问答题 Practice 4 　　This was the first significant victory for Mary Rose Taylor, the chairman of the Margaret Mitchell House, Inc., Foundation, who has championed the efforts to save the house. Taylor looks like a typical Buckhead Society matron: a former University of North Carolina homecoming queen, she is tall, blond, carefully coifed and married to a successful real-estate developer. But she considers herself a product of the sixties and the civil-rights movement. A former television journalist, she worked for “60 Minutes'' in the late sixties, was once married to the talk-show host Charlie Rose, and has been an anchorwoman for one of Atlanta's main television stations. She played an important role in Mayor Campbell's 1994 election campaign. “I see the Mitchell House and the debate surrounding it as a symbol of Atlanta's inability to deal with its past,” she says. “I want to use the past to stimulate greater candor about racial relations, not to glorify the antebellum South.” 　　Taylor has never read Gone with the Wind before moving to Atlanta in 1980, and hadn't seen the movie since her first date, at the age of sixteen in 1961. She didn't learn about the existence of the house until 1987 and was surprised to discover that there was no monument commemorating Mitchell. After all, the book has sold some thirty, million copies, and the movie has been seen by hundreds of millions.

问答题 Practice 10 　　The U. S. Dollar is the currency most often used in international trade. If the currency of export sales is different from the currency of the exporting country, for example a Japanese exporter sells in U.S. 　　Dollars, the exporter may encounter exchange risks-risks from fluctuations in exchange rates, for example between the U. S. Dollar and the Japanese Yen. 　　In case of the Yen appreciation at the time of converting the U.S. Dollar to the Yen, the exporter will get less Yen per U.S. Dollar. Conversely, in case of the Yen devaluation the exporter will get more Yen per U.S. Dollar. Hence, in time of currency appreciation in the exporting country, it is important that the exporter ships the goods earlier, unless an earliest date for shipment is stipulated in the L/C or has been agreed upon between exporter and importer, and present the negotiating documents to the bank immediately. 　　The exporter may contract with the bank to sell the U.S. Dollar forward in a so-called forward exchange, at a predetermined rate on an agreed future date, thus he/she will not be affected by the currency appreciation and will receive a fixed amount in his/her own currency at a future date.

问答题 Practice 2 　　What exactly does globalization mean? Concepts related to globalization include “internationalization”, “multidomestic marketing”, and “multinational or transnational marketing”, suggesting that the basic criterion is transactions across national boundaries. In the marketing and strategic management literature, globalization is conceptualized as a means to gain competitive advantage by locating different stages of production in different geographic regions according to the particular region's comparative advantage. This conceptualization focuses only on the economic aspects of globalization; social, cultural and political factors are only considered in the context of achieving economic advantage. Thus, being “culturally sensitive” in global markets is being able to sell one's product with enough ingenuity to avoid possible pitfalls arising from the seller's ignorance of local customs. International marketing textbooks discuss such cultural pitfalls in great detail; however, the cultural contest of globalization is always framed by the economy. 　　Broader conceptualization of globalization can be found in other disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. Waters defined globalization as “a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding.” This conceptualization with its much broader scope, allows for the examination of a number of consequences of globalization, not jut economic but social, cultural and political ones.

问答题 Practice 9 　　Millions of elderly Germans received a notice from the Health & Social Security Ministry earlier this month that struck a damaging blow to the welfare state. The statement informed them that their pensions were being cut. The reductions come as a stop-gap measure to control Germany's ballooning pension crisis. Not surprisingly, it was an unwelcome change for senior citizens such as Sabine Wetzel, a 67-year-old retired bank teller, who was told that her state pension would be cut by $12.30 a month. “It was a real shock,” she says.” My pension had always gone up in the past.” 　　There's more bad news on the way. On March 11, Germany's lower house of Parliament passed a bill gradually cutting state pensions- which have been rising steadily since World War Ⅱ— from 53% of average wages now to 46% by 2020. And Germany is not alone. Governments across Western Europe are racing to curb pension benefits. In Italy, the government plans to rise the minimum retirement age from 57 to 60, while France will require that civil servants put in 40 years rather than 37.5 to qualify for a full pension. The reforms are coming despite tough opposition from unions, leftist politicians, and pensioners' groups.

问答题 Practice 3 　　We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 　　But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.. that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under god, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.（The Gettysburg Address—Abraham Lincoln）

问答题 Practice 2 　　Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but he was the first man to mass-produce it, and this made it available to the ordinary man. Many automobiles were being built by the hand at the turn of the century and were much too expensive for all but the wealthy. In 1903 Henry Ford's first mass-produced Model T cars cost $850. By the early 1920s he was able to reduce the price, to $350. Between 1903 and 1927 Ford manufactured 15 million Model T Fords and earned a profit of $700 million. In 1927 he produced his sedan Model A, which was much more comfortable than the open, windswept Model T. 　　Henry Ford was himself a born mechanic and could build a car with his own hands. So he respected his workers and treated them well. In 1914, when the basic wage for an industrial worker in Detroit was $11 a week, Ford announced that he would pay his Workers $5 a day. Ford believed in the dignity of work, and did not wish his men to become underpaid robots. He also built them a special town on the outskirts of the city.

问答题 Practice 3 　　The new assault on NAFTA rests on a single premise: ex- ports arc good, imports are bad. In economic terms, that’s non- sense: exporting doesn’t benefit Americans at all unless it allows them to consume more, which is what most imports arc for. As a political proposition, though the claim that exports create jobs 　　while imports kill them is an easy sell. That’s why the critics fell silent during NAFTA’s first year, 1994, as US plants ran over- time to meet Mexico’s clamor for Coors beer. The collapse of Mexico’s peso last December, though, has devastated Mexico’s economy. Interests rates arc twice last year’s level, leaving mil- lions of middle-class families swamped by car loans and credit- card bills. Consumer spending has dropped by nearly a fifth, and the weak pesos means US-produced goods cost twice what they used to. Last year’s $ 8.9 billion US trade surplus with Mexico turned into a $ 3 billion deficit in the first half of 1995, and NAFTA foes adroitly seized the opening.

问答题 Practice 2 　　“To be a Negro in America is to hope against hope,” wrote Martin Luther King in the last year Of his life. The advance the black man in the United States, from the position of slave to that of proud and equal citizen, is slow. The black man’s hopes have often ended in despair. 　　“Of the good things in life he has about one-half those Of whites；Of the bad he has twice those Of whites, ”wrote Dr. King. Half of all black people lived in poor houses. They’re received about half as much pay as whites. They had twice as many of their people out Of work and twice as many babies dead for lack Of proper care. Allowing for their numbers, twice as many black men as white fought in the war in Vietnam, and twice as many died in that war. Most black people sti11 did work that was unpleasant and poorly paid. That was the only work they could get. (from Great People of Our Time, ed., by Carol Christian Macmillan Education,1977)

问答题 Practice 1 　　All night, long after the televised cheers and hugs celebrating the arrival of a fresh new year, national-security officials manning the White House Situation Room waited for the worst. Among other worries, they feared terrorists would hijack airliners and try a repeat of the 9/11 attacks. Despite the warnings—or perhaps because of them—the holidays passed without incident. But administration officials can’t savor whatever relief they may feel. Instead, they once again find themselves fending off complaints that they overreacted and caused a national frenzy for nothing. Some conversations between suspected Qaeda terrorists, intercepted by the National Security Agency, seemingly referred to an upcoming airplane attack in Los Angeles. Intelligence reports even mentioned specific routes and flight numbers on British, French and Mexican airlines, a level of detail agents had rarely heard before. Though drained and somewhat frustrated, federal officials aren’t prepared to let down their guard. Privately, British and French intelligence officers say they think the United States went too far; some speculate the increased chatter may have been a Qaeda disinformation campaign designed to whip up fears.

问答题 Practice 5 　　Expressionism was more than a style in painting. It could be found in theatre and cinema, literature and architecture. It was a sharing of ideas and experiences across all these media. The life stories of the Expressionist artists show just how much they had in common. Many began by studying applied art, such as furniture design, often to please their parents. Although they later made more personal art, they continued to make use of those technical skills. Both art critics and the public received this new movement with derision and outrage. Expressionist artists were trying to shock by challenging the traditional, conservative views held by many people. Gradually, however, it became accepted and even admired. 　　All the Expressionists were affected by World War I (1914-18). Some fled from Germany and spent the war years in exile. Some never returned to their homeland. Most served in the war and some were killed. At first some of them hoped a war would change society for the better but they were soon disillusioned when they saw the destruction and suffering that it caused. In the years after the war, many Expressionist artist revealed the horrors they experienced in their work.