Section II Reading Comprehension

　　Part A

　　Directions:

　　Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A,B,C or

　　D.Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.(40 points)

　　Text 1

　　Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can

　　identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid. To find out if this extends to non-living

　　beings, Loleh Quinn at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues tested whether

　　rats can detect social signals from robotic rats.

　　They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat—one social and one asocial—for 5

　　our days. The robots rats were quite minimalist, resembling a chunkier version of a computer

　　mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.

　　During the experiment, the social robot rat followed the living rats around, played with the

　　same toys, and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape. Meanwhile, the asocial robot simply

　　moved forwards and backwards and side to side

　　Next, the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release

　　them by pressing a lever.

　　Across 18 trials each, the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social

　　robot free than the asocial one. This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine

　　social being. They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours

　　like communal exploring and playing. This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed

　　it earlier, and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped, says Quinn.

　　The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design.

　　The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels.“We’d

　　assumed we’d have to give it a moving head and tail, facial features, and put a scene on it to make

　　it smell like a real rat, but that wasn’t necessary," says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland

　　in Australia, who helped with the research.

　　The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues, even when they come from basic

　　robots. Similarly, children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings, even when they display

　　only simple social signals.“ We humans seem to be fascinated by robots, and it turns out other

　　animals are too,”says Wiles.

　　21. Quinn and her colleagues conducted a test to see if rats can .

　　[A] pickup social signals from non-living rats

　　[B] distinguish a friendly rat from a hostile one

　　[C] attain sociable traits through special training

　　[D] send out warming messages to their fellow

　　22. What did the social robot do during the experiment?

　　[A] It followed the social robot.

　　[B] It played with some toys.

　　[C] It set the trapped Tats free.

　　[D]It moved around alone.

　　23. According to Quinn, the rats released the social robot because they .

　　[A] tried to practice a means of escape

　　[B] expected it to do the same in return

　　[C] wanted to display their intelligence

　　[D]considered that an interesting game

　　24. James Wiles notes that rats .

　　[A]can remember other rat’s facial features

　　[B] differentiate smells better than sizes

　　[C] respond more to cations than to looks

　　[D]can be scared by a plastic box on wheels

　　25. It can be learned from the text that rats .

　　[A]appear to be adaptable to new surroundings

　　(B] are more socially active than other animals

　　[C] behave differently from children in socializing

　　[PD]are more sensitive to social cues than expected

　　Text 2

　　It is fashionable today to bash Big Business. And there is one issue on which the many critics

　　agree: CEO pay. We hear that CEOs are paid too much (or too much relative to workers), or that

　　they rig others’ pay, or that their pay is insufficiently related to positive outcomes. But the more

　　likely truth is CEO pay is largely caused by intense competition.

　　It is true that CEO pay has gone up—top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical

　　workers on average, and since the mid-1970s, CEO pay for large publicly traded American

　　corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500%. The typical CEO of a top

　　American corporation—from the 350 largest such companies—now makes about $18.9 million a

　　year.

　　While individual cases of overpayment definitely exist, in general, the determinants of CEO

　　pay are not so mysterious and not so mired in corruption. In fact, overall CEO compensation for

　　the top companies rises pretty much. In lockstep with the value of those companies on the stock

　　market.

　　The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay, though, is that of limited CEO

　　talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of

　　America’s highest-earning 1% have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global

　　economy. It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really

　　have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U.S. economy.

　　Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many more skills than simply

　　being able to “run the company.” CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe

　　even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than

　　their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slipup can be significant. Then there’s the fact that

　　large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread

　　across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly

　　mind-boggling.

　　There is yet another trend: virtually all major American companies are becoming tech

　　companies, one way or another. An agribusiness company, for instance, may focus on R&D in

　　highly IT-intensive areas such as genome sequencing. Similarly, it is hard to do a good job running

　　the Walt Disney Company just by picking good movie scripts and courting stars; you also need to

　　build a firm capable of creating significant CGI products for animated movies at the highest levels

　　of technical sophistication and with many frontier innovations along the way.

　　On top of all of this, major CEOs still have to do the job they have always done—which

　　includes motivating employees, serving as an internal role model, helping to define and extend a

　　corporate culture, understanding the internal accounting, and presenting budgets and business

　　plans to the board. Good CEOs are some of the world’s most potent creators and have some of the

　　very deepest skills of understanding.

　　26. which of the following has contributed to CEO pay rise?

　　A. The growth in the number of cooperations

　　B. The general pay rise with a better economy

　　C. Increased business opportunities for top firms

　　D. Close cooperation among leading economics

　　27. Compared with their predecessors, today’s CEOs are required to__.

　　A. foster a stronger sense of teamwork

　　B. finance more research and development

　　C. establish closer ties with tech companies

　　D. operate more globalized companies

　　28. CEO pay has been rising since the 1970s despite__.

　　A. continual internal opposition

　　B. strict corporate governance

　　C. conservative business strategies

　　D. repeated governance warnings

　　29. High CEO pay can be justified by the fact that it helps__.

　　A. confirm the status of CEOs

　　B. motive inside candidates

　　C. boost the efficiency of CEOs

　　D. increase corporate value

　　30. The most suitable title for this text would be__.

　　A. CEOs Are Not Overpaid

　　B. CEO Pay: Past and Present

　　C. CEOs’ Challenges of Today

　　D. CEO Traits: Not Easy to Define