1998年全国考研英语试题

Part two: Cloze Test

Industrial safety does not just happen.Companies _41__ low accident rates plan their safety programs, work hard to organize them,and continue working to keep them 42 and active. When the work is well done, a 43 of accident-free operations is established _44__ time lost due to injuries
is kept at a minimum.
Successful safety programs may 45 greatly in the emphasis placed on certain aspects of the program.
Some place great emphasis on mechanical guarding. Others stress safe work practices by _46__ rules or regulations._47_ others depend on an emotional appeal to the worker. But, there are certain basic ideas that must be used in every progr8m if maximum results are to be obtained.
There can be no question about the value of a safety program. From a financial stand-point alone, safety _48__. The fewer the injury 49,the better the workman's insurance rate. This may mean the diff-erence between operating at _50__or at a loss.
41. [A]at [B]in [C]on [D]with
42. [A]alive [B]vivid [ C]mobile [D] diverse
43. [A]regulation [B]climate [C]circumstance [D]requirement
44. [A]where [B]how [ C]what [D]unless
45. [A]alter [B]differ [ C] shift [D] distinguish
46. [A] constituting [ B] aggravating [ C]observing [D]justifying
47. [A]Some [B]Many [C]Even [D]Still
48. [A]comes off [B]turns up [C]pays off [D]holds up
49. [A]claims [B]reports [ C] declarations [ D] proclamations
50. [A]an advantage [B]a benefit [C]an interest [D]a profit

Part three:

Passage l
It's a rough world out there. Step outside and you could break a leg slipping on your door- mat. Light up the stove and you could burn down the house. Luckily, if the doormat or stove failed to warn of coming disaster, a successful lawsuit might compensate you for your troubles. Or
so the thinking has gone since the early 1980s, when juries began holding more companies liable for their customers' misfortunes.
Feeling threatened , companies responded by writing ever-longer warning labels, trying to anticipate every possibLe accident. Today, stepladders carry labels several inches long that warn , among other things, that you might-surprise! --fall off. The label on a child ' s Batman cape
cautions that the toy "does not enable user to fly. "
While warnings are often appropriate and necessary--the dangers of drug interactions, for example--and many are required by state or federal regulations, it isn't clear that they actually protect the manufacturers and sellers from liability if a customer is injured. About 50 percent of
the companies lose when injured customers take them to court.
Now the tide appears to be turning. As personal injury claims continue as before, some courts are beginning to side with defendants, especially in cases where a warning label probably wouldn't have changed anything. In May , Julie Nimmons, president of Schutt Sports in Illinois,
successfully fought a lawsuit involving a football player who was paralyzed in a game while wear- ing a Schutt helmet. "We' re really sorry he has become paralyzed , but helmets aren' t designed to prevent those kinds of injuries , " says Nimmons. The jury agreed that the nature of the game, not the helmet, was the reason for the athlete's injury. At the same time, the American Law Insti- tute--a group of judges, lawyers, and academics whose recommendations carry substantial weight-issued new guidelines for tort law stating that companies need not warn customers of ob-
vious dangers or bombard them with a lengthy list of possible ones. " Important information can get buried in a sea of trivialities, " says a law professor at Cornell law School who helped draft the new guidelines. If the moderate end of the legal community has its way, the information on prod- ucts might actually be provided for the benefit of customers and not as protection against legal lia- bility. .
51 . What were things like in 1980s when accidents happened?
[A] Customers might be relieved of their disasters through lawsuits.
[B] Injured customers could expect protection from the legal system.
[C]Companies would avoid being sued by providing new warnings.
[D]Juries tended to find fault with the compensations companies promised.
52. Manufacturers as mentioned in the passage tend to__
[A]satisfy customers by writing long warnings on products
[B]become honest in describing the inadequacies of their products
[C]make the best use of labels to avoid legal liability
[D]feel obliged to view customers' safety as their first concern
53. The case of Schutt helmet demonstrated that__
[A]some injury claims were no longer supported by law
[B]helmets were not designed to prevent injuries
[C]product labels would eventually be discarded
[D]some sports games might lose popularity with athletes
54. The author' s attitude towards the issue seems to be__
[A] biased [ B] indifferent [ C] puzzling [D]objective

Passage 2
In the first year or so of Web business, most of the action has revolved around efforts to tap the consumer market. More recently, as the Web proved to be more than a fashion, companies have started to buy and sell products and services with one another. Such business-to-business
sales make sense because businesspeople typically know what product they're looking for.
Nonetheless, many companies still hesitate to use the Web because of doubts about its relia- bility. "Businesses need to feel they can trust the pathway between them and the supplier, " says senior analyst Blane Erwin of Forrester Research. Some companies are limiting the risk by con-
ducting online transactions only with established business partners who are given access to the company ' s private internet .

Another major shift in the model for Internet commerce concerns the technology available for marketing. Until recently, Internet marketing activities have focused on strategies to "pull" cus- tomers into sites. In the past year, however, software companies have developed tools that allow companies to "push" information directly out to consumers , transmitting marketing messages di- rectly to targeted customers. Most notably, the Pointcast Network uses a screen saver to deliver a continualiy updated stream of news and advertisements to subscribers' computer monitors. Sub- scribers can customize the information they want to receive and proceed directly to a company ' s Web site. Companies such as Virtual Vineyards are already starting to use similar technologies to push messages to customers about special sales, product offerings, or other events. But push tech- nology has earned the contempt of many Web users. Online culture thinks highly of the notion that the information flowing onto the screen comes there by specific request. Once commercial promotion begins to fill the screen uninvited, the distinction between the Web and television fades. That's a prospect that horrifies Net purists.
But it is hardly inevitable that companies on the Web will need to resort to push strategies to make money. The examples of Virtual Vineyards, Amazon.com, and other pioneers show that a Web site selling the right kind of products with the right mix of interactivity, hospitality, and se-
curity will attract online customers. And the cost of computing power continues to free fall, which is a good sign for any enterprise setting up shop in silicon. People looking back 5 or 10 years from now may well wonder why so few companies took the online plunge.
55 . We learn from the beginning of the passage that Web business__
[A] has been striving to expand its market
[B]intended to follow a fanciful fashion
[C]tried but in vain to control the market
[D]has been booming for one year or so
56. Speaking of the online technology available for marketing, the author implies that__
[A] the technology is popular with many Web users
[B]businesses have faith in the reliability of online transactions
[C]there is a radical change in strategy
[D] it is accessible limitedly to established partners
57. In the view of Net purists,__
[A]there should be no marketing messages in online culture
[ B]money making should be given priority to on the Web
[C]the Web should be able to function as the television set
[D] there should be no online commercial information without requests
58. We learn from the last paragraph that __
[A]pushing information on the Web is essential to Internet commerce
[ B] interactivity , hospitality and security are important to online customers
[ C]leading companies began to take the online plunge decades ago
[D]setting up shops in silicon is independent of the cost of computing power