2011年对外经贸大学翻译硕士(MTI)真题(2)

D. advocating the use of trade restrictions for “dumped” products but not for other imports
02. It can be inferred from the passage that the minimal basis for a complaint to the International Trade Commission is which of the following?
A. A foreign competitor has received a subsidy from a foreign government.
B. A foreign competitor has substantially increased the volume of products shipped to the United States.
C. A foreign competitor is selling products in the United States at less than fair market value.
D. The company requesting import relief has been injured by the sale of imports in the United States.
03. The last paragraph performs which of the following functions in the passage?
A. It summarizes the discussion thus far and suggests additional areas of research.
B. It presents a recommendation based on the evidence presented earlier.
C. It cites a s
pecific ease that illustrates a problem presented more generally in the previous paragraph.
D. It introduces an additional area of concern not

mentioned earlier.
04. The passage warns of which of the following dangers?
A. Companies in the United States may receive no protection from imports unless they actively seek protection from import competition.
B. Companies that seek legal protection from import competition may incur legal costs that far exceed any possible gain.
C. Companies that are United States owned but operate internationally may not be eligible for protection from import competition under the laws of the countries in which their plants operate.
D. Companies that are not United States owned may seek legal protection from import competition under United States import relief laws.
05. According to the passage, the International Trade Commission is involved in which of the following?
A. Investigating allegations of unfair import competition
B. Granting subsidies to eompanies in the United States that have been injured by import competition
C. Recommending legislation to ensure fair trade
D. Identifying international corporations that wish to build plants in the United States
Passage B
Since the late 1970s, in the face Of a severe loss of market share in dozens of industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through cost-cutting programs. （Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output while holding the amount of labor constant.）
However, from 1978 through 1982, productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of the three years following, they ran 25 percent lower than productivity improvements during earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive edge.
With this paradox in mind, I recently visited 25 companies; it became clear to me that the cost-cutting approach to increasing productivity is fundamentally flawed. Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20” rule. Roughly 4o percent of any manufacturing-based competitive advantage derives from long-term changes in manufacturing structure （decisions about the number, size, location, and capacity of facilities） and in approaches to materials.Another 40 percent comes from major changes in equipment and process technology. The final 20percent rests on implementing conventional cost-cutting. This rule does not imply that cost-cutting should not be tried. The well-known tools of this approach—including simplifying jobs and retraining employees to work smarter, not harder—do produce results. But the tools quickly reach the limits of what they can contribute.
Another problem is that the cost-cutting approach hinde
rs innovation and discourages creative people. As Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers has shown, an industry can easily become prisone

r of its own investments in cost-cutting techniques, reducing its ability to develop new products. And managers under pressure to maximize cost-cutting will resist innovation because they know that more fundamental changes in processes or systems will wreak havoc with the results on which they are measured. Production managers have always seen their job as one of minimizing costs and maximizing output. This dimension of performance has until recently sufficed as a basis of evaluation, but it has created a penny-pinching, mechanistic culture in most factories that has kept away creative managers.
Every company I know that has freed itself from the paradox has done so, in part, by developing and implementing a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategy focuses on the manufacturing structure and on equipment and process technology. In one company a manufacturing strategy that allowed different areas of the factory to specialize in different markets replaced the conventional cost-cutting approach; within three years the company regained its competitive advantage. Together with such strategies, successful companies are also encouraging managers to focus on a wider set of objectives besides cutting costs. There is hope for manufacturing, but it clearly rests on a different way of managing.
01 The author of the passage is primarily concerned with ______.
A. summarizing a thesis
B. recommending a different approach
C. comparing points of view
D. making a series of predictions
02 It can be inferred from the passage that the manufacturers mentioned in paragraph 1 expected that the measures they implemented would ______.
A. encourage innovation
B. keep labor output constant
C. increase their competitive advantage
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