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The changes facing fast-food companies
Fast food was once thought to be recession-proof. When consumers need to cut spending, cheap meals like Big Macs and Whoppers become even more attractive. As a result, fast-food chains have survived the recession better than their more expensive competitors. In 2009 sales at full-service restaurants in America fell by more than 6%, but total sales remained about the same at fast-food chains. In some markets, such as Japan, France and Britain, total spending on fast food increased.
But in this ongoing recession(萧条), which is more severe, not all fast-food companies have been as fortunate. Many, such as Burger King, have seen sales fall. In the recession, while some people trade down to fast food, many others eat at home more frequently to save money. Smaller fast-food chains in America, such as Jack in the Box and Carl’s Jr., have been hit particularly hard in this downturn because they cut back spending on advertising.
In face of such challenges, some fast-food companies have sacrificed their own profits by trying to give customers better value. During the recession companies set prices low, hoping to tempt more customers through the door. But in many cases that strategy doesn’t work. Some companies are rethinking their strategies. KFC has launched a chicken sandwich that costs around $5 to attract consumers away from $1 specials.
Companies are also trying to get customers to buy new and more items, including drinks. McDonald’s started selling better coffee as a challenge to Starbucks. Its “McCafe” line now accounts for an estimated 6% of sales in America. As fast-food companies shift from “super size” to “more buys”, they need to keep customer traffic high throughout the day. Many see breakfast as a big opportunity, and not just for fatty food. McDonald’s has started selling porridge in America, because the profits can be high.
But what about those growing waistlines? So far, fast-food firms have cleverly avoided government regulation. By providing options like salads and low-calorie sandwiches, they have at least given the impression of doing something about helping to fight obesity(肥胖). These offerings don’t necessarily lead to profit loss, as they can broaden the appeal of stores to groups of diners that include some people who don’t want to eat a burger.
But calls for tougher government regulation never wear down. This year Congress passed America’s health-reform bill, which requires restaurant chains with 20 or more stores to put the calorie-content of items they serve to the menu. And the recent proposal by a county in California to ban McDonald’s from including toys in its high-calorie “Happy Meals”, because law makers believe it attracts children to unhealthy food, suggests that fast-food companies will have to continue trying something new.
The changes facing fast-food companies
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An introduction to this book is as superfluous as a candle in front of a powerful searchlight. But a convention of publishing seems to require that the candle should be there, and I am proud to be the one to hold it. About ten years ago I picked up from the pile of new books on my desk a copy of Sons and Lovers by a man of whom I had never heard, and I started to race through it with the immoral speed of the professional reviewer. But after a page or two I found myself reading, really reading. Here was—here is—a masterpiece in which every sentence counts, a book packed with significant thought and beautiful, arresting phrases, the work of a remarkable genius whose gifts are more richly various than those of any other young English novelist.
To appreciate the rich variety of Mr. Lawrence we must read his later novels and his volumes of poetry. But Sons and Lovers reveals the range of his power. Here are combined and blended(混合的) sort of “realism” and almost lyric(抒情的) imagery and rhythm. The speech of the people is that of daily life and the things that happen to them are normal adventures and accidents; they fall in love, marry, work, fail, succeed, and die. But of their deeper emotions and of the relations of these little human beings to the earth and to the stars, Mr. Lawrence makes something near to poetry and prose(散文) without violating its proper “other harmony.”
Take the marvellous paragraph on next to the last page of Sons and Lovers (Mr. Lawrence depends so little on plot in the ordinary sense of the word that it is perfectly fair to read the end of his book first):
Where was he? One tiny upright speck of flesh, less than an ear of wheat lost in the field. He could not bear it. On every side the immense dark silence seemed pressing him, so tiny a spark, into extinction, and yet, almost nothing, he could not be extinct. Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun, stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spinning round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in the darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted(气馁). So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core a nothingness, and yet not nothing.
Such glorious writing lifts the book far above a novel which is merely a story. I beg the reader to attend to every line of it and not to miss a single one of the many sentences that await and surprise you. Some are enthusiastic and impressive, like the paragraph above; others are keen, “realistic” observations of things and people. In one of his books Mr. Lawrence makes a character say, or think, that life is “mixed.” That indicates his philosophy and his method. He blends the accurately literal and trivial(琐碎的) with the extremely poetic.
To find a similar blending of tiny daily detail and wide imaginative vision, we must go back to two older novelists, Hardy and Meredith. I do not mean that Mr. Lawrence derives(源于) immediately from them or, indeed, that he is clearly the disciple(弟子) of any master. I do feel simply that he is of the elder stature(名望) of Hardy and Meredith, and I know of no other young novelist who is quite worthy of their company. When I first tried to express this comparison, this connection, I was contradicted by a fellow-critic, who pointed out that Meredith and Hardy are entirely unlike each other and that therefore Mr. Lawrence cannot resemble both. To be sure, nothing is more hateful than forced comparisons, nothing more boring than to discover parallels between one work of art and another. An artist’s mastery consists in his difference from other masters. But to refer a young man of genius to an older one, at the same time pronouncing his independence and originality, is a fair, if not very superior, method of praising him.
1.The underlined word “superfluous” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______.
A. meaningful B. unnecessary
C. fundamental D. unbelievable
2.What is typical of Lawrence’s works?
A. They equally reveal his genius power.
B. They contain lots of great lyric poetry.
C. They present some real living situations.
D. They focus on relations between humans.
3.What does the author want to illustrate by including one paragraph from Sons and Lovers?
A. The plot of the novel has little to do with daily life.
B. It is wise to read Lawrence’s books from the end.
C. Lawrence is capable of telling good stories.
D. The language in Lawrence’s books is elegant.
4.Who were Hardy and Meredith?
A. They taught Lawrence literature when he was young.
B. They were the realistic novelists of Lawrence’s time.
C. They were novelists who resemble each other in writing.
D. They were novelists combining details with imagination.
5.According to the author, what does an artist’s mastery mean?
A. He must have personal diversity.
B. He must have the critical spirits.
C. He must be happy to be compared.
D. He must be a man of genius.
6.What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
A. To introduce Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers.
B. To show his experiences of reading classics.
C. To analyze Lawrence’s writing characteristics.
D. To compare the styles of different novelists.
Cooperation at work is generally seen as a good thing. The latest survey by the Financial Times of what employers want from MBA graduates found that the ability to work with a wide variety of people was what managers wanted most. But managers always have to balance the benefits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “groupthink” when critics are reluctant to point out a plan’s drawbacks for fear of being kept out of the group. The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a classic case of groupthink. Skeptics were reluctant to challenge John F. Kennedy, the newly elected American president.
Modern communication methods mean that cooperation is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail messaging groups or mobile calls. But does that improve, or lower performance? A new study by three American academics, tried to answer this question. They set a logical problem (designing the shortest route for a travelling salesman visiting various cities). Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each other’s views only intermittently.
The survey found that members of the individualist group reached the premier solution more often than the constant cooperators but had a poorer average result. The intermittent cooperators found the right result as often as the individualists, and got a better average solution. When it comes to ideal generation, giving people a bit of space to a solution seems to be a good idea. Occasional cooperation can be a big help: most people have benefited from a colleague’s brainwave or (just as often) wise advice to avoid a particular course of action.
Further clues come from a book, Superminds, by Thomas Malone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says that three factors determine the collective intelligence of cooperating groups: social intelligence (how good people were at rating the emotional states of others); the extent to which members took part equally in conversation (the more equal, the better); and the cooperation of women in the group (the higher, the better). Groups ranked highly in these areas cooperated far better than others.
In short, cooperation may be a useful tool but it doesn’t work in every situation.
1.The author cites the example of The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in paragraph 1 to _______.
A. prove that team players are skilled at communication
B. show that teamwork cannot always be beneficial
C. prove that critics are unwilling to challenge anybody
D. show the danger of groupthink is not very serious
2.The underlined phrase “the intermittent cooperators” in paragraph 3 refers to _______.
A. those who do not cooperate but reach the best solution
B. those who are seldom informed of other’s views
C. those who cooperate with others occasionally
D. the constant cooperators with a poor average result
3.Which of the following factors makes a team cooperate better?
A. Group members cooperating all the time.
B. Group members in a good emotional state.
C. Equal distribution of men and women.
D. Equal participation in the communication.
4.Which can be the best title of the passage?
A. When Teamwork Works B. What Teamwork Is About
C. How Teamwork Operates D. A Useful Tool: Cooperation
Regulating a complex new technology is hard, particularly if it is evolving rapidly. With autonomous vehicles(AVs) just around the corner, what can policymakers do to ensure that they arrive safely and smoothly and deliver on their promise?
The immediate goal is to make sure that AVs are safe without preventing innovation. In America, experimental AVs are allowed on the road in many states as long as the companies operating them accept responsibility. Chris Urmson of Aurora says American regulators have got things right, working closely with AV firms and issuing guidelines rather than strict rules that might prevent the progress of the industry. “It’s important that we don’t jump to regulation before we actually have something to regulate.” he says.
On the other hand, Singapore’s government has taken the most hands-on approach to preparing for AVs, says Karl Iagnemma of Nutonomy, an AV startup that has tested vehicles in the city-state. For example, it has introduced a “driving test” that AVs must pass before they can go on the road. This does not guarantee safety but sets a minimum standard.
Elsewhere, regulators have permitted limited testing on public roads but want to see more evidence that the vehicles are safe before going further, says Takao Asami of the Renault issan-Mitsubishi alliance(联盟). “Simple accumulation of mileage(里程) will never prove that the vehicle is safe.” he says. Instead, regulators are talking to car makers and technology firms to develop new safety standards. Marten Levenstam, head of product strategy at Volvo, compares the process to that of developing a new drug. First, you show in the laboratory that it might work; then you run clinical trials in which you carefully test its safety and efficiency; and if they are successful, you ask for regulatory approval to make the drug generally available. Similarly, autonomous cars are currently at the clinical-trial stage, without final approval as yet. It is not possible to prove that a new drug is entirely safe, but the risk is worth taking because of the benefits the drug provides. It will be the same for AVs, he suggests. After all, nowadays human-driven vehicles are hardly risk-free.
1.In Chris Urmson’s opinion, _______.
A. strict rules are necessary in the progress of AVs
B. we must regulate AVs before problems occur
C. governments should take approaches to preparing for AVs
D. regulators had better cooperate with AV firms and issue guidelines
2.How is the process of developing new safety standards of AVs explained in the last paragraph?
A. By giving examples B. By making comparisons
C. By analyzing cause and effects D. By listing statistics
3.What is Marten Levenstam’s attitude towards AVs?
A. Positive. B. Negative.
C. Neutral. D. Doubtful.
1.In which restaurant can you have a meal with peaceful country surroundings?
A. CHANGTOM THAI RESTAURANT AND HOTEL
B. JACK’S TRADITIONAL AND AMERICAN RESTAURANT
C. MOGHUL EXPRESS INDIAN TAKEAWAY
D. THE MARINA RESTAURANT
2.It can be concluded that _______.
A. you can enjoy the freshest local produce in CHANGTOM THAI RESTAURANT AND HOTEL
B. JACK’S TRADITIONAL AND AMERICAN RESTAURANT satisfies all different tastes
C. you can have your order delivered in MOGHUL EXPRESS INDIAN TAKEAWAY for an extra fee
D. THE MARINA RESTAURANT provides the best accommodation of the four restaurants
I was holding her hand when the man in the white coat came in. ______ both sets of X-rays, he said seriously: Her lungs were filling up with fluid(液体). This meant that ______ I would need to consult with specialists, and stop whatever was ______ into my mother’s lungs.
____, this doctor seemed to have another plan. He began speaking to me about “the quality of life.” He gave me a list of my mother’s ______ and then concluded that they added up to the ______ of her life. I had heard the phrase “We can make her ______” too many times. Now I was more ______ than hurt when doctors wanted to kill my mother.
My mother couldn’t walk, talk or swallow after her stroke, but nursing her was not ______. Whenever I asked her if her diseases were too hard on her, she just ______ her head. She was conveying to me her love and understanding beyond ______. And not just to me.
A young nurse stopped me just before the doctor appeared: “You know, I ______ my new job to your mother: She ______ me to learn to drive, so I would be not ______ buses and I could get to the hospital to work.”
So, I couldn’t help questioning the doctor’s ______ of quality of life. How did he arrive at the ______ that my mother should die? Was he making a(n) ______ calculation, that to keep a bedridden(卧床不起的) person alive was costly? He certainly did not “calculate” her endless love, the way it ______ everyone who came in contact with her. If human life is ______ to cost-benefit analyses, all forms of caring for any reason other than self-interest will be ______. Can we do better?
1.A. Looking up B. Holding up C. Setting up D. Drawing up
2.A. immediately B. occasionally C. eventually D. recently
3.A. stealing B. marching C. rushing D. storming
4.A. Therefore B. Moreover C. However D. Otherwise
5.A. vices B. strengths C. sacrifices D. disabilities
6.A. whole B. peak C. future D. end
7.A. unbearable B. moveable C. unconscious D. comfortable
8.A. relieved B. excited C. disappointed D. ashamed
9.A. tiring B. easy C. casual D. pleasant
10.A. nodded B. hung C. shook D. lifted
11.A. reach B. words C. belief D. hope
12.A. relate B. owe C. lose D. submit
13.A. forced B. encouraged C. intended D. ordered
14.A. at the mercy of B. at a loss for C. in favor of D. in charge of
15.A. framework B. instruction C. warning D. measure
16.A. precise B. rough C. arithmetic D. economic
17.A. conclusion B. agreement C. consensus D. answer
18.A. transmitted B. transferred C. transformed D. transported
19.A. admitted B. reduced C. sentenced D. committed
20.A. included B. robbed C. excluded D. confirmed
