Passage 4
　　The appeal of advertising to buying motives can have both negative and positive effects. Consumers may be convinced to buy a product of poor quality or high price because of an advertisement. For example, some advertisers have appealed to people’s desire for better fuel economy for their cars by advertising automotive products that improve gasoline mileage. Some of the products work. Others are worthless and a waste of consumers’ money.
　　Sometimes advertising is intentionally misleading. A few years ago a brand of bread was offered to dieters (节食者) with the message that there were fewer calories (热量单位，大卡) in every slice. It turned out that the bread was not dietetic (适合于节食的), but just regular bread. There were fewer calories because it was sliced very thin, but there were the same number of calories in every loaf.
　　On the positive side, emotional appeals may respond to a consumer’s real concerns. Consider fire insurance. Fire insurance may be sold by appealing to fear of loss. But fear of loss is the real reason for fire insurance. The security of knowing that property is protected by insurance makes the purchase of fire insurance a worthwhile investment for most people. If consumers consider the quality of the insurance plans as well as the message in the ads, they will benefit from the advertising.
　　Each consumer must evaluate her or his own situation. Are the benefits of the product important enough to justify buying it? Advertising is intended to appeal to consumers, but it does not force them to buy the product. Consumers still control the final buying decision.
　　1. Advertising can persuade the consumer to buy worthless products by ______.
　　A. stressing their high quality
　　B. convincing him of their low price
　　C. maintaining a balance between quality and price
　　D. appealing to his buying motives
　　2. The reason why the bread advertisement is misleading is that _______.
　　A. thin slices of bread could contain more calories
　　B. the loaf was cut into regular slices
　　C. the bread was not genuine bread
　　D. the total number of calories in the loaf remained the same
　　3. The passage tells us that _______.
　　A. sometimes advertisements really sell what the consumer needs
　　B. advertisements occasionally force consumers into buying things they don’t need
　　C. the buying motives of consumers are controlled by advertisements
　　D. fire insurance is seldom a worthwhile investment
　　4. It can be inferred from the passage that a smart consumer should _____.
　　A. think carefully about the benefits described in the advertisements
　　B. guard against the deceiving nature of advertisements
　　C. be familiar with various advertising strategies
　　D. avoid buying products that have strong emotional appeal
　　5.  The passage is mainly about _______.
　　A. how to make a wise buying decision
　　B. ways to protect the interests of the consumer
　　C. the positive and negative aspects of advertising
　　D. the function of advertisements in promoting sales： [NextPage]

　　Passage 5
　　The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at this process and worrying: “Won’t the wave of business concentration turn into an uncontrollable anti-competitive force?”
　　There’s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful. Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in 1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early 1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability of the world economy.
　　I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation and communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that require enlarged operations capable of meeting customer’s demands. All these are beneficial, not detrimental, to consumers. As productivity grows, the world’s wealth increases.
　　Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty. Yet it is hard to imagine that the merger of a few oil firms today could re-create the same threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U.S., when the Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as WorldCom, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing — witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault and Nissan — but it does not appear that consumers are being hurt.
　　Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who is going to supervise, regulate and operate as lender of last resort with the gigantic banks that are being created? Won’t multinationals shift production from one place to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair competition? And should one country take upon itself the role of “defending competition” on issues that affect many other nations, as in the U.S. vs. Microsoft case?
　　1. What is the typical trend of businesses today?
　　A. to take in more foreign funds
　　B. to invest move abroad
　　C. to combine and become bigger
　　D. to trade with more countries
　　2. According to the author, one of the driving forces behind the M&A wave is ______.
　　A. the greater customer demands
　　B. a surplus supply for the market
　　C. a growing productivity
　　D. the increase of the world’s wealth
　　3. From paragraph 4 we can infer that ______.
　　A. the increasing concentration is certain to hurt consumers
　　B. WorldCom serves as a good example of both benefits and costs
　　C. the costs of the globalization process are enormous
　　D. the Standard Oil trust might have threatened competition
　　4. Toward the new business wave, the writer’s attitude can be said to be ______.
　　A. optimistic  B. objective  C. pessimistic   D. biased