职称英语考试理工类A级补全短文练习题

Entrepreneurship is directly responsible for production. The business person (entrepreneur) takes a cue from consumers in deciding what they want - or, in the case of a new product, __1__.
Profit means different things to different people. According to some public opinion polls, many people are not sure what it is, but they are sure __2__. Workers may look at profit as an unfairly large payment to the entrepreneur that deprives them of a higher wage. The business person thinks of profit __3__. During negotiations before the settlement of the second baseball strike in August, 1985, the Players' Association claimed the owners had made profits of $91 million, an accounting firm said owner profits were $43 million, and the owners insisted they had lost $9 million. The truth was that all three were correct. The disparity in the figures was due to the fact that each group was defining profit differently. Let us now see if we can develop a more exact definition of what profit is.
Gross profit is the difference between what a business firm sells its product for and what it costs to produce that product. The merchant buys $200,000 worth of merchandise during the year and sells it for $270,000. His gross profit is $70,000. The percentage difference between his cost and the selling price is 35 percent, and he calls this markup.
Net profit is __4__--rent, wages, and interest-and setting aside money to allow for the loss due to depreciation (wearing out) of capital. Our merchant has to subtract from his gross profit his payments for rent ($6,000), wages ($20,000), interest on money borrowed ($1,000), repairs and upkeep ($1,000), taxes ($1,000), electricity and other expenses $1,000. Expenses for operating the business come to $30,000. Gross profit is $70,000, and net profit is $40,000.
Economists have a narrower definition of what constitutes profit. They are concerned with payment for all the resources that have gone into production, __5__, like those listed above, or from inside the business.
Exercise:
A what profit really means
B it is too large and represents too much of the consumer's dollar
C whether they come from outside the business
D as the difference between total revenue and total cost
E what the business person has left after paying expenses
F what they might want
When a magazine for high-school students asked its readers what life would be like in twenty years， they said： Machines would be run by solar power. Buildings would rotate so they could follow the sun to take maximum advantage of its light and heat. Walls would “radiate light” and “change color with the push of a button.” Food would be replaced by pills. School would be taught “by electrical impulse while we sleep.'' Cars would have radar. Does this sound like the year 2000? Actually， ________ and the question was，”what will life be like in 1978?“
The future is much too important to simply guess about， the way the high school students did， so experts are regularly asked to predict accurately. By carefully studying the present， skilled businessmen， scientists， and politicians are supposedly able to figure out in advance what will happen. But can they? One expert on cities wrote： _______， but would have space for farms and fields. People would travel to work in “airbuses”， large all-weather helicopters carrying up to 200 passengers. When a person left the airbus station he could drive a coin-operated car equipped with radar. The radar equipment of cars would make traffic accidents “almost unheard of”。

Does that sound familiar? If the expert had been accurate it would， because he was writing in 1957. His subject was “The city of 1982”。

If the professionals sometimes sound like high-school students，it's probably because _________. But economic forecasting， or predicting what the economy will do， had been around for a long time. It should be accurate， and generally it is. But there have been some big mistakes in this field， too. In early 1929， most forecasters saw an excellent future for the stock market. In October of that year， _______， ruining thousands of investors who had put their faith in financial foreseers.
One forecaster knew that predictions about the future would always be subject to significant errors. In 1957， . Rand of the Rand Corporation was asked about the year 2000，“Only one thing is certain，” he answered. “Children born today _______. ”
练习：
A. the stock market had its worst losses ever
B. will have reached the age of 43
C. the article was written in 1958
D. Cities of the future would not be crowded
E. the prediction of the future is generally accurate
F. future study is still a new field
Key：CDFAB
Read With Greater Speed
Do you have difficulty reading in class? If so, a special reading program that helps match sounds with letters could speed up your brain.
At least one out of every five elementary school students in the US has trouble learning to read, even when the students are good at other subjects. (1)
Researchers from Yale University, US, studied a group of children from New York and Connecticut State. As part of the study, 37 struggling readers received special tutoring.
Every day, instructors worked with them on recognizing how written letters represent units of sound called phonemes (音素).
(2)
By the end of the school year, these children could read faster than before. They also made fewer mistakes, and understood more of what they read than they could earlier in the year.
As part of their study, the researchers used a special machine to take action photos of the students' brains.
(3) This is the same part of the brain that becomes active when good readers read. This activated brain area appears to include a structure that helps people recognize familiar written words quickly. In lower level readers, this structure remains inactive.
A year later, the brain structure was still working hard in the students who had gore through the special tutoring, and they continued to do well in reading tests (4)
However, some researchers still doubt the study. (5)
A Many adults are interested in matching sounds with letters
B The students also practiced reading aloud and spelling
C The biggest challenge for many of these kids, scientists say, is matching sounds with letters.
D Another group in the study who went through a more traditional reading program didn't show the same progress.
E The pictures showed an increase in activity in the back of the brain on the left side.
F They believe that reading without making any noise or linking words to sounds is more efficient.
答案：1. C2. B3. E4. D5. F
The Building of the Pyramids
The oldest stone buildings in the world are the pyramids. (46). There are over eighty of them scattered along the banks of the Nile, some of which are different in shape from the true pyramids. The most famous of these are the "Step" pyramid and the "Bent" pyramid.
Some of the pyramids still look much the same as they must have done when they were built thousands of years ago. Most of the damage suffered by the others has been at the hands of men who were looking for treasure or, more often, for stone to use in modern buildings.
(47). These are good reasons why they can still be seen today, but perhaps the most important is that they were planned to last for ever.
(48). However, there are no writings or pictures to show us how the Egyptians planned or built the pyramids themselves. (49). Nevertheless, by examining the actual pyramids and various tools which have been found, archaeologists have formed a fairly clear picture of them.
One thing is certain: there must have been months of careful planning before they could begin to build. (50). You may think this
would have been easy with miles and miles of empty desert around, but a pyramid could not be built just anywhere. Certain rules had to be followed, and certain problems had to be overcome.
A The dry climate of Egypt has helped to preserve the pyramids, and their very shape have made them less likely to fall into ruin.
B It is practically certain that plans were made for the building of the pyramids because the plans of other large works have fortunately been preserved.
C The first thing they had to do was to choose a suitable place.
D Consequently, we are only able to guess at the methods used
E Many people were killed while building the pyramids.
F They have stood for nearly 5,000 years, and it seems likely that they will continue to stand for thousands of years yet.
答案：46. F 47. A 48. B 49. D 50. C
The most common kind of consolidation today is the merger. A merger occurs ____(1) the deregulation of natural gas, the nation’s 20 interstate pipeline companies became fearful of cutthroat competition. Some felt that they could increase their efficiency and improve their market flexibility by merging. In 1985 Internorth
of Omaha paid $ billion for Houston Natural Gas Corporation,
____(2)____. The system connected markets from coast to coast and raised sales to $10 billion.
On occasion, mergers have occurred between smaller companies in an industry dominated by a few giant firms. These smaller companies claim that they need to merge to become more efficient and effective in competing against the biggest corporations. They maintain that such action increases competition instead of reducing it. The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department has not always agreed with them.
Four major waves of mergers have taken place in this country. The first started in 1887, just prior to the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and ended in 1904. It involved such giants as United States Steel and Standard Oil trying to create monopolies in their industries. From the end of World War I until the 1930s, large firms swallowed smaller firms to create oligopolies. The monopoly had no chance and the oligopoly little chance of succeeding today under present antitrust policy.
The third major merger movement began in the 1960s, reached a peak in 1969, ____(3)____. Many of the acquisitions involved giant firms in one industry buying up large companies in totally unrelated
industries. Such mergers are called conglomerate mergers. A classic example is Mobil Oil Corporation’s purchase of the hu ge retail chain Montgomery Ward & Company.
Mergers in the last ten years were in the thousands. More important is the value of the transactions, which has risen sharply. The number of mergers and acquisitions apply ____(4)____. The petroleum industry had mergers and acquisitions valued at closed to $80 billion between 1981 and 1984. Other industries ____(5)____ were banking and finance, insurance, mining and mineral, processed foods.
A thereby gaining control of the world’s longest pipeline
B and then gradually declined
C experiencing large takeovers
D resulting in combinations of small firms
E only to those valued at $100 million or more
F when two or more companies get together to form one company
KEYS: FABEC。