TEXT C When companies do business overseas, they come in contact with people from different cultures. These individuals often speak a different language and have their own particular custom and manners. These differences can create problems. For example, in France, business meetings begin promptly at the designated time and everyone is expected to be there. Foreign business people who are tardy are often left outside to cool their heels as a means of letting them know the importance of promptness. Unless one is aware of such expected behaviors he may end up insulting the people with whom he hopes to establish trade relations. A second traditional problem is that of monetary conversions. For example, if a transaction is conducted with Russia, payment may be made in rubles. Of course, this currency is of little value to the American firm. It is, therefore, necessary to convert the foreign currency to American dollars. How much are these Russian rubles worth in terms of dollars This conversion rate is determined by every market, where the currencies of countries are bought and sold. Thus there is an established rate, although it will often fluctuate from day to day. For example, the ruble may be worth ’0.75 on Monday and ’0.72 on Tuesday because of an announced wheat shortage in Russia. In addition, there is the dilemma associated with converting at ’0.72. Some financial institutions may be unwilling to pay this price, feeling that the ruble will sink much lower over the next week. As a result, conversion may finally come at ’0.69. These "losses" must be accepted by the company as one of the costs of doing business overseas. A third unique problem is trade barriers. For one reason or another, all countries impose trade barriers on certain goods crossing their borders. Some trade barriers are directly related to exports. For example, the United States permits strategic military material to be shipped abroad only after government permission has been obtained. Most trade barriers, however, are designed to restrict import. Two of the most common import barriers are quotas and tariffs. The intended audience of this passage are ______.
A. professors of economics
B. postgraduate students of international trade
C. beginners of business
D. business people
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TEXT B Centuries ago, man discovered that removing moisture from food helps to preserve it, and that the easiest way to do this is to expose the food to sun and wind. In this way the North American Indians produce pemmican (dried meat ground into powder and made into cakes), the Scandinavians make stockfish and the Arabs dried dates and "apricot leather". All foods including water — cabbage and other leaf vegetables contains as much as 93% water, potatoes and other root vegetables 80%, lean meat 75% and fish, anything from 80% to 60%, depending on how fatty it is. If this water is removed, the activity of the bacteria which cause food to go bad is checked. Fruit is sun-dried in Asia Minor, Greece, Spain and other Mediterranean countries, and also in California, South Africa and Australia. The methods used vary, but in general, the fruit is spread out on trays in drying yards in the hot sun. In order to prevent darkening, pears, peaches and apricots are exposed to the fumes of burning sulfur before drying. Plums, for making prunes, and certain varieties of grapes for making raisins and currants, are dipped in an alkaline solution in order to crack the skins of the fruit slightly and remove their wax coating, so as to increase the rate of drying. Nowadays most foods are dried mechanically. The conventional method of such dehydration is to put food in chambers through which hot air is blown at temperatures of about 110℃ at entry to about 43℃ at exit. This is the usual method for drying such things as vegetables, minced meat, and fish. Liquids such as milk, coffee, tea, soups and eggs may be dried by pouring them over a heated steel cylinder by spraying them into a chamber through which a current of hot air passes. In the first case, the dried material is scraped off the roller as a thin film which is then broken up into small, though still relatively coarse flakes. In the second process it falls to the bottom of the chamber as a fine powder. Where recognizable pieces of meat and vegetables are required, as in soup, the ingredients axe dried separately and then mixed. Dried foods take up less room and weigh less than the same food packed in cans or frozen, and they do not need to be stored in special conditions. For these reasons they are invaluable to the climbers, explorers and soldiers in battle, who have little storage space. They are also popular with housewives because it takes so little time to cook them. Usually it is just a case of replacing the dried-out moisture with boiling water. The open-air method of drying food ______.
A. is the one most commonly used today
B. was invented by the American Indians
C. has been known for hundreds of years
D. tends to be unhygienic
TEXT B Centuries ago, man discovered that removing moisture from food helps to preserve it, and that the easiest way to do this is to expose the food to sun and wind. In this way the North American Indians produce pemmican (dried meat ground into powder and made into cakes), the Scandinavians make stockfish and the Arabs dried dates and "apricot leather". All foods including water — cabbage and other leaf vegetables contains as much as 93% water, potatoes and other root vegetables 80%, lean meat 75% and fish, anything from 80% to 60%, depending on how fatty it is. If this water is removed, the activity of the bacteria which cause food to go bad is checked. Fruit is sun-dried in Asia Minor, Greece, Spain and other Mediterranean countries, and also in California, South Africa and Australia. The methods used vary, but in general, the fruit is spread out on trays in drying yards in the hot sun. In order to prevent darkening, pears, peaches and apricots are exposed to the fumes of burning sulfur before drying. Plums, for making prunes, and certain varieties of grapes for making raisins and currants, are dipped in an alkaline solution in order to crack the skins of the fruit slightly and remove their wax coating, so as to increase the rate of drying. Nowadays most foods are dried mechanically. The conventional method of such dehydration is to put food in chambers through which hot air is blown at temperatures of about 110℃ at entry to about 43℃ at exit. This is the usual method for drying such things as vegetables, minced meat, and fish. Liquids such as milk, coffee, tea, soups and eggs may be dried by pouring them over a heated steel cylinder by spraying them into a chamber through which a current of hot air passes. In the first case, the dried material is scraped off the roller as a thin film which is then broken up into small, though still relatively coarse flakes. In the second process it falls to the bottom of the chamber as a fine powder. Where recognizable pieces of meat and vegetables are required, as in soup, the ingredients axe dried separately and then mixed. Dried foods take up less room and weigh less than the same food packed in cans or frozen, and they do not need to be stored in special conditions. For these reasons they are invaluable to the climbers, explorers and soldiers in battle, who have little storage space. They are also popular with housewives because it takes so little time to cook them. Usually it is just a case of replacing the dried-out moisture with boiling water. Nowadays vegetables are most commonly dried ______.
A. on horizontal cylinders
B. in hot-air chambers
C. in the sun and wind
D. using the open tray method
TEXT D Federal officials should consider reopening public access to about three dozen Web sites withdrawn from the Internet after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a government-financed study says, because the sites pose little or no risk to homeland security. The Rand Corp. said the overwhelming majority of federal Web sites that reveal information about airports, power plants, military bases and other potential terrorist targets need not be censored because similar or better information is easily available elsewhere. Rand identified four Web pages that might merit the restrictions imposed after the attacks. "It’s a good time to take a closer look at the choices that they made at the time," said John Baker, principal author of the study, which was funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the government’s intelligence mapping agency. Advocates of open government said the report shows the Bush administration acted rashly after the suicide attacks when it scrubbed numerous government Web sites. Who is the main author of the study
A. Michael Sniffen
B. John Baker
C. John Rand
D. Beth Lachman
TEXT IMargaret Mee: English Explorer and Painter of Amazon FloraBorn in Chesham, England, in May 1909Studied at St Martins School of Art and later at the Camber well School of Art.Went to Brazil with her husband Greville, a commercial artist, in 1952.Made her first expedition to the Amazon in 1956 at the age of 47.Made 15 further expeditions to the Amazon. The last expedition took place in May 1988.She never painted or drew from photographs. She painted what she saw.She published two books of her paintings in 1968 and 1980.She achieved an ambition of 36 years to paint the night-flowing Amazon Moonflower only in 1988.her diaries, in Search of the flowers of the Amazon Forest, were published in 1988.A botanist who knew her well described her as follows: "Many people have traveled Amazonian waters, many people have painted Amazonian plants, but Margaret Mee outranks those other travelers and artists simply because she, with her watercolors, went, saw, and conquered the region. She has been able to fill her subjects with the reality of their environment. Margaret Mee went on her first expedition to the Amazon in ______
A. 1952.
B. 1968.
C. 1947.
D. 1956.