考研201英語（一）在線題庫每日一練（三百七十八）

本文提供考研201英語（一）在線題庫每日一練，以下為具體內(nèi)容

1、How can the train operators possibly justify yet another increase to rail passenger fares? It has become a grimly reliable annual ritual: every January the cost of travelling by train rises, imposing a significant extra burden on those who have no option but to use the rail network to get to work or otherwise. This year's rise, an average of 2.7 per cent, may be a fraction lower than last year's, but it is still well above the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation.Successive governments have permitted such increases on the grounds that the cost of investing in and running the rail network should be borne by those who use it, rather than the general taxpayer. Why, the argument goes, should a car-driving pensioner from Lincoln shire have to subsidize the daily commute of a stockbroker from Surrey? Equally, there is a sense that the travails of commuters in the South East, many of whom will face among the biggest rises, have received too much attention compared to those who must endure the relatively poor infrastructure of the Midlands and the North.However, over the past 12 months, those commuters have also experienced some of the worst rail strikes in years. It is all very well train operators trumpeting the improvements they are making to the network, but passengers should be able to expect a basic level of service for the substantial sums they are now paying to travel. The responsibility for the latest wave of strikes rests on the unions. However, there is a strong case that those who have been worst affected by industrial action should receive compensation for the disruption they have suffered.The Government has pledged to change the law to introduce a minimum service requirement so that, even when strikes occur, services can continue to operate. This should form part of a wider package of measures to address the long-running problems on Britain's railways. Yes, more investment is needed, but passengers will not be willing to pay more indefinitely if they must also endure cramped, unreliable services, punctuated by regular chaos when timetables are changed, or planned maintenance is managed incompetently. The threat of nationalization may have been seen off for now, but it will return with a vengeance if the justified anger of passengers is not addressed in short order.1.The author holds that this year's increase in rail passengers fares （  ）.2.The stockbroker in Paragraph 2 is used to stand for（  ） .3. It is indicated in Paragraph 3 that train operators （  ）.4. If unable to calm down passengers, the railways may have to face（  ）.5. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

問題1

A、will ease train operation's burden

B、has kept pace with inflation

C、is a big surprise to commuters

D、remains an unreasonable measure

問題2

A、car drivers

B、rail travelers

C、local investors

D、ordinary taxpayers

問題3

A、are offering compensations to commuters

B、are trying to repair relations with the unions

C、have failed to provide an adequate service

D、have suffered huge losses owing to the strikes

問題4

A、the loss of investment

B、the collapse of operations

C、a reduction of revenue

D、a change of ownership

問題5

A、Who Are to Blame for the Strikes?

B、Constant Complaining Doesn't Work

C、Can Nationalization Bring Hope?

D、Ever-rising Fares Aren't Sustainable

2、Financial  regulators in Britain have imposed a rather unusual rule on the bosses of big banks. Starting next year, any guaranteed bonus of top executives could be delayed 10 years if their banks are under investigation for wrongdoing. The main purpose of this “clawback” rule is to hold bankers accountable for harmful risk-taking and to restore public trust in financial institution. Yet officials also hope for a much larger benefit: more long term decision-making not only by banks but also by all corporations, to build a stronger economy for future generations.“ Short-termism” or the desire for quick profits, has worsened in publicly traded companies, says the Bank of England's top economist, Andrew Haldane. He quotes a giant of classical economies, Alfred Marshall, in describing this financial impatience as acting like “Children who pick the plums out of their pudding to eat them at once” rather than putting them aside to be eaten last.The average time for holding a stock in both the United States and Britain, he notes, has dropped from seven years to seven months in recent decades. Transient investors, who demand high quarterly profits from companies, can hinder a firm's efforts to invest in long-term research or to build up customer loyalty. This has been dubbed "quarterly capitalism" In addition, new digital technologies have allowed more rapid trading of equities, quicker use of information, and thus shortens attention spans in financial markers. "There seems to be a predominance of short-term thinking at the expense of long-term investing," said Commissioner Daniel Gallagher of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in speech this week.In the US, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has pushed most public companies to defer performance bonuses for senior executives by about a year, slightly helping reduce “short-termism”. In its latest survey of CEO pay, The Wall Street Journal finds that "a substantial part” of executive pay is now tied to performance.Much more could be done to encourage “l(fā)ong-termism,” such as changes in the tax code and quicker disclosure of stock acquisitions. In France, shareholders who hold onto a company investment for at least two years can sometimes earn more voting rights in a company.Within companies, the right compensation design can provide incentives for executives to think beyond their own time at the company and on behalf of all stakeholders. Britain rule is a reminder to bankers that society has an interest in their performance, not just for the short term but for the long term.1.According to Paragraph 1, one motive in imposing the new rule is the（  ） .2.Alfred Marshall is quoted to indicate（  ）.3.It is argued that the influence of transient investment on public companies can be（  ）.4.The US and France examples are used to illustrate（  ）.5.Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

問題1

A、enhance banker's sense of responsibility

B、help corporations achieve larger profits

C、build a new system of financial regulation

D、guarantee the bonuses of top executives

問題2

A、the conditions for generating quick profits

B、governments' impatience in decision-making

C、the solid structure of publicly traded companies

D、"short-termism" in economics activities

問題3

A、indirect

B、adverse

C、minimal

D、temporary

問題4

A、the obstacles to preventing short-termism

B、the significance of long-term thinking

C、the approaches to promoting long-termism

D、the prevalence of short-term thinking

問題5

A、Failure of Quarterly Capitalism

B、Patience as a Corporate Virtue

C、Decisiveness Required of Top Executives

D、Frustration of Risk-taking Bankers

3、A Downing Street review into modern employment is to call on the government to improve the quality of work for millions of people earning the minimum wage after it found too many are stuck with few prospects and falling job satisfaction.A 10-month review commissioned by the prime minister has identified a productivity crisis among the lowest paid workers, particularly in sectors such as retail, care work and hospitality, and will urge the government to give the low Pay Commission a new role to boost job satisfaction.Matthew Taylor, a former adviser to Tony Blair, is expected to say next week that the government needs to widen the focus of its industrial strategy to tackle falling productivity among the low paid—not least because many work in the public sector—as well as its current priority of high value, high tech export industries. Taylor’s report is expected to say “the ambition we should have is that all work is fair and decent and with scope for fulfillment and development”.The low Pay Commission sets the national living wage. There are predictions that 15% of the British workforce will be earning up to or at that level by 2020, up from 2% in 2000. In three years a quarter of workers in wholesale, retail, agriculture and fishing will be earning at the wage floor, according to the Resolution Foundation.The review was ordered by Theresa May following revelations about low pay and the lack of basic employment rights endured by many workers in sectors including parcel delivery, minicab driving and warehouse work.The Guardian exposed poor pay and conditions for workers in gig economy companies including courier firm Hermes and how Sports Direct in effect paid agency workers at its Shirebrook warehouse in Derbyshire less than the minimum wage.In her first speech as prime minister, May addressed people who “have a job, but... don’t always have job security”, those who are “just managing” and said: “The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours.”The Taylor review is seen as one of her most concrete attempts to deliver on that. It is expected to suggest the government develop a set of measures to assess the quality of low paid work across different sectors, taking into account issues such as access to training and job satisfaction.Research in April for the RSA, of which Taylor is chief executive, found three out of four people think more should be done to improve the quality of work. It said 13.5 million people are living in poverty in Britain and 55% are in working households.1.What does not contribute to the call for improvement according to Paragraph 1?2.Downing Street review is so called because it is____. 3.According to the text, who are not the subjects covered in the review?4.In which walk of life is gig economy pervasive according to the text?5.Which of the following maybe the best title for the text?

問題1

A、Low job satisfaction.

B、Poor payment for work.

C、Modern job market.

D、Bleak future for work.

問題2

A、carried out in Downing Street

B、commanded by British Prime Minister

C、conducted by chief executive of RSA

D、a lengthy research like Downing Street

問題3

A、The low-paid employees.

B、The minimum-wage earners.

C、The people in poverty.

D、The rich royal family.

問題4

A、In non-government organizations.

B、In government departments.

C、In express companies.

D、In business companies.

問題5

A、Low-paid Workers Need Better Prospects, May Told

B、Government Need to Take Immediate Actions

C、Low Pay Commission Tries to Call for Improvement

D、All Work Is Fair and Decent, Matthew Taylor Said

4、Text 4 The personal grievance provisions of New Zealand's Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) prevent an employer from firing an employee without good cause. Instead, dismissals must be justified. Employers must both show cause and act in a procedurally fair way. Personal grievance procedures were designed to guard the jobs of ordinary workers from “unjustified dismissals” . The premise was that the common law of contract lacked sufficient safeguards for workers against arbitrary conduct by management. Long gone are the days when a boss could simply give an employee contractual notice. But these provisions create difficulties for businesses when applied to highly paid managers and executives. As countless boards and business owners will attest, constraining firms from firing poorly performing, high-earning managers is a handbrake on boosting productivity and overall performance. The difference between C-grade and A- grade managers may very well be the difference between business success or failure. Between preserving the jobs of ordinary workers or losing them. Yet mediocrity is no longer enough to justify a dismissal. Consequently – and paradoxically – laws introduced to protect the jobs of ordinary workers may be placing those jobs at risk. If not placing jobs at risk, to the extent employment protection laws constrain business owners from dismissing under- performing managers, those laws act as a constraint on firm productivity and therefore on workers' wages. Indeed, in “An International Perspective on New Zealand's Productivity Paradox” (2014), the Productivity Commission singled out the low quality of managerial capabilities as a cause of the country's poor productivity growth record. Nor are highly paid managers themselves immune from the harm caused by the ERA's unjustified dismissal procedures. Because employment protection laws make it costlier to fire an employee, employers are more cautious about hiring new staff. This makes it harder for the marginal manager to gain employment. And firms pay staff less because firms carry the burden of the employment arrangement going wrong. Society also suffers from excessive employment protections. Stringent job dismissal regulations adversely affect productivity growth and hamper both prosperity and overall well-being. Across the Tasman Sea, Australia deals with the unjustified dismissal paradox by excluding employees earning above a specified “high-income threshold” from the protection of its unfair dismissal laws. In New Zealand, a 2016 private members' Bill tried to permit firms and high-income employees to contract out of the unjustified dismissal regime.However, the mechanisms proposed were unwieldy and the Bill was voted down following the change in government later that year. 1、The personal grievance provisions of the ERA are intended to________.2、It can be learned from paragraph 3 that the provisions may________.3、Which of the following measures would be the Productivity Commission support?4、What might be an effect ofERA's unjustified dismissal procedures?5、It can be inferred that the “high-income threshold” in Australia________.

問題1

A、punish dubious corporate practices.

B、improve traditional hiring procedures.

C、exempt employers from certain duties.

D、protect the rights of ordinary workers.

問題2

A、hinder business development.

B、undermine managers' authority.

C、affect the public image of the firms.

D、worsen labor-management relations.

問題3

A、Imposing reasonable wage restraints.

B、Enforcing employment protection laws.

C、Limiting the powers of business owners.

D、Dismissing poorly performing managers.

問題4

A、Highly paid managers lose their jobs.

B、Employees suffer from salary cuts.

C、Society sees a rise in overall well-being.

D、Employers need to hire new staff.

問題5

A、has secured managers' earnings.

B、has produced undesired results.

C、is beneficial to business owners.

D、is difficult to put into practice.

5、Text 4 Last Thursday, the French Senate passed a digital services tax, which would impose an entirely new tax on large multinationals that provide digital services to consumers or users in France. Digital services include everything from providing a platform for selling goods and services online to targeting advertising based on user data, and the tax applies to gross revenue from such services. Many French politicians and media outlets have referred to this as a “GAFA tax,” meaning that it is designed to apply primarily to companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon-in other words, multinational tech companies based in the United States. The digital services tax now awaits the signature of President Emmanuel Macron, who has expressed support for the measure, and it could go into effect within the next few weeks. But it has already sparked significant controversy, with the Unite Sates trade representative opening an investigation into whether the tax discriminates against American companies, which in turn could lead to trade sanctions against France. The French tax is not just a unilateral move by one country in need of revenue. Instead, the digital services tax is part of a much larger trend, with countries over the past few years proposing or putting in place an alphabet soup of new international tax provisions. These have included Britain’s DPT (diverted profits tax), Australia’s MAAL (multinational anti-avoidance law), and India’s SEP (significant economic presence) test, to name but a few. At the same time, the European Union. Spain, Britain and several other countries have all seriously contemplated digital services taxes. These unilateral developments differ in their specifics, but they are all designed to tax multinationals on income and revenue that countries believe they should have a right to tax, even if international tax rules do not grant them that right. In other words, they all share a view that the international tax system has failed to keep up with the current economy. In response to these many unilateral measures, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is currently working with 131 countries to reach a consensus by the end of 2020 on an international solution. Both France and the United States are involved in the organization’s work, but France’s digital services tax and the American response raise questions about what the  future holds for the international tax system. France’s planned tax is a clear warning: Unless a broad consensus can be reached on reforming the international tax system, other nations are likely to follow suit, and American companies will face a cascade of different taxes from dozens of nations that will prove burdensome and costly.1、The French Senate has passed a bill to ____.2、It can be learned from Paragraph 2 that the digital services tax ____.3、The countries adopting the unilateral measures share the opinion that ____.4、It can be learned from Para 5 that the OECD’s current work ____.5、Which of the following might be the best title for this text?

問題1

A、regulate digital services platforms.

B、protect French companies interests.

C、impose a levy on tech multinationals.

D、curb the influence of advertising.

問題2

A、may trigger countermeasures against France.

B、is apt to arouse criticism at home and abroad.

C、aims to ease international trade tensions.

D、will prompt the tech giants to quit France.

問題3

A、redistribution of tech giants’ revenue must be ensured.

B、the current international tax system needs upgrading.

C、tech multinationals’ monopoly should be prevented.

D、all countries ought to enjoy equal taxing rights.

問題4

A、is being resisted by US companies.

B、needs to be readjusted immediately.

C、is faced with uncertain prospects.

D、needs to in involve more countries.

問題5

A、France Is Confronted with Trade Sanctions

B、France leads the charge on Digital Tax

C、France Says “NO” to Tech Multinationals

D、France Demands a Role in the Digital Economy