People are,on the whole,poor at considering background information when making individual decisions.At first glance this might seem like a strength that 1 the ability to make judgments which are unbiased by 2 factors.But Dr.Uri Simonsohn speculated that an inability to consider the big 3 was leading decision-makers to be biased by the daily samples of information they were working with.4,he theorised that a judge 5 of appearing too soft 6 crime might be more likely to send someone to prison 7 he had already sentenced five or six other defendants only to probation on that day.To 8 this idea,he turned to the university-admissions process.In theory,the 9 of an applicant should not depend on the few others 10 randomly for interview during the same day,but Dr Simonsohn suspected the truth was 11.He studied the results of 9,323 MBA interviews,12 by 31 admissions officers.The interviewers had 13 applicants on a scale of one to five.This scale 14 numerous factors into consideration.The scores were 15 used in conjunction with an applicant's score on the Graduate Management Admission Test,or GMAT,a standardised exam which is 16 out of 800 points,to make a decision on whether to accept him or her.Dr Simonsohn found if the score of the previous candidate in a daily series of interviewees was 0.75 points or more higher than that of the one 17 that,then the score for the next applicant would 18 by an average of 0.075 points.This might sound small,but to 19 the effects of such a decrease a candidate would need 30 more GMAT points than would otherwise have been 20.
A.fond
B.fearful
C.capable
D.thoughtless

William Wrigley Jr.,the American chewing gum tycoon,once noted that business is built by men who disagree,and that"When two men always agree,one of them is unnecessary."1,notjust in business but also in politics,sports,and the arts,there is no 2 0f real-world examples of successful partnerships that were fueled as much by the 3 0f ideas as by creative tension or discord.Scientific research shows that creativity and innovation can be 4 by reducing team harmony.For instance,a recent study of 100 product development teams found that two common 5 0f team harmony,namely diversity and task uncertainty,were positively 6 with creative performance.7,a review of theoretical and quantitative studies showed that teams are often more creative 8 they have f ewer rather than more resources.Furthermore,teams that are able t0 9 productive task conflict-expressing disagreements,negotiating between different views,and working under a certain amount of tension 10 to be more innovative,11,when teams and organizations enjoy too much harmony,they will gravitate 12 inaction and complacency,13,as Clayton Christensen noted,will 14 decline and extinction.From Kodak to Blackberry to Blockbuster,business schools are spoiled for choice when it comes to examples of dominant market players that were discarded from the top 15 their complacency.Success and happiness pose a bigger threat to businesses than a moderate 16 0f dissatisfaction.Being happy with the status quo is a 17 way to escape creativity.Any significant innovation in the history of civilization was the 18 of dissatis fied minds:people who were unhappy with the current order of things and 19 to destroy the 20 harmony.
1选？
A.Therefore
B.Indeed
C.Furthermore
D.Otherwise

When it was built in 1721 beside the River Derwent,in Britain's East Midlands,Lombe's silk mill became something of a tourisl attraclion.Daniel Defoe,one of its many visitors,described its"vast bulk"as"a curiosity of a very extraordinary nature".Employing some 300 people,mostly children in ghastly conditions,the mill was nol large by modern sLandards.But it is widely regarded as the first successful mechanised factory,an innovafion that over the next 100 years transformed the way people lived and worked.Lombe's mill is the natural starting-point for Joshua Freeman's lively chronicle of the factory,which as the title of his book"Behemorth"implies,concentrates on the largesl specimens of cheir time.Mr Freeman,a historian at Queens College in New York,travels from Britam's textile mills to monster steel and carmaking factories in 20th-century America,Europe and the Soviet Union.Mr Freeman rolls up his sleeves and delves into the nitty-gritty of manufaccuring.He successfully melds together those nuggets with social history,on the shop floor and beyond the factory walls,from union bacdes to worker exploitation.Consider,for example,his account of one of the most famous factory bosses of all.Henry Ford launched his Model T in 1908,curning the car from a luxury into a mass-manufactured product.Ford's original facLory used standardised parts and ficted them to vehicles as they travelled along a moving assembly line.The Model T,however,soon became obsolete.As Mr Freeman describes,yhis exposed the weakness of the giant system:it is extremely expensive and slow to switch a giant.factory from one product to another.In 1927 Ford halted produccion and laid o~f 60,000 workers,causing a social crisis in the Delroit area.After six months 15,000 machine tools had been replaced and 25,000 others rebuilt,so that the Rouge was ready to make the new Model A.At its zenith the factory employed 100,000 people.But it was a brutal place to work,with employees subject to harsh discipline and tyrannical foremen.As the switch from Model T to Model A plunged Ford into loss,Alfred P.Sloan,president of General Motors,presciendy observed that carmakers would need to"adopt the'laws'of Paris dressmakers".That meant bringing out new models more often.The shortening of product cycles and the fickle nature of modern markets has duly seen manufacturing atomise into smaller,nimbler,more specialist facLories.The Rouge,for instance,lives on,but with just 6,000 workers making pick-up trucks.Some see offshoring to low-wage countries,particularly in Asia,as the mega-factory's last hurrah.Yet long supply chains and distant plants are leaving producers vulnerable to rapid changes in their home markets,so production has been trickling back.Meamvhile new materials and manufacturing methods,such as 3D printing,are demolishing the economies-of scale that giant factories have relied on.Although Mr Freeman is not ready to write off his behemoths,he has probably written their obituary.
The case of Ford's failure to change from Model T to Model A intends to show
A.the decline of Ford company
B.the defect of the giant factory
C.the importance of making right decisions
D.the consequences of harsh discipline

Text3 Brands began as badges of product quality,going back at least as far as the medieval association of craftsmen who used them to distinguish their work.Now in providing consumers with.a host of fascinating facts,companies are striving to grant their brands"authenticity".Interbrand,a consultant on branding,describes authenticity as"an internal truth and capability",a"defined heritage"and a"well-grounded value set".Authenticity is being advertised as a cure for consumers'fading loyalty to brands.It is not hard to see why the old marketing magic is fading,in an age in which people can instantly learn truth about the things they are thinking about buying.Online reviews and friends'comments on social media help consumers see a product's underlying merits and demerits.For brands that lack any truly distinguishing features,that is bad news.The declining faith in brands is a greater threat to some types of products than others:snacks and household gadgets,say,as opposed to luxury handbags.But for a range of consumer goods,brands'strength as a signal of quality,and their power to open people's wallets,are fading,argue Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen in their book,Absolute Value:What Really Influences Customers in the Age of Peifect Information.Surveys back up this conclusion.In North America consumers say they trust only about a fifth of brands,according to a poll by a marketing agency.Consumers seem particularly wary of big brands.About half ofAmerican shoppers say they trust small companies to do the right thing,compared with just 36%who say the same oflarge ones,reports a research firm.These opinions are starting to have effects.Of the top 100 consumers packaged-goods brands in America,90 lost market share in the year to July,according to a marketing firm.In big emerging markets,foreign-branded goods are losing their appeal,as shoppers realise that local products are no longer so inferior.The silver lining to the dark cloud looming over brands is that as people become better informed about products'underlying qualities,and more sceptical of marketing strategies,they are exhibiting a desire for brands that are"honest"and seem to have some identifiable merit.Inevitably,this is leading some marketers to embrace campaigns that seek to bring about the inexpressible quality of authenticity out of thin air.As the cynics among them might say:authenticity is the secret of success;once you fake it,you've got it made.32.Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen point out that
A.brands still have the power to guide customers.
B.people are more loyal to some specific household products.
C.customers ofluxury handbags always have the faith on brands.
D.big companies have greater influence than that of small companies.

Priests,teachers and parents have for generations advised their wards io think twice before speaking,to count to ten when angry and to get a good night's sleep before making big decisions.Social networks care little for seconcl thoughts.Services such as Facebook and Twitter are built to maximise"virality",making it irresistible to share,like and retweet things.They are getting better at it:fully half of the 40 most-retweeted tweets clate from January last year.Starting this month,however,users of WhatsApp,a messaging service owned by Facebook,will find it harder to spread content.They will no longer be able to forward messages to more than 20 0thers in one go,down from more than 100.The goal is not to prevent people from sharing information-only to get users to think about what they are passing on.It Js an idea other platforms should consider copying.Skeptics point out that WhatsApp can afford to hinder the spread of information on its platform because it does not rely on the sale of adverrisements to make money.Slowing down sharing would be more damaging to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,which make money by keeping users on their sites and showing them ads.Their shareholders would surely refuse anything that lessens engagement.Sure enough,Facebook's shares fell by 23%in after-hours trading,partly because Mark Zuckerberg,its boss,said that its priority would be to get users to interact more with each other,not to promote viral content.Yet the short-term pain caused by a decline in virality may be in the long-term interests of the social networks.Fake news and concerns about cligital addiction,among other things,have already damaged the reputations of tech platforms.Moves to slow sharing could lielp see off harsh action by regulators and lawmakers.They could also improve its service.Instagram,a photo-sharing social network also owned by Facebook,shows that you can be successful without resorting to virality.It offers no sharing options and does not allow links but boasts more than a billion monthly users.It has remained relatively free of misinformation.Facebook does not break out Instagram's revenues,but it is thought to make money.The need to constrain virality is becoming ever more urgent.About half the world uses the internet today.The next 3.8bn users to go online will be poorer and less familiar with media.The examples of deceptions,misinformation and violence in India suggest that the capacity to manipulate people online is even greater when they first gain access to cligital communications.Small changes can have big effects:social networks have become expert at making their services compulsive by adjusting shades of blue and the size of buttons.They have the knowledge and the tools to maximise the sharing of information.That gives them the power to limit its virality,too.
It can be inferred from Paragraphs 4 and 5 that controlling virality could
A.eliminate concerns about digital addiction.
B.keep a social network free of misinformation
C.contribute to the success of a social network.
D.exempt a social network from harsh regulation

Artificial intelligence,or AI,is called artificial for a good reason.Facebook made that point last week by ending its attempt to rely heavily on software algorithms to select news items for its 2 billion users.It announced Jan.19 that the Facebook"community"will be asked to rank news outlets by their trustworthiness.This reader feedback will promote"high quality news that helps build a sense of common ground"in a world with"so much division,"said chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.The first surveys have started in the United States and will soon expand to other countries.The company plans to include the local news outlets of users in its surveys.Like many digital platforms that act as news providers,Facebook had great faith in a belief that programmed electrons in computer servers can discern qualities of thought such as trust,fairness,and honesty.Even in respected newsrooms,however,these traits of character require constant upkeep among journalists and feedback from paying customers.Good judgment on news relies on orders of consciousness beyond what a machine can do.Rather than move toward becoming a hands-on gatekeeper of news,Facebook now hopes its"diverse and representative"sampling of users can lead to a ranking of news outlets-and that would bring a measure of objectivity in its news feed.The company may be in the news business but it has chosen to outsource news credibility to the collective wisdom of individuals and their ability to distinguish truth from falsehood.By placing its trust in people as seekers of truth,Facebook could earn greater trust from its users.This is also a lesson for many companies,especially digital platforms or those in the media business.According to the latest survey of trust in institutions worldwide by Edelman communications firm,"media has become the least-trusted institution for the first time,"more so than other businesses or government.In particular,the US is"enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust"among many of its institutions,says Richard Edelman,president and CEO of Edelman."The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse,"he adds.Facebook's shift away from computer-driven news selection is a welcome step toward restoring trust in the overall business of news.This is not a new problem."Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,"wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1807.Yet the Digital Age has forced the issue of trust for news providers.By inviting readers to participate in solving this problem,Facebook has itself set a new bar for earning trust.
The author holds that Facebook's shift is
A.a lesson for news providers on filtering news.
B.the cause of the trust crisis across business of news.
C.a step towarcl restoring users'trust in news business.
D.the result of lacking objective facts and rational discourse.