Text 3
Media mogul Ted Turner yesterday sold more than half of his AOL Time Warner Inc. holdings for about $780 million, a move that reflects his efforts to slash his financial stake in the media giant.
After the close of regular trading yesterday, Turner sold a block of 60 million shares to Goldman Sachs & Co. for $1307 per share, or 31 cents below the stock’s closing price yesterday. Goldman was said by Wall Street sources to be offering the stock to major investors for $13.15.
An outspoken critic of the corporation, Turner remains AOL Time Warner’s largest individual shareholder, with 45 million shares, and a member of its board of directors. A spokeswoman for Turner referred questions to AOL Time Warner.
At his peak Turner owned about 130 million shares, but he lost billions of dollars in wealth and grew bitter after the stock plunged following the merger of America Online and Time Warner in January 2001.
Turner, who initially supported the merger, later expressed outrage over revelations that America Online had manipulated its financial results. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating AOL, and the corporation has acknowledged discovering tens of millions of dollars of overstated revenue.
Turner resigned as vice chairman earlier this year and has been spending less of his time on AOL Time Warner matters. He stepped down after achieving his goal of pressuring America Online founder Steve Case to resign as the corporation’s chairman. Case said he was giving up the post to avoid a bruising public battle for reelection at next week’s annual meeting.
In the effort to oust Case, Turner teamed up with Gordon Crawford, the senior media portfolio manager at Capital Research & Management, the largest institutional shareholder in AOL Time Warner. Capital Research has indicated it will vote against Case’s election to remain on the board of directors next week—a position that analysts said should not affect the outcome. Turner, meanwhile, has said he will support the management slate that includes Case and will make Richard D. Parsons the company’s chairman and chief executive.
Turner, a visionary who started Cable News Network, is in the midst of rolling out a new chain of restaurants, Ted’s Montana Grill, featuring bison burgers. He recently moved his residence from Georgia to Florida for estate-planning purposes and is spending time and money on his independent film company, which lost millions of dollars on a lengthy movie about the Civil War.
31. From the first three paragraphs, we learn that .
A. Goldman has made a profit from this transaction of shares with Turner
B. Turner always expresses his dissatisfaction with the corporation openly
C. Goldman bought the block of shares in order to become a member of the board
D. Turner sold a large portion of his shares to retreat from the media business
32. Turner became extremely angry because .
A. he had to sell a large portion of his shares to Goldman at a loss
B. the merger covered the dissatisfactory financial results of AOL
C. American Online was found to have exaggerated its revenue
D. he lost billions of dollars in wealth due to the stock’s going low
33. All of the following about Case are true EXCEPT .
A. he stepped down from the post of the founder of AOL
B. he used to be the chairman of AOL Time Warner
C. he had to resign from his post under pressure from Turner and Crawford
D. he will meet with opposition from Capital Research to remain on the board
34. The last paragraph shows that .
A. Turner’s interest is presently centered on chain restaurants
B. Turner is such a changeable person on business matters
C. Turner will never give up his independent film company
D. Turner is a businessman full of imagination
35. The best title for this passage could be .
A. Turner makes a series of new decisions
B. Turner shows his anger at AOL Time Warner
C. Turner comes down from his peak in business
D. Turner slashes his financial stake in AOL Time Warner
Text 4
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday to let stand a ruling in an online defamation case will make it more difficult to determine correct legal jurisdictions in other Internet cases, legal experts said.
By opting not to take the case, the high court effectively endorsed a lower court’s decision that a Colorado company that posts ratings of health plans on the Internet could be sued for defamation in a Washington court. The lower court ruling is one of several that makes it easier for plaintiffs to sue Web site operators in their own jurisdictions, rather than where the operators maintain a physical presence.
The case involved a defamation suit filed by Chehalis, Wash.based Northwest Healthcare Alliance against Lakewood, Colo.－based Healthgrades.com. The Alliance sued in Washington federal court after Healthgrades.com posted a negative ranking of Northwest Healthcare’s home health services on the Internet. Healthgrades.com argued that it should not be subject to the jurisdiction of a court in Washington because its publishing operation is in Colorado.
Observers said the fact that the Supreme Court opted not to hear the case only clouds the legal situation for Web site operators.
Geoff Stewart, a partner at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., said that the Supreme Court eventually must act on the issue, as Internet sites that rate everything from automobile dealerships to credit offers could scale back their offerings to avoid lawsuits originating numerous jurisdictions.
Online publishers also might have to worry about being dragged into lawsuits in foreign courts, said Dow Lohnes & Albertson attorney Jon Hart, who has represented the Online News Association.
“The much more difficult problems for U.S. media companies arise when claims are brought in foreign countries over content published in the United States,” Hart said. Hart cited a recent case in which an Australian court ruled that Dow Jones must appear in a Victoria, Australia court to defend its publication of an article on the U.S.based Wall Street Journal Web site.
According to Hart, the potential chilling effect of those sorts of jurisdictional decisions is substantial. “I have not yet seen publishers holding back on what they otherwise publish because they’re afraid they’re going to get sued in another country, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen if we see a rash of U.S. libel cases against U.S. media companies being brought in foreign countries,” he said.
Until the high court decides to weigh in directly on this issue, Web site operators that offer information and services to users located outside of their home states must deal with a thorny legal landscape, said John Morgan, a partner at Perkins Coie LLP and an expert in Internet law.
36. The author seems to believe that the Supreme Court’s decision .
A. puts Web site operators at a legal disadvantage
B. renders correct legal decisions in other cases impossible
C. brings about a series of incorrect legal rulings
D. causes operators to issue balanced health plans
37. Healthgrades.com claimed that it shouldn’t be sued in Washington because .
A. its headquarters are in Colorado
B. it doesn’t have a physical presence in Washington
C. its rating didn’t have a harmful effect on the company
D. its operation was carried out in Washington area
38. According to Geoff Stewart, the high court’s decision will .
A. make further acts on this issue difficult
B. originate numerous offerings of jurisdictions
C. cause Internet sites to be more cautious in their offerings
D. make providers of information go crazy
39. Hart cited a case in an Australian court to indicate that .
A. the high court should weigh in immediately on the issue
B. problems for American media companies are getting more difficult
C. the jurisdictional decision will have a chilling effect on companies
D. American online publishers might be sued in foreign courts
40. The author writes this passage mainly to show that .
A. the Supreme Court’s ruling is incorrect
B. legal problems are far from over
C. Internet legal borders are still not clear
D. uncertainties exist about validity of Web sites
Part B
Directions:
In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41—45, choose the most suitable one from the list A—G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.(10 points)
In the United States, the factory developed first in the cotton textile industry. Due to the unusual nature of its founding, the mill of Almy, Brown, and Slater, in operation by 1793, are considered as the first American factory. Like many other American enterprisers, they had tried and failed to duplicate English spinning machinery. In 1789 there came to Rhode Island a young mechanical wizard, Samuel Slater, who had worked for years in the firm of Arkwright and Strutt in Milford, England. Having memorized the minutest details of the water frames, Slater immigrated to the United States, where he joined with Almy and Brown and agreed to reproduce the equipment for a mechanized spinning mill. Although small, the enterprise served as a training ground for operatives and as a pilot operation for managers.
41) . Between 1805 and 1815, 94 new cotton mills were built in New England, and the mounting competition led Almy and Brown to push their markets south and west. Only two decades after Arkwright machinery was introduced into this country, the market for yarn was becoming national and the spinning process was becoming a true factory operation as it was in England.
42) .
43) . By 1845, for instance, the Brady’s Bend Iron Company in western Pennsylvania owned nearly 6,000 acres of mineral land and 5 miles of riverfront upon the Allegheny. It mined its own coal, ore, limestone, fire-clay, and fire-stone, made its own coke, and owned 14 miles of railway to serve its works. The plant itself consisted of 4 blast furnaces, a foundry, and rolling mills. It was equipped to perform all the processes, from getting raw materials out of the ground to delivering finished rails and metals shapes to consumers, and could produce annually between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of rails. This company, with an actual investment of ＄1,000,000, was among the largest in America before the Civil War, though there were rival works of approximately equal capacity and similar organization.
44) .
How one industry could adopt new methods as a consequence of process in another industry is shown by the fact that as the sewing machine was produced on a quantity basis, the boot and shoe industry developed factory characteristics. Carriages, wagons, and even farm implements were eventually produced in large numbers. 45) .
A. Two events propelled these changes. One was the successful introduction of the power loom into American manufacture; the other was the organization of production so that all four states of the manufacture of cotton cloth could occur within one establishment. These states were spinning, weaving, dying, and cutting.
B. After closely observing the workings of textile machinery in Great Britain, Francis Cabot Lowell, a New England merchant, gained sufficient knowledge or the secrets of mechanized weaving to enable him, with the help of a gifted technician, to construct a power loom superior to any that had been built to date.
C. Finally, where markets were more extensive, where there was a substantial investment in fixed plant, and where workers were subjected to formal discipline, some firms in the traditional mill industries other than the textile and iron industries achieved factory status. The great merchant flour mills of Baltimore and Rochester fell into this category, as did some of the large packing plants in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and (after 1840) Cincinnati.
D. In the anthracite region to the east, factory operation of furnaces and rolling mills had been achieved by 1850s. And at that time American factories were manufacturing arms, clocks and watches, and sewing machines.
E. A number of small cotton mills soon followed, but most of them failed by the turn of the century because their promoters did not aim to a wide market. Not until the “Embargo Act” of 1807 and the consequent scarcity of English textiles that stimulated demand for domestic manufacturers did spinning mills become numerous in the United States.
F. Consolidating all the steps of textile manufacture in a single plant lowered production costs. A large number of specialized worker were organized into departments and directed by executives who were not necessarily technical supervisors. The factory, by using power-driven machinery, produced standardized commodities in quantity.
G. In most other industries as well, the decade of the 1830s was one of expansion and experimentation with new methods. In the primary iron industry, establishments by the 1840s dwarfed those of a quarter century earlier, and even in the pre-steel era, some of them had passed beyond what could be called the mill state.
Part C
Directions:
Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2.(10 points)
Clearly if we are to participate in the society in which we live we must communicate with other people. A great deal of communicating is performed on a person-to-person basis by the simple means of speech. 46) If we travel in buses, buy things in shops, or eat in restaurants, we are likely to have conversations where we give information or opinions, receive news or comment, and very likely have our views challenged by other members of society.
47) Face-to-face contact is by no means the only form of communication and during the last two hundred years the art of mass communication has become one of the dominating factors of contemporary society. Two things, above others, have caused the enormous growth of the communication industry. Firstly, inventiveness has led to advances imprinting, telecommunications photography, radio and television. Secondly, speed has revolutionized the transmission and reception of communications so that local news often takes a back seat to national news, which itself is often almost eclipsed by international news.
No longer is the possession of information confined to a privileged minority. In the last century the wealthy man with his own library was indeed fortunate, but today there are public libraries. 48) For years ago people used to flock to the cinema, but now far more people sit at home and turn on the TV to watch a programme that is being channeled into millions of homes.
Communication is no longer merely concerned with the transmission of information. 49) The modem communication industry influences the way people live in society and broadens their horizons by allowing access to information, education and entertainment. The printing, broadcasting and advertising industries are all involved with informing, educating and entertaining.
50) Although a great deal of the material communicated by the mass media is very valuable to the individual and to the society of which he is part, the vast modem network of communications is open to abuse. However, the mass media are with us for better, for worse, and there is no turning back.
Section ⅢWriting
Part A
51. Directions:
You are annoyed by too many family comedies of a TV station. Write a complaint letter to the station. In your letter, you should tell them
1) your annoyance at the programs
2) the same feelings of others
3) your request of the station to reform.
You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Ming” instead. You do not need to write the address. ( 10 points )
Part B
52. Directions:
Now more people enjoy buying lottery tickets. Study the following charts carefully and write an article on the topic of lottery. In your article, you should cover the following points.
1) describe the phenomenon;
2) analyze the phenomenon and give your comment on it.
You should write about 160~200 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2.
