单选题What would happen if consumers decided to simplify their lives and spend less on material goods and services? This (1) is taking on' a certain urgency as rates of economic growth continue to decelerate throughout the industrialized world, and (2) millions of consumers appear to be (3) for more frugal lifestyle. The Stanford Research Institute, which has done some of the most extensive work on the frugality phenomenon, (4) that nearly five million American adults number" (5) to and act on some but not all" of its basic tenets. The frugality phenomenon first achieved prominence as a middle-class (6) of high consumption lifestyle in the industrial world during the 50's and 60's. In the Silent Revolution, Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michingan's Institute of Social Research examined this (7) in the United States and 10 Western European nations. He concluded that a change has taken place "from an (8) emphasis on material well-being and physical security (9) greater emphasis on the quality of life", that is, "a (10) from materialism to postmaterialism". Inglehart calls the 60s the "fat year". Among their more visible trappings were the ragged blue jeans favored by the affluent young. Most of them (11) from materialism; however, this was (12) Comfortably fixed Americans were going (13) , (14) making things last longer, sharing things with others, learning to do things for themselves and so on. But (15) economically significant, it was hardly (16) in a US Gross National Product climbing vigorously toward the $2 thousand billion mark (17) , as the frugality phenomenon matured--growing out of the soaring 80s and into the somber 90s--it seemed to undergo a (18) transformation. American consumers continued to lose (19) in materialism and were being joined by new converts who were (20) frugality because of the darkening economic skies they saw ahead.

单选题According to the writer, the original notion on the productivity gains of the 1990s turns out to be

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} It is usual to classify types of production as job production, batch production and flow production. In job production, products are supplied to the special requirements of a customer, and the whole project is undertaken as one operation which is completed before passing, on to the next. A good example of this kind of work is shipbuilding. In job production a single item is produced at a time, whereas in batch production a number of similar items are produced in order to meet a continuing sales demand Batch sizes vary, but the quantity which is produced amounts to more than immediate requirements, and the surplus production is stored. Finally, in flow production, the manufacture of a product proceeds from one operation to another at a planned rate of output. It is argued that the type of production method which is employed depends on the development of an individual company. That. is to say, many factories begin manufacturing on a job production basis and proceed, as the volume of production increases, to batch and flow production methods. This is not always the case, however, since the type of production is not necessarily determined by the product volume which is aimed at. In fact, in the car industry, tools are produced by jobbing methods, components are produced by batch methods, and the final product is assembled by flow methods. Flow production is associated with flow layouts, whereas job and batch production are associated with process layouts. In a process layout, machines of a similar type are grouped together in the same section of the factory, and work in progress is moved from one part of the factory to another. In a flow layout scheme, the manufacturing equipment is arranged in the same sequence as the operations performed on the product. Each of these operations must be capable of processing work at the rate required for assembly of the final product, and the output for each operation must be balanced in order to provide a smooth flow of work. There are advantages in both types of layout. In a process layout system there is more flexibility, and a greater specialization of machines and labour is possible, while in a flow layout system it is not necessary to maintain a high level of stocks or to demand great skill in the workforce.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Good teachers matter. This may seem obvious to anyone who has a child in school or, for that matter, to anyone who has been a child in school. For a long time, though, researchers couldn’t actually prove that teaching talent was important. But new research finally shows that teacher quality is a close cousin to student achievement: A great teacher can cram one-and-a-half grades’ worth of learning into a single year, while laggards are lucky to accomplish half that much. Yet, while we know now that better teachers are critical, flaws in the way that administrators select and retain them mean that schools don’t always hire the best. Failing to recognize the qualities that make teachers truly effective and to construct incentives to attract and retain more of these top performers has serious consequences. Higher salaries draw more weak as well as strong applicants into teaching — applicants the current hiring system can’t adequately screen. Unless administrators have incentives to hire the best teachers available, it’s pointless to give them a larger group to choose from. Study after study has shown that teachers with master’s degrees are no better than those without. Job experience does matter, but only for the first few years, according to research by Hoover Institution’s Eric A. Hanushek. A teacher with 15 years of experience is no more effective, on average, than a teacher with five years of experience, but which one do you think is paid more? This toxic combination of rigid pay and steep rewards for seniority causes average quality to decline rather than increase as teacher groups get older. Top performers often leave the field early for industries that reward their excellence. Mediocre teachers, on the other hand, are soon overcompensated by seniority pay. And because they are paid more than their skills command elsewhere, these less-capable pedagogues settle in to provide many years-of ineffectual instruction. So how can we separate the wheat from the chaff in the teaching profession? To make American schools competitive, we must rethink seniority pay, the value of master’s degrees, and the notion that a teacher can teach everything equally well — especially math and science — without appropriate preparation in the subject. Our current education system is unlikely to accomplish this dramatic rethinking. Imagine, for a moment, that American cars had been free in recent decades, while Toyotas and Hondas sold at full price. We’d probably be driving Falcons and Corvairs today. Free public education suffers from a lack of competition in just this way. So while industries from aerospace to drugs have transformed themselves in order to compete, public schooling has stagnated. School choice could spark the kind of reformation this industry needs by motivating administrators to hire the best and adopt new strategies to keep top teachers in the classroom. The lesson that good teachers matter should be taught, not as a theory, but as a practice.

单选题People can get emotional about immigration. Bill O'Reilly, a talk-show host, devoted a recent segment to the story of an illegal alien who got drunk and accidentally killed two attractive white girls with his car. If only he had been deported for previous misdemeanours, Mr. O'Reilly raged, those girls would still be alive. Another talk-show host, Geraldo Rivera, during an on-air shout-joust(争吵) with Mr. O' Reilly, denounced his demagogic choice of story-angle as" a sin". President George Bush tried again this week to bring a more rational tone to the debate. He urged the new Democratic Congress to revive the immigration reforms that the old Republican Congress killed last year. His proposal was broadly the same as before. He said he wanted to make it harder to enter America illegally, but easier to do so legally, and to offer a path to citizenship for the estimated 12m illegals who have already snuck in. The first part faces few political hurdles and is already well under way. Mr. Bush expects to have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents by the end of next year. The new recruits are being trained. And to defend against the invading legions of would-be gardeners and hotel cleaners, the frontier is also equipped with high-tech military gizmos(小发明), such as unmanned spy planes with infra-red(红外) cameras. This may be having some effect. Mr. Bush boasted that the number of people caught sneaking over the border had fallen by nearly 30% this year. And the controversial part of Mr. Bush's immigration package--allowing more immigrants in and offering those already in America a chance to become legal -- is still just a plan. House Republicans squashed it last year. Mr. Bush senses a second chance with the new Democratic Congress, but Democrats, like Republicans, are split on the issue. Some, notably Ted Kennedy, think America should embrace hard- working migrants. Others fret that hard-working migrants will undercut the wages of the native-born. Mr. Bush would like to see the pro-immigrant wings of both parties work together to give him a bill he can sign. The Senate is expected to squeeze in a debate next month. The administration is trying to entice law-and-order Republicans on board; a recent leaked memo talked of substantial fines for illegals before they can become legal and" much bigger" fines for employers who hire them before they do. The biggest hurdle, however, may be the Democrats' reluctance to co-operate with Mr. Bush. Some figure that, rather than letting their hated adversary share the credit for fixing the immigration system, they should stall until a Democrat is in the White House and then take it all. So there is a selfish as well as a moral argument for making a deal.

单选题Large, multinational corporations may be the companies whose ups and downs seize headlines. But to a far greater extent than most Americans realize, the economy's vitality depends on the fortunes of tiny shops and restaurants, neighborhood services and factories. Small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 100 workers, now employ nearly 60 percent of the work force and are expected to generate half of all new jobs between now and the year 2000. Some 1.2 million small firms have opened their doors over the past six years of economic growth, and 1989 will see an additional 200,000 entrepreneurs striking off on their own. Too many of these pioneers, however, will blaze ahead unprepared. Idealists will overestimate the clamor for their products or fail to factor in the competition. Nearly everyone will underestimate, often fatally, the capital that success requires. Midcareer executives, forced by a takeover or a restructuring to quit the corporation and find another way to support themselves, may savor the idea of being their own boss but may forget that entrepreneurs must also, at least for a while, be bookkeeper and receptionist, too. According to Small Business Administration data,24 of every 100 businesses starting out today are likely to have disappeared in two years, and 27 more will have shut their doors four years from now. By 1995, more than 60 of those 100 start-ups will have folded. A new study of 3,000 small businesses, sponsored by American Express and the National Federation of Independent Business, suggests slightly better odds: Three years after start-up, 77 percent of the companies surveyed were still alive. Most credited their success in large part to having picked a business they already were comfortable in. Eighty percent had worked with the same product or service in their last jobs. Thinking through an enterprise before the launch is obviously critical. But many entrepreneurs forget that a firm's health in its infancy may be little indication of how well it will age. You must tenderly monitor its pulse. In their zeal to expand, small-business owners often ignore early warning signs of a stagnant market or of decaying profitability. They hopefully pour more and more money into the enterprise, preferring not to acknowledge eroding profit margins that mean the market for their ingenious service or product has evaporated, or that they must cut the payroll or vacate their lavish offices. Only when the financial well runs dry do they see the seriousness of the illness, and by then the patient is usually too far gone to save. Frequent checks of your firm' s vital signs will also guide you to a sensible rate of growth. To snatch opportunity, you must spot the signals that it is time to conquer new markets, add products or perhaps franchise your hot idea.

单选题In the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, scolds her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesn"t affect her, Priestly explains how the deep blue color of the assistant"s sweater descended over the years from fashion shows to departments stores and to the bargain bin in which the poor girl doubtless found her garment. This top-down conception of the fashion business couldn"t be more out of date or at odds with the feverish world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Cline"s three-year indictment of "fast fashion". In the last decade or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H her example can"t be knocked off. Though several fast-fashion companies have made efforts to curb their impact on labor and the environment—including H people will only start shopping more sustainably when they can"t afford not to.

单选题What caused the decline of media?

单选题From the first three paragraphs we can learn that