OG 241题的OG解释是不是不完整啊？

Yes, I remember that there is one question on the digital format that is not complete.

The best answer is C.

In the first paragraph, the author states that early chartered trading companies are usually not considered to be precursors of the modern multinational corporation.

In the second paragraph, however, the author goes on to discuss similarities between early chartered trading companies and the modern multinational corporation.

At the end of the passage the author asserts that early chartered trading companies “merit further study as analogues of more modern structures.”

Choice A is incorrect: although the passage indicates similarities between early chartered trading companies and the modern multinational corporations, it does not assert that these trading companies originated the modern multinational corporation.

Choice B is incorrect because the passage focuses on the similarities between early chartered trading companies and the modern multinational, not on the factors that determined their success.

Choice D is incorrect because the author does not suggest that scholars are mistaken that the modern multinational corporation originated with nineteenth-century British firms; instead, the author suggests that certain similarities between early chartered trading companies and the modern multinational merit further attention.

Choice E can be eliminated because the author does not assert that the management structures of early chartered trading companies were fundamentally the same as those of modern multinationals.

以下是引用lindazhou在2005-6-15 16:10:00的发言：
charted trading companies, 后来又提到，trading companies. 文章中没有解释两者是一样的概念，如何判断。

后来具体指哪里呢？可否通过上下文的意思来判断他们的一致呢？

The modern multinational corporation is described as having originated when the owner-managers

of nineteenth-century British firms carrying on international trade were replaced by teams of

salaried managers organized into hierarchies. Increases in the volume of transactions in such firms

are commonly believed to have necessitated this structural change. Nineteenth-century inventions

like the steamship and the telegraph, by facilitating coordination of managerial activities, are

described as key factors. Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century chartered trading companies, despite

the international scope of their activities, are usually considered irrelevant to this discussion: the

volume of their transactions is assumed to have been too low and the communications and

transport of their day too primitive to make comparisons with modern multinationals interesting.

In reality, however, early trading companies successfully purchased and outfitted ships, built and

operated offices and warehouses, manufactured trade goods for use abroad, maintained trading

posts and production facilities overseas, procured goods for import, and sold those goods both at

home and in other countries. The large volume of transactions associated with these activities

seems to have necessitated hierarchical management structures well before the advent of modern

communications and transportation. For example, in the Hudson’s Bay Company, each far-flung

The modern multinational corporation is described as having originated when the owner-managers of nineteenth-century British firms carrying on international trade were replaced by teams of salaried managers organized into hierarchies. Increases in the volume of transactions in such firms are commonly believed to have necessitated this structural change. Nineteenth-century inventions like the steamship and the telegraph, by facilitating coordination of managerial activities, are described as key factors. Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century chartered trading companies, despite the international scope of their activities, are usually considered irrelevant to this discussion: the volume of their transactions is assumed to have been too low and the communications and transport of their day too primitive to make comparisons with modern multinationals interesting.

In reality, however, early trading companies successfully purchased and outfitted ships, built and operated offices and warehouses, manufactured trade goods for use abroad, maintained trading posts and production facilities overseas, procured goods for import, and sold those goods both at home and in other countries. The large volume of transactions associated with these activities seems to have necessitated hierarchical management structures well before the advent of modern communications and transportation. For example, in the Hudson’s Bay Company, each far-flung trading outpost was managed by a salaried agent, who carried out the trade with the Native Americans, managed day-to-day operations, and oversaw the post’s workers and servants. One chief agent, answerable to the Court of Directors in London through the correspondence committee, was appointed with control over all of the agents on the bay.

The early trading companies did differ strikingly from modern multinationals in many respects. They depended heavily on the national governments of their home countries and thus characteristically acted abroad to promote national interests. Their top managers were typically owners with a substantial minority share, whereas senior managers’ holdings in modern multinationals are usually insignificant. They operated in a pre-industrial world, grafting a system of capitalist international trade onto a pre-modern system of artisan and peasant production. Despite these differences, however, early trading companies organized effectively in remarkably modern ways and merit further study as analogues of more modern structures.

从词义来看，early trading companies包括了Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century chartered trading companies。从文中来看，作者的语气倾向于将他们两者视为同一事物了，虽然不能严格推断。

而OG的解释确实把两者视为同一事物了。在244. The author lists the various activities of early chartered trading companies in order to这道问题中，OG直接肯定了两者是一件事。