阅读题求解释！

clear0127

Excess inventory, a massive problem for many businesses, has several causes, some of which are unavoidable. Overstocks may accumulate through production overruns or errors. Certain styles and colors prove unpopular. With some products—computers and software, toys, and books—last year’s models are difficult to move even at huge discounts. Occasionally the competition introduces a better product. But in many cases the public’s buying tastes simply change, leaving a manufacturer or distributor with thousands (or millions) of items that the fickle public no longer wants.

One common way to dispose of this merchandise is to sell it to a liquidator, who buys as cheaply as possible and then resells the merchandise through catalogs, discount stores, and other outlets. However, liquidators may pay less for the merchandise than it cost to make it. Another way to dispose of excess inventory is to dump it. The corporation takes a straight cost write-off on its taxes and hauls the merchandise to a landfill. Although it is hard to believe, there is a sort of convoluted logic to this approach. It is perfectly legal, requires little time or preparation on the company’s part, and solves the problem quickly. The drawback is the remote possibility of getting caught by the news media. Dumping perfectly useful products can turn into a public relations nightmare. Children living in poverty are freezing and XYZ Company has just sent 500 new snowsuits to the local dump. Parents of young children are barely getting by and QRS Company dumps 1,000 cases of disposable diapers because they have slight imperfections.

The managers of these companies are not deliberately wasteful; they are simply unaware of all their alternatives. In 1976 the Internal Revenue Service provided a tangible incentive for businesses to contribute their products to charity. The new tax law allowed corporations to deduct the cost of the product donated plus half the difference between cost and fair market selling price, with the proviso that deductions cannot exceed twice cost. Thus, the federal government sanctions—indeed, encourages—an above-cost federal tax deduction for companies that donate inventory to charity.

2. The passage suggests that which of the following is a kind of product that a liquidator who sells to discount stores would be unlikely to wish to acquire?
(A) Furniture
(B) Computers
(C) Kitchen equipment
(D) Baby-care products
(E) Children’s clothing

3. The passage provides information that supports which of the following statements?
(A) Excess inventory results most often from insufficient market analysis by the manufacturer.
(B) Products with slight manufacturing defects may contribute to excess inventory.
(C) Few manufacturers have taken advantage of the changes in the federal tax laws.
(D) Manufacturers who dump their excess inventory are often caught and exposed by the news media.
(E) Most products available in discount stores have come from manufacturers’ excess-inventory stock.
答案是BB，我选的ED,我没从文章中找出答案相应提示，求指教！！

clear0127

Traditionally, the first firm to commercialize a new technology has benefited from the unique opportunity to shape product definitions, forcing followers to adapt to a standard or invest in an unproven alternative. Today, however, the largest payoffs may go to companies that lead in developing integrated approaches for successful mass production and distribution.

Producers of the Beta format for videocassette recorders (VCR’s), for example, were first to develop the VCR commercially in 1975, but producers of the rival VHS (Video Home System) format proved to be more successful at forming strategic alliances with other producers and distributors to manufacture and market their VCR format. Seeking to maintain exclusive control over VCR distribution, Beta producers were reluctant to form such alliances and eventually lost ground to VHS in the competition for the global VCR market.

Despite Beta’s substantial technological head start and the fact that VHS was neither technically better nor cheaper than Beta, developers of VHS quickly turned a slight early lead in sales into a dominant position. Strategic alignments with producers of prerecorded tapes reinforced the VHS advantage. The perception among consumers that prerecorded tapes were more available in VHS format further expanded VHS’s share of the market. By the end of the 1980’s, Beta was no longer in production.

5. The alignment of producers of VHS-format VCR’s with producers of prerecorded videotapes is most similar to which of the following?
(A) The alignment of an automobile manufacturer with another automobile manufacturer to adopt a standard design for automobile engines.
(B) The alignment of an automobile manufacturer with an automotive glass company whereby the manufacturer agrees to purchase automobile windshields only from that one glass company.
(C) The alignment of an automobile manufacturer with a petroleum company to ensure the widespread availability of the fuel required by a new type of engine developed by the manufacturer.
(D) The alignment of an automobile manufacturer with its dealers to adopt a plan to improve automobile design.
(E) The alignment of an automobile dealer with an automobile rental chain to adopt a strategy for an advertising campaign to promote a new type of automobile.
C
不是和其他制造商和批发商合作吗，为什么选和汽油公司合作呢

clear0127

再来一发，亲们给力啊，阅读我实在是。。。
Historians of women’s labor in the United States at first largely disregarded the story of female service workers—women earning wages in occupations such as salesclerk, domestic servant, and office secretary. These historians focused instead on factory work, primarily because it seemed so different from traditional, unpaid “women’s work” in the home, and because the underlying economic forces of industrialism were presumed to be gender-blind and hence emancipatory in effect. Unfortunately, emancipation has been less profound than expected, for not even industrial wage labor has escaped continued sex segregation in the workplace.

To explain this unfinished revolution in the status of women, historians have recently begun to emphasize the way a prevailing definition of femininity often determines the kinds of work allocated to women, even when such allocation is inappropriate to new conditions. For instance, early textile-mill entrepreneurs, in justifying women’s employment in wage labor, made much of the assumption that women were by nature skillful at detailed tasks and patient in carrying out repetitive chores; the mill owners thus imported into the new industrial order hoary stereotypes associated with the homemaking activities they presumed to have been the purview of women. Because women accepted the more unattractive new industrial tasks more readily than did men, such jobs came to be regarded as female jobs. And employers, who assumed that women’s “real” aspirations were for marriage and family life, declined to pay women wages commensurate with those of men. Thus many lower-skilled, lower-paid, less secure jobs came to be perceived as “female.”

More remarkable than the origin has been the persistence of such sex segregation in twentieth-century industry. Once an occupation came to be perceived as “female.” employers showed surprisingly little interest in changing that perception, even when higher profits beckoned. And despite the urgent need of the United States during the Second World War to mobilize its human resources fully, job segregation by sex characterized even the most important war industries. Moreover, once the war ended,employers quickly returned to men most of the “male” jobs that women had been permitted to master.

6. The passage supports which of the following statements about hiring policies in the United States?
(A) After a crisis many formerly “male” jobs are reclassified as “female” jobs.
(B) Industrial employers generally prefer to hire women with previous experience as homemakers.
(C) Post-Second World War hiring policies caused women to lose many of their wartime gains in employment opportunity.
(D) Even war industries during the Second World War were reluctant to hire women for factory work.
(E) The service sector of the economy has proved more nearly gender-blind in its hiring policies than has the manufacturing sector
答案选C，可是为什么gains会lose呢，只是又没了工作不是吗，赚到的不还在吗，求解释！！！

wangxung815

第一篇：
第一题，定位到第一段的With some products—computers and software, toys, and books—last year’s models are difficult to move even at huge discounts. 后文又说liquidator是靠huge discount去销售商品。
第二题，定位到第一段的Overstocks may accumulate through production overruns or errors.

第二篇：
我的理解是：recorded tapes是给VHS VCR消耗的东西，类似于汽油和车的关系。并不是像和分销商合作那样上游和下游的关系。如果要和D的相似的话，应该是VCR的生产商和商店合作。

wangxung815

第三篇：
定位全文最后一句Moreover, once the war ended,employers quickly returned to men most of the “male” jobs that women had been permitted to master.
Gain我的理解是Women在二战时候取得的成就（可以从事很多原来认为是男性才能从事的工作），不是赚的钱。