1996年全国硕士研究生考试英语试卷及答案

owards collectivism and municipal and state-owned business. The railway companies, though still private business managed for the benefit of shareholders, were very unlike old family business. At the same time the great municipalities went into business to supply lighting , trams and other services to the taxpayers .

　　The growth of the limited liability company and municipal business had important consequences. Such large, impersonal manipulation of capital and industry greatly increased the numbers and importance of shareholders as a class , an element in national life representing irresponsible wealth detached from the land and the duties of the landowners; and almost equally detached from the responsible management of business. All through the nineteenth century, America,Africa, India, Australia and parts of Europe were being developed by British capital, and British shareholders were thus enriched by the world ' s movement towards industrialisation. Towns like Bournemouth and Eastboume sprang up to house large. " comfonable" classes who had retired on their incomes, and who had no relation to the rest of the community except that of drawing dividends and occasionally attending a shareholders' meeting to dictate their orders to the management. On the other hand "shareholding" meant leisure and freedom which was used by many of

　　the later Victorians for the highest purpose of a great civilisation.

　　The "shareholders" as such had no knowledge of the lives, thoughts or needs of the workmen employed by the company in which he held shares, and his influence on the relations of capital and labour was not good. The paid manager acting for the company was in more direct relation with the men and their demands, but even he had seldom that familiar personal knowledge of the workmen which the employer had often had under the more patriarchal system of the old family business now passing away. Indeed the mere size of operations and the numbers of workmen involved rendered such personal relations impossible. Fortunately, however, the increasing power and organization of the trade unions, at least in all skilled trades, enabLed the workmen to meet on equal terms the managers of the companies who employed them. The cruel discipline of the strike and lockout taught the two parties to respect each other' s strength and understand the value of fair negotiation .

　　59. It's true of the old family finns that__.

　　(A) they were spoiled by the younger generations

　　(B) they failed for lack of individual initiative

　　(C) they lacked efficiency compared with modem companies

　　(D) they could supply adequate services to the taxpayers

　　60. The growth of limited liability companies resulted in__.

　　(A) the separation of capital from management

　　(B) the ownership of capital by managers

　　(C) the emergence of capital and labour as two classes

　　(D) the participation of shareholders in municipal business

　　61 . According to the passage, all of the following are true except that__.

　　(A) the shareholders were unaware of the needs of the workers

　　(B) the old firm owners hand a better understanding of their workers

　　(C) the limited liability Qompanies were too large to run smoothly

　　(D) the trade unions seemed to play a positive role

　　62. The author is most critical of___ .

　　(A) family film owners (B) landowners ( C) managers (D) shareholders 转贴于：博学在线_考研

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　　Passage 4

　　What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America-breakthroughs such as the telegraph , the steamboat and the weaving machine?

　　Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country ' s excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors ; and above all the American genius for nonverbal , "spatial"thinking about things technological .

　　Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanics ,especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry.

　　Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and invelltiveness to this educational

　　advantage. As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported, "With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman. "

　　A further stimulus to invention came from the "premium" system, which preceded our patent system and for years ran parallel with it. "fhis approach,originated abroad, offered inventors medals, cash prizes and other incentives.

　　In the United States, multitudes of premiums for new devices were awarded at country fairs and at the industrial fairs in major cities. Americans flocked to thess fairs to admire the new machines and thus to renew their faith in the beneficence of technologi