Doubts and Debates over the Worth of MBA Bill Gates, the billionaire Microsoft chairman without a single earned university degree, is by his success raising new doubts about the worth of the business world’s favorite academic title: the MBA ( Master of Business Administration). The MBA, a 20th-century product always has borne the mark of lowly commerce and greed (贪婪) on the tree-lined campuses ruled by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature. But even with the recession apparently cutting into the hiring of business school graduates, about 79,000 people are expected to receive MBAs in 1993. This is nearly 16 times the number of business graduates in 1960, a testimony to the widespread assumption that the MBA is vital for young men and women who want to run companies some day. "If you are going into the corporate world it is still a disadvantage not to have one," said Donald Morrison, professor of marketing and management science. "But in the last five years or so, when someone says, ’ Should I attempt to get an MBA,’ the answer a lot more is: It depends. " The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs, such as the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has helped inspire self-conscious debates on business school campuses over the worth of a business degree and whether management skills can be taught. The Harvard Business Review printed a lively, fictional exchange of letters to dramatize complaints about business degree holders. The article called MBA hires "extremely disappointing" and said "MBAs wants to move up too fast, they don’t understand politics and people, and they aren’t able to function as part of a team until their third year. But by then, they’re out looking for other jobs. " The problem, most participants in the debate acknowledge, is that the MBA has acquired an aura (光环) of future riches and power for beyond its actual importance and usefulness. Enrollment in business schools exploded in the 1970s and 1980s and created the assumption that no one who pursued a business career could do with out one. The growth was fueled by a backlash (反冲) against the anti-business values of the 1960s and by the women’s movement. Business people who have hired or worked with MBAs say those with the degrees often know how to analyze systems but are not so skillful at motivating people. "They don’t get a lot of grounding in the people side of the business," said James Shaffer, vice president and principal of the Towers Perrin management consulting firm. From the passage we know that most MBAs______.
A. can climb the corporate ladder fairly quickly
B. cherish unrealistic expectations about their future
C. quit their jobs once they are familiar with their workmates
D. receive salaries that do not match their professional training
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Oceanography Oceanography has been defined as "the application of all sciences to the study of the sea. " Before the nineteenth century, scientists with an interest in the sea were few. Certainly Newton considered some theoretical aspects of it in his writings, but he was reluctant to go to sea to farther his work. For most people the sea was remote, and with the exception of early intercontinental (大陆间的 ) travelers or others who earned a living from the sea, there was little reason to ask many questions about it, let alone to ask what lay beneath the surface. The first time that the question-" what is at the bottom of the oceans" had to be answered with any commercial consequence was when the laying of a telegraph cable from Europe to America was proposed. The engineers had to know the depth profile(起伏形状)of the route to estimate the length of cable that had to be manufactured. It was to Maury of the LIS Navy that the Atlantic Telegraph Company turned, in 1853, for information on this matter. In the 1840s, Maury had been responsible for encouraging voyages during which soundings(测水深) were taken to investigate the depths of the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Later, some of his findings aroused much. popular interest in his book "The Physical Geography of the Sea". The cable was laid, but not until 1866 was the connection made permanent and reliable. At the early attempts, the cable failed and when it was taken out for repairing it was found to be covered with living creatures, a fact which defied contemporary scientific opinion that there was no life in the deeper parts of the sea. Within a few years oceanography was under way. In 1872, Thomson led a scientific expedition (考察), which lasted for four years and brought home thousands of samples from the sea. Their classification and analysis occupied scientists for years and led to a five-volume report, the last volume being published in 1895. The aim of voyages Maury encouraged in the 1840s was______.
A. to make some sound experiments in the oceans
B. to collect samples of sea plants and animals
C. to estimate the length of cable that was to be made
D. to measure the depths of two oceans
The Development of RubberHere is the story of rubber. From the earliest time it was common knowledge (51) the Peruvians that when a cut was made in the outside skin of a rubber tree, a white liquid (52) milk came out, and that (53) this a sticky (粘的) mass of rubber might be made. This rubber is soft when warm, so that it is possible to give it any (54) . The Peruvians made the (55) that it was very good for keeping out the wet. Then in the early 1800’s, the Americans made use of it for the first time. First they made overshoes to (56) their feet dry. Then came a certain Mr. Mackintosh, who made coats of cloth covered with natural rubber. From that day to this we have been coating cloth with rubber as Mr. Mackintosh (57) , and our raincoats are still named after him.But these first rubber overshoes and raincoats were all soft and sticky in summer, and (58) and inelastic (无弹性的) in the winter when it was col D. But the rubber we have today is soft and elastic (有弹性的), (59) very strong m even in the warmest summer and the coldest winter. This was made (60) by a man called Goodyear. After many (61) , he found that nitric acid (硝酸) made the rubber much better, but it is not hard and strong enough. Then a strange thing took(62) . A friend of his, Nicholas Hayward, had the idea in his sleep that rubber might be made hard and strong if mixed with sulfur (硫磺) and put in the sun. Goodyear put this idea (63) the test, and saw that it did have more or less the desired effect though somewhat less than more. The only effect it had was on the outside of the rubber. It is common knowledge now that the (64) to make rubber hard and strong is by heating it with sulfur. It took Goodyear four more years to find this metho D. When at last he did it, he had (65) at all. Everything of the smallest value had been used to get money, even his sons’ school-books. 51()
A. for
B. to
C. about
D. with
Birdsong A male zebra finch chirps away to himself. Suddenly he notices a female bird nearby. He realizes he has an audience and immediately changes his song. Can the female tell the difference in his performance According to a new study, the female zebra finch knows. And she prefers the special trills he creates when he sings to her. A male zebra finch changes his song when singing to a female in ways that people can barely detect. But the female finch can tell the difference. Scientists had noticed slight variations in the songs of male zebra finches based on whether they were singing alone or whether there was a female (and potential mate) nearby. With an audience, the males sped up the pace of their songs and controlled the notes they used. For this study, researchers Sarah C. Woolley and Allison Doupe at the University of California, San Francisco decided to focus attention on the listening females, which have not been well studied in the past. In the study, Woolley and Doupe set up, a long cage with a sound speaker at each end. One broadcast the sound of a male zebra finch singing to himself, like someone singing in the shower. The other speaker broadcast a male performing for a female audience, as if he was giving a concert. Female birds were placed between the two speakers. Some of the birds had mates, others didn’t. The females shifted around a bit, and then most of them hopped over to sit beside just one speaker. All the birds that made a clear choice liked songs meant for a female audience, even if they’d never met the male. Mated females also had a chance to listen to two different performance songs, one from an unknown male, and one from their mate. They spent more time listening to the concert version of their mates’ songs. This suggests that after a while, females learn to recognize and prefer the songs of their mates. Scientists then studied the brains of the females. They found certain areas of the brain perked up when the birds listened to the concert songs. These brain areas may be involved in recognizing and evaluating the songs, and storing the memories of them. This research deals with what’s called directed communication, when the communicator, or sender, focuses the message for a specific audience. One example is the way moms speak to their babies. Mothers around the world use the same sort of high-pitched sing-song chatter, and the babies respond best to those sounds. Songbirds are one of the only other species known to learn their communication, in this case their songs. What does the first paragraph say about zebra finches
A. Male zebra finches like to sing to female zebra finches.
B. Male zebra finches sing louder than female zebra finches.
C. Male zebra finches change their songs in female zebra finches’ presence.
D. Male zebra finches like to listen to female zebra finches sing.
Bees and ColourOn our table in the garden we put a blue card, and all around this blue card we put a number of different grey cards. These grey cards are of all possible shades of grey and include white and black. On each card a watch-glass is placed. The watch-glass on the blue card has some syrup(果汁) in it, all the others are empty. After a short time bees find the syrup, and they come for it again and again. Then, after some hours, we take away the watch-glass of syrup which was on the blue card and put an empty one in its place.Now what do the bees do They still go straight to the blue card, although there is no syrup there. They do not go to any of the grey cards, in spite of the fact that one of the grey cards is of exactly the same brightness as the blue card. Thus the bees do not mistake any shade of grey for blue. In this way we have proved that they do really see blue as a colour.We can find out in just the same way what other colours bees can see. It turns out that bees can see various colours, but these insects differ from us as regards their colour-sense in two very interesting ways. Suppose we train bees to come to a red card, and, having done so, we put the red card on the table in the garden among the set of different grey cards. This time we find that the bees mistake red for dark grey or black. They cannot distinguish between them. This means that red is not a cotour at all for bees; for them it is just dark grey or black.That is one strange fact; here is another. A rainbow is red on one edge, violet on the other. Outside the violet of the rainbow there is another colour which we cannot see at all. This colour beyond the violet, invisible to us, is called the ultra-violet. Although it is invisible, we know that the ultra-violet is there because it affects a photographic plate. Now, although we are unable to see ultra-violet light, bees can do so; for them ultra-violet is a colour. Thus bees see a colour which we cannot even imagine. This has been found out by training bees to come for syrup to various parts of a spectrum, or artificial rainbow, thrown by a prism on a table in a dark room. In such an experiment the insects can be taught to fly to the ultra-violet, which for us is just darkness. The experiment with bees described in the first and second paragraphs tell us that bees regard blue as a colour.()
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned