试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

浙江工商大学

Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in eighteenth-century England. McKendrick has explored the Wedgwood firm’s remarkable success in marketing luxury pottery. Plumb has written about the proliferation of provincial theaters, musical festivals, and children’s toys and books. While the fact of this consumer revolution is hardly in doubt, three key questions remain: Who were the consumers? What were their motives? And what were the effects of the new demand for luxuries? An answer to the first of these has been difficult to obtain. Although it has been possible to infer from the goods and services actually produced what manufacturers and servicing trades thought their customers wanted, only a study of relevant personal documents written by actual consumers will provide a precise picture of who wanted what. We still need to know how large this consumer market was and how far down the social scale the consumer demand for luxury goods penetrated. With regard to this last question, we might note in passing that Thompson, while rightly restoring laboring people to the stage of eighteenth-century English history, has probably exaggerated the opposition of these people to the inroads of capitalist consumerism in general; for example, laboring people in eighteenth-century England readily shifted from home-brewed beer to standardized beer produced by huge, heavily capitalized urban breweries. To answer the question of why consumers became so eager to buy, some historians have pointed to the ability of manufacturers to advertise in a relatively uncensored press. This, however, hardly seems a sufficient answer. Mckendrick favors a Viable model of conspicuous consumption stimulated by competition for status. The “middling sort” bought goods and services because they wanted to follow fashions set by the rich. Again, we may wonder whether this explanation is sufficient. Do not people enjoy buying things as a form of self-gratification? If so, consumerism could be seen as a product of the rise of new concepts of individualism and materialism, but not necessarily of the frenzy for conspicuous competition. Finally, what were the consequences of this consumer demand for luxuries? McKendrick claims that it goes a long way toward explaining the coming of the Industrial Revolution. But does it? What, for example, does the production of high-quality pottery and toys have to do with the development of iron manufacture or textile mills? It is perfectly possible to have the psychology and reality of a consumer society without a heavy industrial sector. That future exploration of these key questions is undoubtedly necessary should not, however, diminish the force of the conclusion of recent studies: the insatiable demand in eighteenth-century England for frivolous as well as useful goods and services foreshadows our own world.1. In the first paragraph, the author mentions McKendrick and Plumb most probably in order to （）.2. Which of the following items, if preserved from eighteenth-century England, would provide an example of the kind of documents mentioned in Lines 3-4, Paragraph 2?3. According to the text, Thompson attributes to laboring people in eighteenth-century England which of the following attitudes toward capitalist consumerism?4. In the third paragraph, the author is primarily concerned with （）.5. According to the text, eighteenth-century England and the contemporary world of the text readers are（）.

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When executives at Google went looking for Wall Street investment bankers to underwrite the company’s massive initial public offering, they laid down strict terms of engagement: bring us new ideas on how to sell the deal to investors and save the usual political gamesmanship. But with such a huge payday at stake—an estimated $100 million in fees for handling the offering—would you expect all the big firms to play by the Google rules? Of course not, just ask Goldman Sachs. To win a chunk of the Google business, Goldman, the nation’s premier investment bank, set free its CEO: Hank Paulson, to pull some strings. Paulson is one of Wall Street’s best “call men”, who can wave a Palm PDA full of connections when it’s crunch time to bring home a deal. But Newsweek has learned that Paulson tried to sidestep Google’s orders by reaching out to one of Google’s largest investors, Kleiner Perkins, the powerful venture-capital firm that was an early Google backer. The move helped doom Goldman’s efforts to win the lead underwriting spot, which went instead to Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley. Paulson thought his best shot was John Doerr, one of Kleiner’s top partners. Bad move, when word of Paulson’s misstep got back to Google’s top executives, Goldman was quickly bumped from the top of the short list. “The people at Google were such enthusiasts about the rules,” said one executive who works at a rival Wall Street firm. “When they heard about this, they went ape.” None of the parties involved—Google, Goldman Sachs or Doerr—would comment. The two winners, CSFB and Morgan Stanley, managed to keep a low profile. John Mack, CSFB’s famously well-connected chief executive, purposely stayed out of the bidding process for fear that he might tip the scales to another player, people with knowledge of the matter say. Meanwhile, new rules for Wall Street research analysts appear to have prevented Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley’s top Internet analyst, from playing a direct role, even though she and Doerr have done business together for years. Goldman, meanwhile, can’t blame its loss just on Paulson. People close to the deal say bankers for the firm bragged to Google about the Goldman name, and didn’t generate enough ideas about how to sell shares to investors through an auction. “Their lack of marketing wit may have hurt them more than Paulson,” said the executive from a rival firm. Sometimes, it really does pay to play by the rules.1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?2. Hank Paulson’s name is mentioned to show that（）.3. The speaker in the third paragraph thinks that（）.4. John Mack and Mary Meeker shared similarities in that they both（）.5. Goldman might learn a lesson from Google’s deal that （）.

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We need a chairman（） .

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He came all the way to China for promoting friendship （）for making money.

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I’m sure he is up to the job （）he would give his mind to it.

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