Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage. Japanese firms have achieved the highest levels of manufacturing efficiency in the world auto mobile industry. Some observers of Japan have assumed that Japanese firms use the same manufacturing equipment and techniques as United States firms but have benefited from the unique characteristics of Japanese employees and the Japanese culture. However, if this were true, then one would expect Japanese auto plants in the United States to perform no better than factories run by United States companies. This is not the case. Japanese-run automobile plants located in the United States and staffed by local workers have demonstrated higher levels of productivity when compared with factories owned by United States companies. Other observers link high Japanese productivity to higher levels of capital investment per worker. But a historical perspective leads to a different conclusion. When the two top Japanese automobile makers matched and then doubled United States productivity levels in the mid-sixties, capital investment per employee was comparable to that of United States firms. Furthermore, by the late seventies, the amount of fixed assets required to produce one vehicle was roughly equivalent in Japan and in the United States. Since capital investment was not higher in Japan, it had to be other factors that led to higher productivity. A more fruitful explanation may lie with Japanese production techniques. Japanese automobile producers did not simply implement conventional processes more effectively; they made critical change in United States procedures. For instance, the mass-production philosophy of United States automakers encouraged the production of huge lots of cars in order to utilize fully expensive, component-specific equipment and to occupy fully workers who have been trained to execute one operation efficiently. Japanese automakers chose to make small-lot production feasible by introducing several departures from United States practices, including the use of flexible equipment that could be altered easily to do several different production tasks and the training of workers in multiple jobs. Automakers could schedule the production of different components or models on single machines, thereby eliminating the need to store the spare stocks of extra components that result when specialized equipment and workers are kept constantly active. In the mass-production philosophy, workers are usually trained to ______.
Passage OneQuestions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
A. Because the fish population is increasing.
Because the temperature there is increasing.
C. Because the temperature there is decreasing.
D. Because the ozone layer is disappearing.
Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage. The state of Hawaii turns 50 this year. People there should be happy. But it’s hard. The economy is really bad. The housing market and construction industry are in deep slumps. Tourism has been hammered by the recession and swine flu. Unemployment is double what it was a year ago. To close a $688 million budget gap, the governor announced the most drastic holiday program in the country. She’s closing state offices three days a month, for two years. Aloha Fri day, where people go to work in aloha shirts and muumuus, is going to be Holiday Friday, where they stay home in pajamas and look for jobs on the Internet. And now, a communist dictator supposedly wants to blow up Hawaii. A Japanese newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun, reported this week that North Korea planned to launch a ballistic missile in Hawaii’s direction around the Fourth of July. You can take the threat for what it’s worth. Hawaii isn’t panicking. But then, while no one wants to think of extinction, the word is far less abstract in Hawaii than in other places. The islands have seen the disappearance of the Hawaiian kingdom, the killing of its people and the extinction of its language. Today, Hawaii is the world’s hottest hot spot for threatened and endangered species. As the only island state, it’s the only one that faces an existential threat from global warming and rising oceans. For years, financially squeezed Hawaii residents have been leaving in droves, setting up colonies in places they can afford, like the moonscapes of the Las Vegas suburbs. They’re exiles from paradise. Many people assume Hawaiian music is sweet and happy. Actually, much of it is solemn and melancholy. To hear Bla Pahinui sing his version of "Waimanalo Blues"—"the beaches they sell, to build their hotels," is to glimpse the depths of the Hawaiian sense of loss. Visitors go to Hawaii to get happy and tan, and they carry home with them vast measures of good will, peacefulness and memories of joy. Maybe it’s time to give some of that back to the suffering 50th state. How Maybe by telling your representatives in Congress to support the A kaka Bill, to give Native Hawaiians a measure of lost sovereignty, and right some old injustices. There’s a great July Fourth parade in Kailua, on Oahu’s windward side. It’s normally followed by fireworks, but they were canceled this year: too expensive. Since 1948, people have sat on the warm sands of Kailua Beach, oohing and aahing as fireworks burst over black water. Now they can’t, in their state’s golden anniversary year. Could anything be sadder than that What does the author imply by saying "…is far less abstract in Hawaii than in other places" (Line 2, Para. 4)
A. Hawaii is much safer than other places.
B. Hawaii is not frightened by extinction.
C. Hawaii has tried its best to reserve the land.
D. Hawaii has gone through much extinction.