2016年商务英语初级强化测试卷(一)

　　2016年商务英语初级强化测试卷(一)

　　1. Answer the questions on the text

　　1) What is Patagonia’s work environment like?

　　Patagonia has freeform work environments which have become common enough that barefoot employees, cavorting pets and organic chefs hardly merit a second glance. But the bicycles, the surfboards, the solar panels, the Tibetan prayer flags, the shed full of convalescing owls and hawks all suggest that it is not traditional corporate-land, either. The place is all business, but it's business conducted upside down and inside out. Simply put, it's radical.

　　2) How does Chouinard view average American businesses?

　　To Chouinard, the average suit ranks somewhere between alcoholic and criminal on the respect scale, and American business, when powered by the endless consumption and discarding of stuff, is unimaginative at best and evil at worst, responsible for clear-cutting forests, polluting oceans, and bulldozing wetlands to make way for the next condo development. Its modus operandi is unsustainable growth, which he compares to an "out-of-control tumor."

　　3) What was Chouinard’s first try in the business world?

　　Back in Burbank, Chouinard installed a coal forge in his parents' garage and became a self-taught blacksmith, hammering out pitons - three-inch strips of steel used for anchoring climbing ropes. Chouinard's pitons were stronger and more elegant than their predecessors, a triumph of minimalist engineering. He sold them out of the back of his car for $1.50 and tried to live on the proceeds.

　　4) What is the “dirtbag” way according to Chouinard? How does he view it?

　　Chouinard describes as the "dirtbag" way as living as close to the wild as possible with as little as possible. To Chouinard, the “dirtbag” way never seemed like privation. Rather, it was freedom.

　　5) How do Chouinard and Malina define Patagonia?

　　It wouldn't release toxins into rivers or cause nervous breakdowns or chase endless growth. It wouldn't make disposable crap that people didn't really need. Anything it produced would be of the highest quality, manufactured in the most responsible way. When the surf was up or the powder wafted down, employees would be where they ought to be: outside. If an employee's child was sick, the parent would also be where he ought to be: at home. They would keep Patagonia privately held and say no to anything that compromised their values.

　　6) What big lessons did Chouinard learn from scaling the likes of Yosemite’s EL Capitan?

　　The biggest was that reaching the summit had nothing to do with where you arrived and everything to do with how you got there. Likewise, he thought, with business: The point was not to focus on making money; focus on doing things right, and the profits would come.

　　7) Who are Patagonia’s potential customers?

　　There is no one type of customer here. There are couples pushing double-wide strollers, teenagers and grandparents, and even a woman in high heels.

　　8) What was the result of Chouinard’s effort to use organic cotton?

　　Patagonia's cotton sales rose 25 percent and, more important, established an organic-cotton industry so that other companies could cross over. Demand grew and prices decreased, leading to even more demand. In 2006, Wal-Mart became the world's largest purchaser of organic cotton.

　　9) Summarize the measures that Patagonia took in search of greener materials.

　　a) use organic cotton instead of non-organic cotton

　　b) use recycled polyester to produce

　　c) stop using Chlorine in wool products

　　d) use a product made of crushed crab shells for odor control instead of antimicrobial silver which is a groundwater pollutant.

　　e) advise customers to use the shipping by ground or sea—which is more energy-saving than airfreight.

　　10) Why does Chouinard plan to shift his business to watersports?

　　Climate change. "We're getting into the surf market, because it's never going to snow again, and the waves are going to get bigger and bigger,"