大全13-13和14

13.   One way to judge the performance of a company is to compare it with other companies. This technique, commonly called “benchmarking,” permits the manager of a company to discover better industrial practices and can provide a justification for the adoption of good practices.

Any of the following, if true, is a valid reason for benchmarking the performance of a company against companies with which it is not in competition rather than against competitors EXCEPT:

(A) Comparisons with competitors are most likely to focus on practices that the manager making the comparisons already employs.

(B) Getting “inside” information about the unique practices of competitors is particularly difficult.

(C) Since companies that compete with each other are likely to have comparable levels of efficiency, only benchmarking against noncompetitors is likely to reveal practices that would aid in beating competitors.

(D) Managers are generally more receptive to new ideas that they find outside their own industry.（E）

(E) Much of the success of good companies is due to their adoption of practices that take advantage of the special circumstances of their products of markets.

key is E, why not B?

"Any of the following, if true, is a valid reason for benchmarking the performance of a company against companies with which it is not in competition rather than against competitors EXCEPT:" 的意思是？

14.   Among the more effective kinds of publicity that publishers can get for a new book is to have excerpts of it published in a high-circulation magazine soon before the book is published. The benefits of such excerption include not only a sure increase in sales but also a fee paid by the magazine to the book’s publisher.

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?

(A) The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book.

(B) Because the financial advantage of excerpting a new book in a magazine usually accrues to the book’s publisher, magazine editors are unwilling to publish excerpts from new books.

(C) In calculating the total number of copies that a book has sold, publishers include sales of copies of magazines that featured an excerpt of the book.

(D) The effectiveness of having excerpts of a book published in a magazine, measured in terms of increased sales of a book, is proportional to the circulation of the magazine in which the excerpts are published.（A）

(E) Books that are suitable for excerpting in high-circulation magazines sell more copies than books that are not suitable for excerpting.

key is A, why not D?