Due to the present crisis and competition pressure, there will be more mergers within the
A.Y
B.N
C.NG
A.Y
B.N
C.NG
What advice does the author give topeople engaged in a fierce debate?
A) They listen carefully to theiropponents’ views.
B) They slow due respect for eachother’s beliefs.
C) They present their viewsclearly and explicitly.
D) They take care not to hurt eachother’s feelings.
A.They listen carefully to their opponents" views.
B.They show due respect for each other"s beliefs.
C.They present their views clearly and explicitly.
D.They take care not to hurt each other"s feelings.
【M1】
听力原文: Cannes Film Festival, the most prestigious motion- picture festival in the world, is held each May in the city of Cannes, in southeast France. The Cannes Film Festival was conceived at the end of 1938. Due to World War II, however, the first Cannes Film Festival was not held until 1946. Internationalism and postwar optimism characterized the first festival, as organizers placed less emphasis on competition than on mutual creative stimulation between national productions. In later years the selection of entries for prizes reflected more commercial interests and the festival soon acquired its current reputation as a fashionable professional event, more concerned with advancing the film industry than the art of film. French director Francois Truffaut addressed this issue in 1956 and predicted its commercial death; The festival survived, however, and in 1959, Truffaut himself was awarded the prize for best screenplay for one of his films.
Despite its ever present financial interests, the Cannes Film Festival remains an essential affair for international cinema. In 1955 the organizing committee at Cannes introduced the Golden Palm Award (in English) for best film of the festival, now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes. Past recipients of the award include Taxi Driver by American director Martin Scorsese, The Piano by New Zealand director Jane Campion, etc.
(30)
A.In 1938.
B.In 1946.
C.In 1955.
D.During the World War II.
The recent growth of export surpluses on the world food market has certainly been unexpectedly great, partly because a strange sequence(连续) of two successful grain harvests in North America is now being followed by a third. Most of Britain' s overseas suppliers of meat, too, are offering more this year and home production has also risen.
But the effect of all this on the food situation in his country has been made worse by a simultaneous rise in food prices, due chiefly to the. gradual curling down of government support for food. The shops are overstocked with food not only because there is more food available, but also because people, frightened by high prices, are buying less of it.
Moreover, the rise in domestic prices has come at a time when world prices have begun to fall, with the result that imported food, with the exception of grain, is often cheaper than the home-produced variety. And now grain prices, too, are falling. Consumers are beginning to ask why they should not be enabled to benefit from this trend.
The significance of these developments is not lost on farmers. The older generation have seen it all happen before.: Despite the present price and market guarantees, farmers fear they are about to be squeezed between cheap food imports and a shrinking home market. Present production is running at 51 per cent above pre-war levels, and the government has called for an expansion to 60 per cent by 1956; but repeated ministerial advice is carrying little weight and the expansion programme is not working very well.
Why is there" widespread uneasiness and confusion" about the food situation in Britain?
A.The abundant food supply is not expected to last .
B.Britain is importing less food.
C.Despite the abundance, food prices keep rising.
D.Britain will cut back on its production of food.
The recent growth of export surpluses on the world food market has certainly been unexpectedly great, partly because a strange sequence of two successful grain harvests. North America is now being followed by a third. Most of Britain’s overseas suppliers of meat, too, are offering more this year and home production has also risen.
But the effect of all this on the food situation in this country has been made worse by a simultaneous rise in food prices, due chiefly to the gradual cutting down of government support for food. The shops are overstocked with food not only because there is more food available, but also because people, frightened by high prices, are buying less of it.
Moreover, the rise in domestic prices has come at a time when world prices have begun to fall, with the result that imported food, with the exception of grain, is often cheaper than the home-produced variety. And now grain prices, too, are falling. Consumers are beginning to ask why they should not be enabled to benefit from this trend.
The significance of these developments is not lost on farmers. The older generation have seen it all happen before. Despite the present price and market guarantees, farmers fear they are about to be squeezed between cheap food imports and a shrinking home market. Present production is running at 51 per cent above pre-war levels, and the government has called for an expansion to 60 per cent by 1956; but repeated Ministerial advice is carrying little weight and the expansion programme is not working very well.
第7题:The main reason for the rise in food prices is that ________.
A) people are buying less food
B) the government is providing less financial support for agriculture
C) domestic food production has decreased
D) imported food is driving prices higher
This may sound like a fantastic proposal, but so, I think, our insurance system would have sounded to people a hundred years ago. The main objection to such a scheme would be that if each person were entitled to receive minimum support, people would not work. This assumption rests on the fallacy of the inherent laziness in human nature, actually, aside from abnormally lazy people, there would be very few who would not want to earn more than the minimum, and who would prefer to do nothing rather than work.
However, the suspicions against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not groundless, from the standpoint of those who want to use ownership of capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer. If nobody were forced to accept work in order not to starve, work would have to be sufficiently interesting and attractive to induce one to accept it. Freedom of contract is possible only if both parties are free to accept and reject it; in the present capitalist system this is not the case.
But such a system would not only be the beginning of real freedom of contract between employers and employees, its principal advantage would be the improvement of freedom in inter-personal relationships in every sphere of daily life.
第6题:People used to think that poverty and unemployment were due to ________.
A) the slow development of the economy
B) the poor and jobless people’s own faults
C) the lack of responsibility on the part of society
D) the large number of people who were not well-educated
There are several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be owing to the extent and complexity of the special knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your mind. You have no time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed (let us say) as modern medicine has succeeded, in enormously lowering the infant death-rate, not only in Europe and America, but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowing the standard of life in the parts of the world that have the greatest populations. To take an even more dramatic example, which is in everybody’s mind at the present time; you study the makeup of the atom from a disinterested (无利害关系的) desire for knowledge, and by chance place in the hands of a powerful mad man the means of destroying the human race.
Therefore, with every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments (增强) our capacity for realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purpose are unwise.
第31题:Disagreement arises when people try to decide ________.
A) how much more wisdom we have now than before
B) what wisdom is and how to develop it
C) if there is a great increase of wisdom in our age
D) whether wisdom can be developed or not
So why is this huge increase in population taking place? It is really due to the spread of the knowledge and practice of what is becoming known as "Death Control". You have no doubt heard of the term "Birth Control". "Death Control" is something rather different. It recognizes the work of the doctors and scientists who now keep alive people who, not very long ago, would have died of a variety of then incurable diseases. Through a wide variety of technological innovations that include farming methods and the control of deadly diseases, we have found ways to reduce the rate at which we die. However, this success is the very cause of the greatest threat to mankind.
If we examine the amount of land available for this ever-increasing population, we begin to see the problem. If everyone on the planet had an equal share of land, we would each have about 50,000 square meters. This figure seems to be quite encouraging until we examine the amount of usable land we actually have. More than three-fifths of the world's land cannot produce food.
Obviously, with so little land to support us, we should be taking great care not to reduce it further. But we are not! Instead, we are consuming its "capital" — its nonrenewable fossil fuels and other mineral deposits that took millions of years to form. but which are now being destroyed in decades. We are also doing the same with other vital resources not usually thought of as being nonrenewable such as fertile soils, groundwater and the millions of other species that share the earth with us.
It is a very common belief that the problems of the population explosion are caused mainly by poor people living in poor countries who do not know enough to limit their reproduction. This is not true. The actual number of people in an area is not as important as the effect they have on nature. Developing countries do have an effect on their environment, but it is the populations of richer countries that have a far greater impact on the earth as a whole.
According to the article, what contributes to the population increase?
A.Birth explosion.
B.Birth Control.
C.Technological innovations.
D.Death Control.
Selling price and variable cost are given here in current price terms before taking account of forecast selling price inflation of 4% per year and variable cost inflation of 5% per year.
Incremental fixed costs of $500,000 per year in current price terms would arise as a result of producing the new product. Fixed cost inflation of 8% per year is expected.
The initial investment cost of production equipment for the new product will be $2·5 million, payable at the start of the first year of operation. Production will cease at the end of four years because the new product is expected to have become obsolete due to new technology. The production equipment would have a scrap value at the end of four years of $125,000 in future value terms.
Investment in working capital of $1·5 million will be required at the start of the first year of operation. Working capital inflation of 6% per year is expected and working capital will be recovered in full at the end of four years.
Hebac Co pays corporation tax of 20% per year, with the tax liability being settled in the year in which it arises. The company can claim tax-allowable depreciation on a 25% reducing balance basis on the initial investment cost, adjusted in the final year of operation for a balancing allowance or charge. Hebac Co currently has a nominal after-tax weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of 12% and a real after-tax WACC of 8·5%. The company uses its current WACC as the discount rate for all investment projects.
Required:
(a) Calculate the net present value of the investment project in nominal terms and comment on its financial acceptability. (12 marks)
(b) Discuss how the capital asset pricing model can assist Hebac Co in making a better investment decision with respect to its new product launch. (8 marks)