听力原文: Canada, for the 7th consecutive year, runs the best place to live in the world. But if you're a woman, you are better-off in Scandinavia, says the UN human development report 2000 released yesterday. Norway is in 2nd place of all the ranking, followed by the US, Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan and Britain. Finland is in 11th place, followed by France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand. At the other end of the scale, the 10 least developed countries that provide the fewest services to their people, from the bottom up, are war- devastated Sierra Leon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Chad, Central African Republic, and Mali.
According to the UN Human Development Report, which is the best place for women in the world?
A. Canada.
B. The US.
C. Australia.
D. Scandinavia.
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1 Harry Truman didn't think his successor had the right training to be president. "Poor Ike — it won't be a bit like the Army," he said. "He'll sit there all day saying ,do this, do that,'and nothing will happen." Truman was wrong about Ike. Dwight Eisenhower had led a fractious alliance — you didn't tell Winston Churchill what to do — in a massive, chaotic war. He was used to politics. But Truman's insight could well be applied to another, even more venerated Washington figure, the CEO-turned cabinet secretary.
2 A 20-year bull market has convinced us all that CEOs are geniuses, so watch with astonishment the troubles of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O'Neill. Here are two highly regarded businessmen, obviously intelligent and well-informed, foundering in their jobs.
3 Actually, we shouldn't be surprised. Rumsfeld and O'Neill are not doing badly despite having been successful CEOs but because of it. The record of senior businessmen in government is one of almost unrelieved disappointment. In fact, with the exception of Robert Rubin, it is difficult to think of a CEO who had a successful career in government.
4 Why is this? Well, first the CEO has to recognize that he is no longer the CEO. He is at best an adviser to the CEO, the president. But even the president is not really the CEO. No one is. Power in a corporation is concentrated and vertically structured. Power in Washington is diffuse and horizontally spread out. The secretary might think he's in charge of his agency. But the chairman of the congressional committee funding that agency feels the same. In his famous study "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents," Richard Neustadt explains how little power the president actually has and concludes that the only lasting presidential power is "the power to persuade."
5 Take Rumsfeld's attempt to transform. the cold-war military into one geared for the future. It's innovative but deeply threatening to almost everyone in Washington. The Defense secretary did not try to sell it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, the budget office or the White House. As a result, the idea is collapsing.
6 Second, what power you have, you must use carefully. For example, O'Neill's position as Treasury secretary is one with little formal authority. Unlike Finance ministers around the world, Treasury does not control the budget. But it has symbolic power. The secretary is seen as the chief economic spokesman for the administration and, if he plays it right, the chief economic adviser for the president.
7 O'Neill has been publicly critical of the IMF's bailout packages for developing countries while at the same time approving such packages for Turkey, Argentina and Brazil. As a result, he has gotten the worst of both worlds. The bailouts continue, but their effect in holstering investor confidence is limited because the markets are rattled by his skepticism.
8 Perhaps the government doesn't do bailouts well. But that leads to a third rule: you can't just quit. Jack Welch's famous law for re-engineering General Electric was to be first or second in any given product category, or else get out of that business. But if the government isn't doing a particular job at peak level, it doesn't always have the option of relieving itself of that function. The Pentagon probably wastes a lot of money. But it can't get out of the national-security business.
9 The key to former Treasury secretary Rubin's success may have been that he fully understood that business and government are, in his words, "necessarily and properly very different." In a recent speech he explained, "Business functions around one predominate organizing principle, profitability ... Government, on the other hand, deals with a vast number of equally legitimate and often potentially competing objectives — for example, energy production&nb
A. regard the president as the CEO.
B. take absolute control of his department.
C. exercise more power than the congressional committee.
D. become acquainted with its power structure.
SECTION B INTERVIEW
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
听力原文: When we talk about modern company, we usually have managers, employees, products, research development or marketing in mind. However, in reality, a company is not just made up of these elements. There are other things that make a company what it is. This morning, we're going to look at some other aspects of a company. Let's first take a look at the offices.
The physical surroundings of most modern companies, especially offices, are becoming more and more similar. Although there are some differences from country to country, one office looks much like another. Office furniture and equipment tend to be similar: desks, chairs, filing cabinets, computers, etc. What is important about offices, you may ask? Well, the atmosphere of the work place can often influence the effectiveness of a company's employees. Modern offices are more spacious and better lit, heated, ventilated and air-conditioned than in the past.
But of course this is a feature that varies from firm to firm and may be dependent on the size of the company and its corporate philosophy. In some companies, the employees work in large open plain offices without walls between the departments. In others, the staff members work more privately in individual offices. No matter what the office layout is like, modern companies pay special attention to the physical surroundings in order to create an atmosphere conducive to higher working efficiency.
Another related point when talking about offices is the work relations with other people at the place of work. They include relationships with fellow employees, workers or colleagues. A great part of work or job satisfaction, some people say the major portion, comes from getting on with others' work. Work relations will also include those between management and employees. These relations are not always straightforward, particularly as the management's assessment of how your performing can be crucial to your future career.
Now I'd like to say a bit more about the relations between management and employees. There are also matters about which employees want to talk to the management. In small businesses, the boss will probably work alongside his or her workers. Anything that needs to be sought out will be done face to face as soon the problem arises. There will be no formal meetings or procedures. But the larger the business, the less direct contact there will be between employees and management. Special meetings have to be held and procedures set up to say when, where, how and in what circumstances the employees can talk to the management. Some companies have specially organized consultative committees for this purpose. In many countries of the world today, particularly in large firms, employees join the trade union and ask the union to represent them to the management. Through the union, all categories of employees can pass on the complaints they have and try to get things changed.
The process through which unions negotiate with the management on behalf of their members is called collective bargaining. Instead of each employee trying to bargain alone with the company, the employees join together and collectively put forward their views. Occasionally, the firm will refuse to recognize the right of the union to negotiate for its members and the dispute over union recognition will arise. Where there is disagreement, bargaining or negotiation will take place.
A compromise agreement may be reached. Where this is not possible, the sides can go to arbitration and bring in a third party from outside
A. Offices throughout the world are basically alike.
B. There are primarily two kinds of office layout.
C. Office surroundings used to depend on company size.
D. Office atmosphere influences workers' performance.
听力原文: Voters in Peru headed to the post today to cast their ballot in a runoff presidential election that many hope will mark the end of the nation's political crisis. Opinion polls last week showed the moderate candidate Alejandro Toledo with a narrow lead over the left-leaning former president Alan Garcia. Both Candidates have campaigned on similar publicity platforms. Meanwhile, pre-lection surveys indicate that up to 25% of voters in Peru plan to spoil or leave their ballot blank to show their dissatisfaction with both candidates.
Some voters will waste their ballots because
A. they like neither candidate.
B. they are all ill-informed.
C. the candidates do not differ much.
D. they do not want to vote twice.
We can infer from the talk that harmonious work relations may have a direct impact on your
A. promotion.
B. colleagues.
C. management.
D. union.