GMAT综合阅读精解之二十五

2022-05-25 04:34:32

  GMAT阅读部分属于GMAT考试写作、语文、数学中的语文部分,在考试中大概有三或者四篇文章,很多考生反应在对这部分题进行解答时,时间不够用,要想提高解题速度,考生在备考过程中多加练习,本文小编为大家带来了

  Since the late 1970’s, in the face of a severe loss of

  market share in dozens of industries, manufacturers in

  the United States have been trying to improve produc-

  tivity—and therefore enhance their international

  (5) 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—

  (10) 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 imple-

  (15) ment 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

  (20) flawed. Manufacturing regularly observes a “40, 40, 20”

  rule. Roughly 40 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

  (25) to materials. Another 40 percent comes from major

  changes in equipment and process technology. The final

  20 percent 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—

  (30) 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

  (35) hinders innovation and discourages creative people. As

  Abernathy’s study of automobile manufacturers has

  shown, an industry can easily become prisoner of its

  own investments in cost-cutting techniques, reducing its

  ability to develop new products. And managers under

  (40) 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

  (45) 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

  (50) paradox has done so, in part, by developing and imple-

  menting a manufacturing strategy. Such a strategy

  focuses on the manufacturing structure and on equip-

  ment and process technology. In one company a manu-

  facturing strategy that allowed different areas of the

  (55) 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.

  1.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

  (E) describing a number of paradoxes

  2. It can be inferred from the passage that the manufacturrs

  mentioned in line 2 expected that the measures they

  implemented would

  (A) encourage innovation

  (B) keep labor output constant

  (C) increase their competitive advantage

  (D) permit business upturns to be more easily predicted

  (E) cause managers to focus on a wider set of objectives

  3. The primary function of the first paragraph of the

  passage is to

  (A) outline in brief the author’s argument

  (B) anticipate challenges to the prescriptions that follow

  (C) clarify some disputed definitions of economic terms

  (D) summarize a number of long-accepted explanations

  (E) present a historical context for the author’s

  observations

  4. The author refers to Abernathy’s study (line 36) most

  probably in order to

  (A) qualify an observation about one rule governing

  manufacturing

  (B) address possible objections to a recommendation

  about improving manufacturing competitiveness

  (C) support an earlier assertion about one method of

  increasing productivity

  (D) suggest the centrality in the United States economy

  of a particular manufacturing industry

  (E) given an example of research that has questioned the

  wisdom of revising a manufacturing strategy

  5. The author’s attitude toward the culture in most factories

  is best described as

  (A) cautious

  (B) critical

  (C) disinterested

  (D) respectful

  (E) adulatory

  6. In the passage, the author includes all of the following

  EXCEPT

  (A) personal observation

  (B) a business principle

  (C) a definition of productivity

  (D) an example of a successful company

  (E) an illustration of a process technology

  7. The author suggests that implementing conventional

  cost-cutting as a way of increasing manufacturing

  competitiveness is a strategy that is

  (A) flawed and ruinous

  (B) shortsighted and difficult to sustain

  (C) popular and easily accomplished

  (D) useful but inadequate

  (E) misunderstood but promising

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