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TEXT A"Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one," wrote Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the search firm’s founders, in a letter to investors ahead of its stock market flotation in 2004. Since then, Google has burnished its reputation as one of the quirkiest companies on the planet. This year alone it has raised eyebrows by taking a stake in a wind-energy project off the east coast of America and by testing self-driving cars, which have already covered over 140,000 miles (225,000km) on the country’s roads.Google has been able to afford such flights of fancy thanks to its amazingly successful online-search business. This has produced handsome returns for the firm’s investors, who have seen the company transform itself in the space of a mere 12 years from a tiny start-up into a behemoth with a $180 billion market capitalization that sprawls across a vast headquarters in Silicon Valley known as the Googolplex. Google also stretches across the web like a giant spider, with a leg in everything from online search and e-mail to social networking and web-based software applications, or apps.Much of its growth has been organic, but Google has also splashed out on some sizeable acquisitions. In 2006 it paid $1.7 billion for You Tube, a website that lets people post videos of their children, kittens and Lady Gaga impersonations. The following year it snapped up Double-Click, an online-advertising network, for $ 3.1 billion. More deals are likely. Google is bidding for Group on, a trendy e-commerce business, using some of the $ 33 billion sitting in its coffers.All this has turned Google into a force to be reckoned with. But now the champion of the unorthodox is faced with two conventional business challenges. The first involves placating regulators, who fret that it may be abusing its considerable power. On November 30th the European Union announced a formal investigation into claims that Google has been manipulating search results to give an unfair advantage to its own services—a charge the firm vigorously denies. In America, Google faces a similar investigation in Texas and is also battling with a bunch of online-travel companies who have been lobbying the government to veto its recent purchase of ITA Software, a company that provides data about flights.The other challenge facing Google is how to find new sources of growth. In spite of all the experiments it has launched, the firm is still heavily dependent on search related advertising. Last year this accounted for almost all of its $ 24 billion of revenue and $ 6.5 billion of profit. Acquisitions such as You Tube have deepened rather than reduced the firm’s dependence on advertising. Steve Ballmer, the boss of Google’s arch-rival Microsoft, has derided the search company for being "a one trick pony".Ironically, investors’ biggest worry is that Google will end up like Microsoft, which has failed to find big new sources of revenue and profit to replace those from its two ageing ponies, the Windows operating system and the Office suite of business software. That explains why Google’s share price has stagnated. "The market seems to believe this could be like Microsoft version two," says Mark Mahoney, an analyst at Citigroup. News of the formal EU antitrust enquiry will no doubt invite further comparisons with Mr. Ballmer’s firm, which fought a long and bruising battle with European regulators.Is such a comparison fair Those who think it is point to several changes that could damage Google. The first is the rise of new ways in which people can find information online. They include social networks such as Facebook, which saw traffic to its site in America surpass that to Google’s sites earlier this year, and apps offered by Apple and other firms that help people find information without using a web browser. The future of Google is expected to be（）.
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TEXT BNot so long ago television was scary. It was held to turn children into imbeciles, make men violent and corrupt political discourse. Books tried to alert people to the menace in their living rooms: the best of them was Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, published in 1985. Musicians vilified TV in songs like "She Watch Channel Zero" and "Television, the Drug of the Nation".These clays newspapers are filled with tales of Facebook stalkers, Craigslist killers, cyber-bullying and screen addiction. E-mail, bogs and YouTube, not television, are held responsible for the degradation of politics. As the Internet grabs attention, television has become more pitied than feared. A Google search on the phrase "threat from television" turns up some 500 results, many of them historical. "Threat to television" generates eight times as many.Much of this is misguided. People spend more time watching television now than they did when rappers attacked it with songs. As a thorough study by the Council for Research Excellence has shown, Americans spend more time watching television than they spend surfing the web, sending e-mails, watching DVDs, playing computer games, reading newspapers and talking on mobile phones put together. Television is not disappearing. But nor is it the only star in the sky.The Internet, both fixed and mobile, poses a growing challenge to television. It lures advertisers with promises of precision: why pay huge sums to scatter a message among millions of people when you can target the few who seem to be interested in your product To consumers it promises choice, engagement and a low (or no) price. And the Internet has powerful backers. Despite all that hand-wringing over the dangers of technology, governments from South Korea to Sweden seem to regard universal fast broadband as a human right, to be paid for out of general taxation.With the important exception of sport, early attempts to deliver TV content over the web and mobile phones have proved unprofitable. The worst mistakes are now being put right. But it is doubtful that the economics of online or mobile video will ever be as attractive as the economics of traditional television. As video goes online, a world of restricted choice and limited advertising space turns into one where both are available in almost endless quantities. More supply means lower prices.Technology also competes for attention. Although families still gather around the TV set as they have done for decades, they now bring electronic distractions with them. Nielsen reckons that 13% of people who watched the Academy Awards ceremony this year went online during the programmed, up from 9% last year. The multitask did not appear to gravitate to entertainment websites. Google and Facebook topped the list of websites visited during the Oscars, just as they did during the Super Bowl and the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.For the biggest TV shows, technology is a boon. Social-networking websites create chatter around reality-TV programmers, increasing awareness and drawing viewers. Television executives have long endeavored to create "water-cooler" shows which people will talk about at work the next day. Chris Silverman, president of International Creative Management, a talent agency, says Facebook and Twitter function a bit like large digital water-coolers. As audiences fragment, the big shows’ ability to draw huge numbers of eyeballs at a specific time becomes ever more valuable to advertisers.For shows of middling popularity, including many scripted dramas and comedies, life is harder. Big shows are crowding out smaller ones, partly because of the amplifying effects of social media and partly because of the spread of digital video recorders, which make it easy to watch nothing but hits. Online video nibbles at their audience, too. How to survive in this world of giant competitors and new distractions One answer is to involve viewers more in programmers. Television is extremely good at creating characters and gripping stories. It is much less good at encouraging people to engage with those stories. Simon Cowbell has proved that people will vote for contestants in talent shows.Television is supreme at holding the attention of a large number of people for long periods. Other gadgets divert people from the box, but not nearly as much as TV diverts them from all those other gadgets. And technology has undermined some of television’s biggest competitors, notably newspapers. In a world of fragmenting audiences, if TV can combine scale with specificity, become more responsive to its audience and learn to aim adverts more precisely, it will continue to thrive. A TV program with a high audience rating will（）.
[听力原文]M: Now, do you make the best of your time In the studio today, we’ve got Roberta Wilson who’s a time management consultant. Good morning, Roberta.W: Good morning, Paul.M:Roberta,what exactly do time management consultants doW:Well, Paul. (1) It’s all about helping people to organize the work in an effective way, maximize efficiency, minimize stress.M: Sounds like something I need. Who are your clientsW: Era,mainly business people, but I’ve also worked with politicians, civil servants and university lecturers.M:Em, quite a range there.W: Em.M:Then what sorts of things help people to organize their time I suppose punctuality is importantW:Em, yes and no. It’s easier to finish a meeting on time if it starts on time. But in international context, so you do have to be aware of cultural differences.M: For exampleW:Well,in Britain, big formal meetings usually start on time, but less formal meetings often begin a few minutes late. In Germany, on the other hand, people expect all meetings to begin on time. In some countries, era, for example, Latin America, there is a more relaxed attitude, (2) so you do have to adapt to circumstances.M: One in RomeW: Yes, to some extent, yes.M: It sounds like even if you manage your own time very well, you still can’t control what other people do.W:Well, you can set limits. If you’re meeting a friend who always arrives late, you can say "Well, I’m going to wait for 15 minutes. " If they aren’t there by then, I’ll leave.M:Em, I’ve got one friend who’s always late. I don’t think I’ll ever see her if I did that.W: But people who are always late are the ones you need to set limits with. If they know that you would go away, then perhaps, they would make an effort.M:Isn’t that rather hardW: No, not really. Someone who comes eternally late is putting a low value on your time. Let them know you’ve got other things to do and (3)I’m not suggesting you do that with everyone, just the persistent latecomers. Though again, different cultures do have different view points on what constitutes serious lateness.M:What about interruptions I often come into the studio with something important I need to do. Then the phone rings or someone comes to see me. Before I know it, the day is over and I haven’t done what I planned.W: (4 A,D) Em, you need to defend your time. If you’re looking on something important, some one drops in to see you, get your diary out, politely tell them you’re busy and make an appointment for another time. If it isn’t important anyway, well, just go away. If it is, go and make an appointment so you can deal with it properly.M: Sounds practical.W: (4 B,C)Again, you do have to be careful. In some cultures, particularly Latin ones, this technique can upset people. But here in the United States, almost no one will be offended.M: So, does everything depend on cultureW:No, attitudes of time are one of the big differences between culture, but how you organize your own work is up to you. And there are a lot of techniques here. (5)For example, imagine you’ve got two important things to do. One of them is pleasant and the other isn’t. Always try to do the unpleasant task first. That way,the pleasant task is a reward for finishing. If you do it the other way round, you tend to slow down the pleasant task. Because you don’t want to do the unpleasant one.M: I’ll remember that. Finally, what, for you, is a hard-working personW: Em. I’m not very interested in hard-working people. You can spend 12 hours a day at the office without doing very much. I’m interested in productive and happy people.M:On another note, I have to say we’ve run out of time. Thank you Roberta, and over to Jazzmen to him the news. How should one arrange the pleasant task and the unpleasant task？（）
论述题 CompetitionIn the first part of your essay you should state clearly your main argument, and in the second part you should support your argument with appropriate details. In the last part you should bring what you have written to a natural conclusion or make a summary.Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriateness. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.Write your essay on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.
TEXT DSmiling and dapper, Fazle Hasan Abed hardly seems like a revolutionary. A Bangladeshi educated in Britain, an admirer of Shakespeare and Joyce, and a former accountant at Shell, he is the son of a distinguished family, his maternal grandfather was a minister in the colonial government of Bengal; a great-uncle was the first Bengali to serve in the governor of Bengal’s executive council. Now he received a very traditional distinction of his own. a knighthood. Yet the organization he founded, and for which his knighthood is a kind of respect, has probably done more than any single body to upend the traditions of misery and poverty in Bangladesh. Called BRAC, it is by most measures the largest, fastest-growing non-governmental organization (NGO) in the world—and one of the most businesslike.Although Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for helping the poor, his Grameen Bank was neither the first nor the largest microfinance lender in his native Bangladesh; BRAC was. Its microfinance operation disburses about $ 1 billion a year. But this is only part of what it does: it is also an Internet-service provider; it has a university; its primary schools educate 11% of Bangladesh’s children. It runs feed mills, chicken farms, tea plantations and packaging factories. BRAC has shown that NGOs do not need to be small and that a little-known institution from a poor country can outgun famous Western charities.None of this seemed likely in 1970, when Sir Faze turned Shell’s offices in Chittagong into a refuge for victims of a deadly cyclone. BRAC—which started as an acronym, Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee, and became a motto, "building resources across communities"—surmounted its early troubles by combining two things that rarely go together: running an NGO as a business and taking seriously the social context of poverty.BRAC earns from its operations about 80% of the money it disburses to the poor (the remainder is aid, mostly from Western donors). It calls a halt to activities that require endless subsidies. At one point, it even tried financing itself from the tiny savings of the poor (is, no aid at all), though this drastic form of self-help proved a step too far. hardly any lenders or borrowers put themselves forward. From the start, Sir Fazle insisted on brutal honesty about results. BRAC pays far more attention to research and "continuous learning" than do most NGOs. David Korten, author of "When Corporations Rule the World", called it "as near to a pure example of a learning organization as one is likely to find. "What makes BRAC unique is its combination of business methods with a particular view of poverty. Poverty is often regarded primarily as an economic problem which can be alleviated by sending money. Influenced by three "liberation thinkers" fashionable in the 1960s—Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freer and Ivan Iliac—Sir Fazle recognized that poverty in Bangladeshi villages is also a result of rigid social stratification. In these circumstances, "community development" will help the rich more than the poor; to change the poverty, you have to change the society.That view might have pointed Sir Fazle towards left-wing politics. Instead, the revolutionary impetus was channeled through BRAC into development. Women became the institution’s focus because they are bottom of the heap and most in need of help: 70% of the children in BRAC schools are girls. Microfinance encourages the poor to save but, unlike the Graeme Bank, BRAC also lends a lot to small companies. Tiny loans may improve the lot of an individual or family but are usually invested in traditional village enterprises, like owning a cow. Sir Fazle’s aim of social change requires not growth (in the sense of more of the same) but development (meaning new and different activities). Only businesses create jobs and new forms of productive enterprise.After 30 years in Bangladesh, BRAC has more or less perfected its way of doing things and is spreading its wings round the developing world. It is already the biggest NGO in Afghanistan, Tanzania and Uganda, overtaking British charities which have been in the latter countries for decades. Coming from a poor country—and a Muslim one, to boot—means it is less likely to be resented or called condescending. Its costs are lower, too. it does not buy large white SUVs or employ large white men.Its expansion overseas may, however, present BRAC with a new problem. Robert Kaplan, an American writer, says that NGOs fill the void between thousands of villages and a remote, often broken, government. BRAC does this triumphantly in Bangladesh—but it is a Bangladeshi organisation. Whether it can do the same elsewhere remains to be seen. All of the following words can be used to describe BRAC EXCEPT（）.
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