1 . If a business wants to sell its products internationally, it had better do some market research first. This is a lesson that some large American corporations have learned the hard way.
What’s in the name?
Sometimes the problem is the name. When General Motors introduced its Chevy Nova into Latin America, it overlooked the fact that Nova in Spanish means “It doesn’t go”. Sure enough the Chevy Nova never went anywhere in Latin America.
Translation problems
Sometimes it is the slogan that doesn’t work. No company knows this better than Pepsi-Cola with its “Come alive with Pepsi!” campaign. The campaign was so successful in the United States that Pepsi translated its slogan literally for its international campaign. As it turned out, the translations weren’t quite right. Pepsi was begging Germans to “Come out of the grave (坟墓)” and telling the Chinese that “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”
A picture’s worth a thousand words
Other times, the problem involves packaging. A picture of a smiling baby has helped sell countless jars of Gerber baby food. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in African countries, the picture on the jar shows what the jar has in it for many people there can’t read.
Twist of fate
Even the culture and religious factors and pure coincidence can be involved. Thorn McAn shoes have a Thorn McAn “signature” inside. To people in Bangladesh, which is a Muslim country, this signature looked like Arabic script for the word Allah. In that country feet are considered unclean and Muslims felt the company was offending God’s name by having people walk on it.
1. From the text we learned that _________.| A．Chevy Nova was a hit in Latin America |
| B．General Motors did the best market research of all companies |
| C．Pepsi still sold well in China owing to the translation problems |
| D．the “Come alive with Pepsi” campaign worked well in the US |
| A．The picture on the jar | B．A translation problem |
| C．Cultural factor | D．Religious factor |
| A．They are not designed attractively |
| B．Their advertisements are not persuasive |
| C．A signature looking like the word Allah was in the shoes |
| D．Problem for Thorn McAn was the company’s name |
| A．Lessons from some large corporations. | B．How to make use of advertisements |
| C．The importance of market research | D．The importance of packaging |
| A．product advertisers | B．market researchers |
| C．managers of Sales Department | D．businesses to promote products abroad |
| A．earns | B．gains | C．obtains | D．quickens |
| A．independent | B．responsible | C．flexible | D．considerate |
— I’m a clerk in a foreign company now. But I ________ in a high school for eight years.
| A．teach | B．have taught | C．taught | D．had taught |
| A．that | B．one | C．some | D．many |
| A．view | B．behavior | C．reality | D．practice |
7 . Temperatures around the North Pole have greatly increased in the last 50 years — changing a long-term natural cooling trend. Now the Arctic is warmer than at any time during the last 2000 years, according to a major new study.
The study, based on an analysis of tree rings and other things, provides compelling evidence that greenhouse gases released since the start of the industrial revolution are causing global warming.
An author, Darrel Kaufman said, “Scientists have known for a while that the current period of warming was coming after a long-term cooling trend. But our reconstruction quantifies the cooling with greater certainty than before.”
The research — published in the journal Science — comes from a team of British and American scientists who followed summer Arctic temperatures to the time of the Romans by studying natural signals in the landscape. Their reconstruction found that the Arctic got cooler in the summer months between 1 AD and 1900, thanks to a natural “wobble” (摇摆) in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
The wobble slowly increased the distance between the Earth and the Sun during the Arctic summer, reducing the summer temperatures by around 0.2 degree every thousand years and causing the “Little Ice Age” that led to freezing winters in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
But during the 20th century, temperatures began to rise greatly — though the amount of sunlight reaching the Arctic during the summer was continuing to fall. The decade between 1999 to 2008 was the warmest in the last 2000 years, the research found. The research has shown that Arctic temperatures rose three times faster during the 20th century than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.
Some researchers have predicted that the Arctic could be free from sea ice in the winter within the next few decades if the temperatures continue to rise.
1. The new research shows that _______.| A．greenhouse gases are causing global warming |
| B．the Arctic has been free from sea ice in the winter |
| C．the Arctic keeps a long-term natural cooling trend |
| D．the Earth will be too hot for human beings to live on |
| A．shows an interesting phenomenon |
| B．is quite convincing |
| C．causes global warming |
| D．is rather surprising |
| A．recent cooling is more obvious than before |
| B．people fail in stopping the climate changes |
| C．the Arctic has been continuously cooling before |
| D．the Arctic is getting cooler in the summer months |
| A．the wobble causes the temperature in the Arctic to rise |
| B．Arctic temperatures rise more slowly than before |
| C．global warming cannot be prevented by human beings |
| D．the Arctic would be cooling without greenhouse gases |
| A．The “Little Ice Age”. |
| B．A Long-term natural cooling. |
| C．The warmest Arctic in 2000 years. |
| D．A natural “wobble” in the Earth’s orbit. |
8 . I was dirty, smelly, hungry and somewhere beneath all that, suntanned (晒黑的). It was the end of an Inter-Rail holiday. My body couldn’t take any more punishment. My mind couldn’t deal with any more foreign timetables, currencies or languages.
“Never again,” I said, as I stepped onto home ground. I said exactly the same thing the following year. And the next, all I had to do was to buy one train ticket and, because I was under twenty-five years old, I could spend a whole month going anywhere I wanted in Europe. Ordinary beds are never the same once you’ve learnt to sleep in the passage of a train, the rhythm rocking you into a deep sleep.
Carrying all your possessions on your back in a rucksack (背包) makes you have a very basic approach to travel, and encourages incredible wastefulness that can lead to burning socks that have become too anti-social, and getting rid of books when finished. On the other hand, this way of looking at life is entirely in the spirit of Inter-Rail, for common sense and reasoning can be thrown out of the window along with the paperback book and the socks. All it takes to achieve this carefree attitude is one of those tickets in your hand.
Any system that enables young people to travel through countries at a rate of more than one a day must be pretty social. On that first trip, my friends and I were at first unaware of the possibilities of this type of train ticket, thinking it was just an inexpensive way of getting to and from our chosen camp-site in southern France. But the idea of non-stop travel proved too attractive, for there was always just one more country over the border, always that little bit further to go. And what did the extra miles cost us? Nothing.
We were not completely uninterested in culture. But this was a first holiday without parents, as it was for most other Inter-Railers, and in organizing our own timetable we left out everything except the most available sights. This was the chance to escape the guided tour, an opportunity to do something different. I took great pride in the fact that, in many places, all I could be bothered to see was the view from the station. We were just there to get by, and to have good time doing so. In this we were not different from most of the other Inter-Railers with whom we shared passage floors, food and water, money and music.
The excitement of travel comes from the sudden reality of somewhere that was previously just a name. It is as if the city in which you arrive never actually existed until the train pulls in at the station and you are able to see it with your own tired eyes for the first time.
1. At the end of his first trip, the writer said “Never again” because ________.| A．he fell ill |
| B．he disliked trains |
| C．he was tired from the journey |
| D．he had lost money |
| A．Worrying about your clothes. |
| B．Throwing unwanted things away. |
| C．Behaving in an anti-social way. |
| D．Looking after your possessions. |
| A．To get to one place cheaply. |
| B．To meet other young people. |
| C．To see a lot of famous places. |
| D．To go on a tour of Europe. |
| A．he could see more interesting places |
| B．he could spend more time sightseeing |
| C．he could stay away from home longer |
| D．he could make his own decisions |
| A．A name. |
| B．The city. |
| C．The train. |
| D．The station. |
| A．in need of | B．in place of | C．in favor of | D．in honor of |
—_______________! Your efforts have paid off.
| A．Gook luck | B．Come on | C．Good for you | D．Cheer up |
