听力原文:M: So, what exactly are you doing to protect the elephants here?
W: Well, we have managed to raise a lot of money for this project. A lot of it is being used to compensate farmers for the damage that elephants do to their crops.
M: How does that protect the elephants?
W: Since the elephants cause damage to the crops, farmers are often tempted to go out and kill the elephants.
M: I see. So, the farmers don't have a real problem with the elephants until the elephants start eating the crops. But why do the elephants do that?
W: Well, there aren't enough trees to provide them with food on the land that has been re served for them.
M: Mm. But if you successfully protect the elephants, their numbers will grow and they will need more food. That means that they'll need more land.
W: That's true, but we've solved that problem too. What we do is move some elephants to reservations where there are relatively few.
M: So that's where you spend another large proportion of the money you raise.
W: Actually, it isn't very expensive because we share the cost with the people who run the other reservations.
M: I see. How do you decide which elephants to move?
W: We use two criteria. The first is that we maintain the genetic diversity of the elephant herd. The second is that we transport the more aggressive members of the herd, which results in us spending less money compensating farmers.
M: Are there any plans to expand the reservation?
W: We have allocated some money to land purchases, but such purchases could have a detrimental effect on the local human population, so we rarely do it.
M: What kinds 'of research are you doing on the elephants here?
W: We're mainly studying the way that elephants interact with each other within a herd.
M: I see. Well, thanks very much for your time.
W: My pleasure.
(23)
A. Water
B. Crops
C. Money
D. Trees
The European Union indicates the non-profit organization of ICANN can ensure a safe online
A. Y
B. N
C. NG
The Internet
In November 2005, thousands of government representatives and information experts met in Tunis, Tunisia to discuss the future of the Internet. The United Nations organized the World Summit on the Information Society to discuss Internet growth in developing nations. But the three-day meetings also developed into a struggle over who controls the Internet.
The Internet grew out of research paid for by the United States Defense Department in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, the United States government still has .some control over it. In 1998, the Commerce Department set up a non-profit organization to supervise the domain name system of the Internet's World Wide Web. The Web is a major service on the Internet. The group, based in California, is called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN.
A domain name is a series of words separated by dots. It identifies an Internet Web site. ICANN operates a list of Web site owners and approves new endings for Web addresses, such as dot-com, dotnet or dot-gov. The group guarantees that Internet users around the world do not visit different Websites using the same Web address. For example, thanks to ICANN, a person in Cuba will see the same www. unsv. com Website as someone in Belarus. ICANN also has some Internet policy powers. It can remove Web sites from the Internet. It also decides who can sell and list domain names.
The European Onion, China, Brazil, India and other countries want the United States to release at least some control over the World Wide Web. They believe that the Internet is an international resource that should be supervised by the United Nations or some other independent organization. The Bush Administration disagrees. It says that ICANN is the best way to guarantee an open, secure and dependable online environment. Heavy governmental controls, it says, would suppress Internet growth and development.
Hours before the start of the Tunis conference, negotiators agreed to leave day-to-day supervision of the Internet with ICANN. The compromise proposal from the European Union calls for the creation next year of an international governance committee. Governments, businesses and organizations will be able to discuss public policy issues, including Internet crime, junk mail and viruses. The committee, however, will not have powers to make rules.
The World Future Society estimated last year, the year of 2004, that about 950 million people around the world were using the Internet. That number is expected to rise to more than 1,000 million people within the next two years.
Most Internet communication is business-to-business, instead of personal electronic mail. Buying and selling goods and services over the Internet is growing around the world. The World Future Society estimates that 2.7 million million dollars was earned through Internet commerce in 2004.But, there are risks involved with this e-commerce. For example, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that more than 52,000 million dollars in goods and services were purchased last year through identity theft. Identity thieves steal personal information from Americans. They collect Social Security numbers, banking records and telephone numbers. They use this information to request loans, or to get credit cards in the name of the victim.
Identity thieves often use computer viruses to collect a victim's personal information. They may also use spyware. These are programs that are loaded onto a computer without the owner's knowledge. Spyware follows the computer user's online activities. Identity thieves also use another method called Internet "phishing." These e-mail messages attempt to collect an Internet user's personal information, such as credit card numbers, by acting like a real business.
People can protect themselves from
A. Y
B. N
C. NG
Read the article about managing a small business and the questions below.
For each question 13—18, mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet, for the answer you choose.
The Hardships of Operating A Small Business
'the organisational weaknesses that entrepreneurs have to cope with every day would cause the managers of a mature company to panic, ' Bill Wilson wrote recently in Times. This seems to suggest that the leaders of entrepreneurial or small businesses must be unlike other managers, or the problems faced by such leaders must be the subject of a specialised body of wisdom, or possibly both. Unfortunately, neither is true. Not much worth reading about managing the entrepreneurial or small business has been written, and the leaders of such businesses are made of flesh and blood, like the rest of us.
Furthermore, little has been done to address the aspects of entrepreneurial or small businesses that are so difficult to deal with and so different from the challenges faced by management in big business. In part this is because those involved in gathering expertise about business and in selling advice to businesses have historically been more interested in the needs of big business. In part, in the UK at least, it is also because small businesses have always preferred to adapt to changing circumstances.
The organisational problems of entrepreneurial or small businesses are thus forced upon the individuals who lead them. Even more so than for bigger businesses, the old saying is true—that people, particularly those who make the important decisions, are a business's most important asset. The research that does exist shows that neither money nor the ability to access more of it is the major factor determining growth. The main reason an entrepreneurial business stops growing is the lack of management and leadership resource available to the business when it matters. Give an entrepreneur an experienced, skilled team and he or she will find the funds every time. Getting the team, though, is the difficult bit.
Part of the problem for entrepreneurs is the speed of change that affects their businesses. They have to cope with continuous change yet have always been suspicious about the latest'management solution ' . They regard the many offerings from business schools as out of date even before they leave the planning board and have little faith in the recommendations of consultants when they arrive in the hands of young, inexperienced graduates. But such impatience with'management solutions'does not mean that problems can be left to solve themselves. However, the leaders of growing businesses are still left with the problem of who to turn to for advice.
The answer is horribly simple: leaders of small businesses can ask each other. The collective knowledge of a group of leaders can prove enormously helpful in solving the specific problems of individuals. One leader's problems have certainly been solved already by someone else. These is an organisation called ZERO which enables those responsible for small businesses to meet. Its members, all of whom are chief executives, go through a demanding selection process, and then join a small group of other chief executives. They come from a range of business sectors and each offers a different corporate history. Each group is led by a'moderator ' , an independently selected businessman or woman who has been specially trained to head the group. Each member takes it in turn to host a meeting at his or her business premises and, most important of all, group discussions are kept strictly confidential. This spurs a free sharing of problems and increases the possibility of solutions being unveiled.
According to the second paragraph, what has led to a lack of support for entrepreneurs?
A. Entrepreneurs have always preferred to act independently.
B. The requirements of big businesses have always taken priority.
C. It is difficult to find solutions to the problems faced by entrepreneurs.
D. Entrepreneurs are reluctant to provide information about their businesses.