Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
At last weekend's consumer-electronics show in Las Vegas, digital convergence arrived with a vengeance. Among the avalanche of new products were lots of mobile phones. Those fitted with digital cameras and camcorders are hardly new, but they now take even better pictures. Others can be used to play three-dimensional video games. Download movies, watch live TV (and record it during an incoming call), operate home-security systems and listen to music files downloaded from the internet. More marvels are on the way. In the midst of this frenzy of new and unfamiliar gizmos, product features would seem to count for everything. But companies in the hypercompetitive electronics industry are discovering something unexpected, and curious: brands matter almost as much as dazzling new technology.
One of the clearest demonstrations of this is South Korea's Samsung Electronics, which made a big splash this year in Las Vegas. Samsung was once best known for making things like cheap microwave ovens. In the past few years it has transformed itself into one of the "coolest" brands around, and is successfully selling stylish flat-screen TVs digital cameras and mobile phones. After a record-breaking year, it is poised to overtake Motorola as the world's second-biggest maker of mobile phones. And it is snapping at the heels of Japan's Sony for leadership in the consumer-electronics business.
This would have seemed inconceivable a decade ago. But Samsung has proved that a combination of clever brand-building and well-designed, innovative products can work miracles. In such a competitive market, a brand without good products will quickly fade. But the real surprise is that the opposite is also true. The market is crowded with firms with a few snazzy products, but week brands. To thrive and grow on the scale Samsung has achieved requires a strong brand, as well as innovative products.
Years ago, when products did not change much and companies largely stuck to their knitting, American and European consumers faithfully bought cameras from Kodak, televisions from RCA and radios from Bush, because those brands represented a guarantee of quality. Then the Japanese got better at what they made. Now the South Koreans are doing the same. And yet with many American and European electronics companies making their gadgets in the same places, even sometimes the same factories, as their Asian competitors, the geography of production has become less important. Many consumers are now looking for a guide through a bewildering array of choices. A strong brand offers such guidance.
The word "gizmos"(Paragraph 1) most probably means

A. brands.
B. functions.
C. terminals.
D. devices.