. , and they were about halfway up the face. 67. ______ . Thrown off balance, Florian screamed, "Watch out ! "Then he fell backward, head down, scraping and bumping against the rock. Instinctively he rotated, feet down, fumbling for something to grab. Craig saw his friend slip back and heard his yell. As Florian dropped twice the length of the rope between the two of them, about 120 feet, Craig braced himself. "I'm going to have to absorb one whale of a pull when i stop him," he thought. Then the rope tightened with a bornjarring wrench and yanked Craig off the rock face. Hurtling forward on his belly, Craig tried to stop himself with his hands, tearing skin from his palms. 68. ______ . Like Florian, Craig turned his body to a feet-down position. He slammed into a small ledge, which spun him around like a rag doll. Crashing forward headfirst again, he clutched frantically at anything that interrupted the smooth rock face, pulling several fingers out of their sockets. Florian, too, was desperately trying to find a way to stop his fall. He caught a narrow ledge with his right foot, but the leg bent uselessly beneath him. Looking beyond his dangling feet, he saw a 500-foot vertical drop ending in a small pool. Florian closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable yank, when Craig's plunging body would pull him from his position to go screaming into the abyss. 69. ______ . Craig has grabbed a finger-size twig sticking out of the rock face. Hanging by his right arm, he felt a wave of pain sweep over him and realized that his shoulder was broken. Craig grabbed a piton with his left hand, set it in a mossfilled crack and drove it to the jilt with his hammer. Meanwhile, Florian had hauled himself onto his ledge. Wedging himself in place with one arm and leg, he fumbled some jam huts from his harness and secured them in small cracks. The two climbers were safe, temporarily. Yet they clung to the lip of a sheer drop, a 50-story fall to certain death. 70. ______ . Craig slid down the ripe to Florian, and it was then Florian found out that his partner's injuries were worse than his own. Craig's shoulder was broken and his right wrist and both ankles were fractured. The situation looked bleak. It was raining and temperatures would fall below freezing that night. Their wives did not expect them back until much later and did not know their location. If the climbers stayed on the rock face, they would die from exposure or blood loss. "I'm going down," Florian told Craig. "When I get to the truck, I'll use the CR radio to call for help. " A. But the lethal tug never came. Instead there was silence followed by an anguished yell, Looking up, he saw Craig dangling by one arm from a small ledge. B. Craig took the lead. Seeking out tiny cracks and crevices in which to wedge his fingers and the toes of his climbing shoes, he worked his way 165 feet up the length of his rope. Then he planted some pitons-large, flat nails with eyelets-in a crack, secured his rope through them and told Florian to start climbing. C. Florian fastened his rope around his waist, and Craig lowered him the length of the rope. But to reach the bottom of the cliff, Florian had to make six long rappels. With one end of his rope belayed through a piton and the other wrapped around his body, he pushed off. D. Florian was leading, clinging to the wall 60 feet above Craig. In a crack at about shoulder height he planted a No. 2 jam nut. Properly anchored, the nut holds 500 pounds, but Florian didn't like the look of the crack it was in. He bent down to. plant a larger No. 3 in, a better crack near his feet. As he did, he heard a "pop. " The No. 2 nut had torn loose. E. Florian now felt a pain in his fight leg. A jagged bone poked through his shoe. "My leg is broken," he cried to Craig. F. Now Florian was again sliding down the rock, barely touching it, a terrifying speed. "I wonder if it's going to hurt to die," he thought.

单选题{{B}}Text2{{/B}}Nopeopledoubtthefundamentalimportanceofmothersinchildrearing,butwhatdofathersdo?Muchofwhattheycontributeissimplybeingthesecondadultinthehome.Bringingupchildrenisdemanding,stressfulandexhausting.Twoadultscansupportandmakeupforeachother'sdeficienciesandbuildoneachother'sstrength.Asweallknow,fathersalsobringanarrayofuniquequalities.Somearefamiliar:protectorandrolemodel.Teenageboyswithoutfathersarenotoriouslypronetotrouble.Thepathwaytoadulthoodfordaughtersissomewhateasier,buttheymuststilllearnformtheirfathers,inwaystheycannotfromtheirmothers,suchashowtorelatetomen.Theylearnfromtheirfathersaboutheterosexualtrust,intimacyanddifference.Theylearntoappreciatetheirownfemininityfromtheonemalewhoismostspecialintheirlives.Mostimportant,throughlovingandbeinglovedbytheirfathers,theylearnthattheyarelove-worthy.Currentresearchgivesmuchdeeper-andmoresurprisinginsightintothefather'sroleinchildrearing.Onesignificantlyoverlookeddimensionoffatheringisplay.Fromtheirchildren'sbirththroughadolescence,fatherstendtoemphasizegamemorethancaretaking.Thefather'sstyleofplayislikelytobebothphysicallystimulatingandexciting.Witholderchildrenitinvolvesmoreteamwork,requiringcompetitivetestingofphysicalandmentalskills,fffrequentlyresemblesateachingrelationship:comeon,letmeshowyouhow.Mothersplaymoreatthechild'slevel.Theyseemwillingtoletthechilddirectlyplay.Kids,atleastintheearlyyears,seemtoprefertoplaywithdaddy.Inonestudyof-year-oldwhoweregivenachoice,morethantwo-thinschosetoplaywiththeirfathers.Thewayfathers'playhaseffectsoneverythingfromthemanagementofemotionstointelligenceandacademicachievement.Itisofparticularimportanceinpromotingself-control.Ac-cordingtooneexpert,"childrenwhoroughhousewiththeirfathersquicklylearnthatbiting,kickingandotherformsofphysicalviolencearenotacceptable."Theylearnwhento"shutitdown".Atplayandinotherrealms,fatherstendtolaystressoncompetition,challenge,initiative,risk-takingandindependence.Mothers,ascaretakers,stressemotionalsecurityandpersonalsafety.Onetheplaygroundfathersoftentrytogetthechildtoswingeverhigher,whilemothersalecautious,worryingaboutanaccident.Weknow,too,thatfathers'involvementseemstolinkedtoenhancedverbalandproblem-solvingskillsandhigheracademicachievement.Severalstudiesfoundthatalongwithpaternalstrictness,theamountoftimefathersspent:readingwiththemwasastrongpredictoroftheirdaughters'verbalability.Forsonstheresultshavebeenequallystriking.Studiesuncoveredastrongrelationshipbetweenfathers'involvementandthemathematicalabilitiesoftheirsons.Otherstudiesfoundsrelationshipbetweenpaternalnurturingandboys'verbalintelligence.

单选题Whereisthenewsreporter,StanFielding,inthecity?A．Atamilitaryfacility.B．Inthesuburbs.C．Inthedowntownarea.D．Inthecountryside.

单选题Male lions are rather reticent about expending their energy in hunting--more than three-quarters of kills are made by lionesses. Setting off at dusk on a hunt, the lionesses are in front, tensely scanning ahead, the cubs lag playfully behind, and the males bring up the rear, walking slowly, their heads nodding with each step as if they are bored with the whole matter. But slothfulness may have survival value. With lionesses busy hunting, the males function as guards for the cubs, protecting them particularly from hyenas. Hunting lionesses have learnt to take advantage of their environment. Darkness provides them with cover, and at dusk they often wait near animals they want to kill until their outlines blend into the surroundings. Small prey, such as gazelle, present lions with no problem. They are simply grabbed with the paws, or slapped down and finished off with a bite in the neck. A different technique is used with large animals, such as wild beast. Usually a lioness pulls her prey down after running up behind it, and then seizes it by the throat, strangling it. Or she may place her mouth over the muzzle of a downed animal, and suffocate it. Lions practice remarkably sophisticated cooperative hunting techniques. Sighting prey, lionesses usually fan out and stalk closer until one is within striking distance. The startled herd may scatter or blot to one side right into a hidden lioness. Sometimes lionesses surround their quarry. While perhaps three crouch and wait, a fourth may backtrack and then circle far around and approach from the opposite side, a technique not unknown in human warfare. No obvious signals pass between the lions, other than that they watch one another. A tactic may also be adapted to a particular situation. One pride of lions often pursued prey at the end of narrow strip of land between two streams. Several lionesses would sit and wait until gazelle wandered into this natural dead-end. Then they would spread out and advance quite in the open, having learnt that the gazelle would not try to escape by running into the bush beside the river, but would run back the way they had come. A lioness has no trouble pulling down an animal of twice her weight. But a buffalo, which may scale a ton, presents problems. One lioness and a young bull battled for an hour and a half, the buffalo whirling around to face the cat with lowered horns whenever she came close. Finally she gave up and allowed him to walk away. But on another occasion, five males came across an old bull. He stood in a swamp, belly-deep in mud and water, safely facing his tormentors on the shore. Suddenly, inexplicably, he plodded towards them, intent it seemed on committing suicide. One lion grabbed his rump, another placed his paws on the bull's back and bit into the flesh. Slowly, without trying to defend himself, the buffalo sank to his knees and, with one lion holding his throat and another his muzzle, died of suffocation.

单选题Part C Answer questions by referring to the following 3 passages. Note: Answer each question by choosing A, B or C and mark it on ANSWER SHEET. Some choices may be required more than once. A=The Role of a Teacher B=The Task of a Teacher C=A Good Teacher In which passage ... is it likely to say that students share the similar approach taken by experts in tackling their tasks? 21. ______ can we learn that students wish to confront and resolve difficulties rather than gloss over them in the learning environment? 22. ______ is it possible for the teacher to shift his role when students are busy making up their own minds? 23. ______ can we get the view that the act of teaching is looked upon as a flow of knowledge from a higher source to an empty container? 24. ______ does a teacher's task include that he must be carefully tailored to suit both that which is to be learnt and those who are to learn it? 25. ______ is it most possible for a teacher to teaching mini-lessons for individuals and groups who need a particular skill? 26. ______ do readers learn that tasks of a teacher are complicated and not easy to achieve? 27. ______ are we told that teaching need not be the province of a special group of people nor need it be looked upon as a technical skill? 28. ______ is it probably for a teacher to guide on the side while students are conducting their investigations? 29. ______ can we learn that each member of our cultures should come to realize our potential as teachers? 30. ______ The Role of a Teacher Teaching is supposed to be a professional activity requiring long and complicated training as well as official certification. The act of teaching is looked upon as a flow of knowledge from a higher source to an empty container. The students' role is one of receiving information; the teacher's role is one of sending it. There is a clear distinction assumed between one who is supposed to know (and therefore not capable of being wrong) and another, usually younger person who is supposed not to know. However, teaching need not be the province of a special group of people nor need it be looked upon as a technical skill. Teaching can be more like guiding and assisting than forcing information into a supposedly empty head. If you have a certain skill you should be able to share it with someone. You do not have to get certified to convey what you know to someone else or to help them in their attempt to teach themselves. All of us, from the very youngest children to the oldest members of our cultures should come to realize our own potential as teachers. We can share what we know, however little it might be, with someone who is in need of that knowledge or skill. The Task of a Teacher The task of the teacher in higher education has many dimensions: it involves the provision of a broad context of knowledge within which students can locate and understand the content of their more specific studies; it involves the creation of a learning environment in which students are encouraged to think carefully and critically and express their thoughts, and in which they wish to confront and resolve difficulties rather than gloss over them, it involves constantly monitoring and reflecting on the processes of teaching and student understanding and seeking to improve them. Most difficult of all perhaps, it involves helping students to achieve their own aims, and adopt the notion that underlies higher education: that students' learning requires from them commitment, work, responsibility for their own learning, and a willingness to take risks, and that this process has its rewards, not the least of which is that learning can be tim! These are not easy tasks, and there is no simple way to achieve them. Still less are there any prescriptions that will hold good in all disciplines and for all students. How we teach must be carefully tailored to suit both that which is to be learnt and those who are to learn it. To put it another way — and to add another ingredient — our teaching methods should be the outcome of our aims (that is, what we want the students to know, to understand, to be able to do, and to value), our informed conceptions of how students learn, and the institutional context — with all of its constraints and possibilities — within which the learning is to take place. A Good Teacher "A good teacher knows when to act as Sage on the Stage and when to act as a Guide on the Side. Because student — centered learning can be time — consuming and messy, efficiency will sometimes argue for the Sage. When students are busy making up their own minds, the role of the teacher shifts. When questioning, problem-solving and investigation become the priority classroom activities, the teacher becomes a Guide on the Side." Jamie McKenzie's article The WIRED Classroom provides a list of descriptors of the role of a teacher who is a Guide on the Side while students are conducting their investigations. "... the teacher is circulating, redirecting, disciplining, questioning, assessing, guiding, directing, fascinating, validating, facilitating, moving, monitoring, challenging, motivating, watching, moderating, diagnosing, trouble-shooting, observing, encouraging, suggesting, watching, modeling and clarifying." The teacher is on the move, checking over shoulders, asking questions and teaching mini-lessons for individuals and groups who need a particular skill. Support is customized and individualized. The Guide on the Side sets clear expectations, provides explicit directions, and keeps the learning well structured and productive. In a thinking curriculum, students develop an in-depth understanding of the essential concepts and processes for dealing with those concepts, similar to the approach taken by experts in tackling their tasks. For example, students use original sources to construct historical accounts; they design experiments to answer their questions about natural phenomena; they use mathematics to model real-world events and systems; and they write for real audiences.

单选题Paul Straussmann, retired vice president of Xerox, indicates in his book Information Pay-off that "almost half of the U. S. information workers are in executive, managerial, administrative and professional positions". He further states that "managers and professionals spend more than half of their time in communicating with each other". In other words, people are a corporation''s most expensive resource. For a typical office, over 90% of the operating budget is for salaries, benefits and over head. With this investment, is it any wonder that managers are focusing more and more attention on employee productivity? They realize that the paper jungle cannot be tamed simply by hiring more people. To receive a return on their investment, wise corporate executive officers are realizing what industrialists and agriculturists learned long ago — efficient tools are essential for increased productivity. A direct relationship exists between efficient flow of information and the quality and speed of the output of the end product. For those companies using technology, the per document cost of information processing is only a fraction of what it was a few years ago. The decreasing cost of computers and peripherals (equipment tied to the computer) will continue to make technology a cost-effective tool in the future. An example of this type of savings is illustrated in the case of the Western Division of General Telephone and Electronics Company ( GTE ). By making a one-time investment of $10 million to automate its facilities, management estimates an annual saving of $8.5 million for the company. This savings is gained mainly through the elimination of support people once needed for proposal projects. Through a telecommunications network that supports 150 computer terminals with good graphics capabilities, the engineers who conceptualize the projects are now direct participants. They use the graphics capacities of the computer rather than rely on drafters to prepare drawings, they enter their own text rather than employ typists, and they use the network to track project progress rather than conducting meetings.