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Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
Caught in a squeeze between the health needs of aging populations on one hand and the financial crisis on the other, governments everywhere are looking for ways to slow the growth in health-care spending. Increasingly, they are looking to the generic-drugs (普通藥物) industry as a savior. In November Japan's finance ministry issued a report complaining that the country's use of generics was less than a third of that in America or Britain. In the same month Canada's competition watchdog criticized the country's pharmacies for failing to pass on the savings made possible by the use of generic drugs. That greed, it reckoned, costs taxpayers nearly C$1 billion a year.
Then on November 28th the European Commission issued the preliminary results of its year-long probe into drug giants in the European Union. The report reached a damning~, though provisional, conclusion: the drugs firms use a variety of unfair strategies to protect their expensive drugs by delaying the entry of cheaper generic opponents. Though this initial report does not carry the force of law (a final report is due early next year), it has caused much controversy. Neelie Kroes, the EU's competition commissioner, says she is ready to take legal action if the evidence allows.
One strategy the investigators criticize is the use of the "patent duster( 專利群)". A firm keen to defend its drug due to go off-patent may file dozens or hundreds of new patents, often of dubious merit, to confuse and terrify potential copycats and maintain its monopoly. An unnamed drugs firm once took out 1,300 patents across the EU on a single drug. The report also suggests that out-of-court settlements between makers of patented drags and generics firms may be a strategy used by the former to delay market entry by the latter.
According to EU officials, such misdeeds -have delayed the arrival of generic competition and the accompanying savings. On average, rite report estimates, generics arrived seven months after a patented drug lost its protection, though where the drug was a big seller the lag was four months. The report says taxpayers paid about q 3 billion more than they would have-had the generics gone on sale immediately.
But hang on a minute, Though many of the charges of bad behavior leveled at the patented-drugs industry by EU investigators may well be true, the report seems to let the generics industry off the hook(鉤子) too lightly. After all, if the drugs giants stand accused, in effect, of bribing opponents to delay the launch of cheap generics, shouldn't the companies that accepted those "bribes" also share the blame?
56. Why are governments around the world seeking ways to reduce their health-care spending?
A) They consider the generic-drugs industry as a savior.
B) They are under the double pressure of aging group and financial crisis.
C) Health-care spending has accounted too large proportion.
D) Health-care spending has cost taxpayers too much income.
57. What can we learn from the report issued by the European Commission?
A) Drug firm will use just ways to protect their drags.
B) Cheaper generic drugs are easy to enter market,
C) The report has come to an ultimate conclusion.
D) The final report may lead to commissioner's legal action.
58. The investigators seriously condemned the drug firms for__________.
A) they do not let their opponents to resort to the comet
B) they use clusters of patents to protect their products
C) they bribe the cheaper generic opponents
D) trey do not pass on the savings made by use of generic drugs
59. On average, the genetics will be delayed to enter the market by __________.
A) seven months
B) three months
C) four months
D) eleven months
60. Which of the following accords with the author's view?
A) Charges on patented-drug industry are anything but true.
B) Generics industry is a sheer victim in the competition.
C) Only drug giants are to blame.
D) Exclusion of generics industry from taking responsibility is questionable.
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
Yet with economies in free fail, managers also need up-to-date information about what is happening to their businesses, so that they can change course rapidly if necessary. Cisco, an American network-equipment giant, has invested over many years in the technology needed to generate such data .Frank Caideroni, the firm's CFO, says that every day its senior executives can track exactly what orders are coming in from sales teams around the world, and identify emerging trends in each region and market segment. And at the end of each month, the firm can get reliable financial results within four hours of closing its books. Most firms have to wait days or even weeks for such certainty.
Admittedly, Cisco's financial results have not made happy reading recently because, in common with many other large technology companies, it has seen demand for its products decline in the downturn. In early February it announced that its fiscal second-quarter revenues of $ 9.1 billion were 7.5% lower than the same period in 2008 and that its profit had fallen by 27%, to $1.5 billion.
In response to hard times, Cisco plans to cut $1 billion of costs this year by, among other things, making use of its own video-conferencing and other communications technologies to reduce the amount its executives travel. It is also using these facilities to relay information from employees on the ground to its senior managers, and to get instructions from Cisco's leaders back out to its 67,000 staff. A rapid exchange of information and instructions is especially valuable if the company wants to alter course in stormy times.
If everybody in a company can rapidly grasp what they have to do and how it is changing, they are more likely to get the job done. But some firms are reluctant to share their goals with the wider world. Unilever, a big Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods group, has decided against issuing a 2009 financial forecast to investors, arguing that it is difficult to predict what is going to happen, given the dangerous state of the world economy. "We're not just going to provide numbers for the sake of it," explains James Allison, the company's head of investor relations. Other companies that have decided not to provide annual earnings estimates for 2009 include Costco, a big American retailer, and Union Pacific, an American railway company.
Some firms, such as Intel, seem to have chosen to take things quarter by quarter. The giant chipmaker(芯片制造商) said in January that it would not issue an official forecast for the first quarter of 2009 after its fourth-quarter 2008 profit decreased by 90%. Several retail chains have also stopped providing monthly sales estimates because they cannot see what the future holds. Retailers, chipmakers and firms in many other industries may have a long wait before the economic fog finally lifts.
61. What can we learn about Cisco from the passage?
A) It will keep a record of the orders from sales teams.
B) It cuts $1 billion cost by solely relying on its own technologies.
C) Unlike other technology companies, its financial reports are encouraging.
D) Only employees can use the video-conferencing to pass information.
62. According to the author, the staff can perform better by__________.
A) getting instructions from their senior managers
B) seizing what to do at hand and what to do next
C) having a financial forecast as a goal
D) sharing their goals with others
63. What is important in the unstable time ff a company wants to change strategies?
A) To issue company's financial reports faster.
B) To obtain the up-to-date information of company's business.
C) To predict what is going to happen in the future.
D) To wait until the economic fog finally lifts.
64. The reason Unilever plans not to issue financial forecast in 2009 lies in__________.
A) its reluctance to share its goal with others
B) its rapid grasp of changes in the markets
C) the unstable economic situation
D) its reduction in the cost of prediction
65. What can we know about the giant chipmaker, Intel in the passage?
A) It did not issue first-quarter forecast for great decrease in January.
B) Inters chain store used to report sales estimates by year.
C) Only retailers and chipmakers are greatly influenced.
D) Intel's profit was greatly decreased in 2008's last quarter.
