2 Flashcards
Question 21:
1) . Thus, Volkswagen shares are now at about nine times the 2002 estimated earnings, compared to BMW’s 19 and are the second cheapest in the sector.
2) . Many investors have been disappointed and frightened away.
3) . A disastrous capital hike, an expensive foray into truck business and uncertainty about the reason for a share buyback have in recent years left investors bewildered.
4) . The main problem with Volkswagen is the past.
5) . Despite posting healthy profits, Volkswagen shares trade at a discount to peers due to bad reputation among investors.
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Question 22:
1) . He flew the mail in a de Havilland DH-4 biplane to Springfield, Illinois, Peoria and Chicago.
2) . After a crash, he even salvaged bags of mail from his burning aircraft and immediately phoned Alexander Varney, Peoria’s airport manager, to advise him to send a truck.
3) . After finishing first training class, Lindbergh took his first job as the chief pilot of an airmail route operated by Robertson Aircraft Co. of Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri.
4) . During his tenure on the mail route, he was renowned for delivering the mail under any circumstances.
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Question 23:
1) . “There’s no program like this in Australia,” Ms Bocking said, who devised the project as the final component of her community education degree at the University.
2) . Having worked as a literacy tutor with teenagers, Ms Bocking saw the need for good attitudes towards reading to be formed early on - with the help of more male role models.
3) . Julia Bocking’s Literacy and Dads (LADS) project aims to increase the number of fathers participating as literacy helpers in K-2 school reading programs at Queanbeyan Primary Schools.
4) . A University of Canberra student has launched the nation’s first father-led literacy project, to encourage fathers to become more involved in their children’s literacy.
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Question 24:
1) . He suggests the country’s computer services industry can simply outsource research to foreign universities if the capability is not available locally.
2) . Indian businessmen have used IT to create new business models that enable them to provide services in a more cost-effective way. This is not something that necessarily requires expensive technical research.
3) . Innovation in India is as much due to entrepreneurialism as it is to IT skills, says Arun Maria, chairman of Boston Consulting Group in India.
4) . “This way, I will have access to the best scientists in the world without having to produce them myself,” says Mr Maria.
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Question 25:
1) . They’re not all necessarily good guys, either, although with the hurricanes wreaking wholesale destruction upon the world’s coastal areas, ethical categories tend to become irrelevant.
2) . Unlike Barnes’ previous books, Mother of Storms has a fairly large cast of viewpoint characters.
3) . But even the Evil American Corporate Magnate is a pretty likable guy.
4) . This usually irritates me, but I didn’t mind it here, and their interactions are well-handled and informative, although occasionally in moving them about the author’s manipulations are a bit blatant.
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Question 26:
1) . It offered proof of what the US psychologist William James noticed more than a century ago – that humans “are mere walking bundles of habits”.
2) . Studies of this man led scientists to a breakthrough: the part of our brains where habits are stored has nothing to do with memory or reason.
3) . Every day he was asked where the kitchen was in his house, and every day he didn’t have the foggiest idea.
4) . In 1992 a retired engineer in San Diego contracted a rare brain disease that wiped out his memory.
5) . Yet whenever he was hungry he got up and propelled himself straight to the kitchen to get something to eat.
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Question 27:
1) . The top executives of the large, mature, publicly held companies hold the conventional view when they stop to think of the equity owners’ welfare.
2) . So companies investing well grow, enriching themselves and shareholders alike, and ensure competitiveness; companies investing poorly shrink, resulting, perhaps, in the replacement of management.
3) . They assume that the stock market automatically penalizes any corporation that invests its resources poorly.
4) . In short, stock market performance and the company’s financial performance are inexorably linked.
5) . They assume that they’re using their shareholders’ resources efficiently if the company’s performance—especially ROE and earnings per share—is good and if the shareholders don’t rebel.
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Question 28:
- Fireworks and special effects will also turn the bridge into a giant Aboriginal flag before the 9pm fireworks display.
- “It’s about how we’re all so affected by the harbour and its surrounds, how special it is to all of us and how it moves us,” said the Welcome to Country’s creative director, Rhoda Roberts.
- Fireworks and special effects, including a red “waterfall” from the bridge base, will turn the structure built in 1932 into a giant Aboriginal flag shortly after the sun sets for the last time in 2015
- From 8:40pm, the bridge will be turned into a canvas showing the Welcome to Country ceremony
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Question 29.
- They might thus be used as treatments for diseases that require the replacement of a particular, lost cell type.
- Some example cited for a possible treatment using these cells are diabetes, motor neuron disease and Parkinson’s disease.
- Embryonic stem cells are valued by scientists because the cells’ descendant can turn into any other sort of body cell.
- Moreover, if the embryo from which such cells were derived happened to be a clone of an existing person, they would not be recognised as foreign by the immune system of their
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Question 30.
- The earth, according to Ptolemy, was a fixed and immobile mass, located at the centre of the universe.
- Until the early 16th century, western thinkers believed the theory put forward by Ptolemy, an Egyptian living in Alexandria in about 150 A.D.
- The sun and the stars, revolved around it.
- His theory, which was formulated by gathering and organizing the thoughts of the earlier thinkers, proposed that the universe was a closed space bounded by a spherical envelope beyond which there was nothing.
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Question 31.
- However, any employee who wants to acquire more varied and responsible duties will not feel satisfied for long with staying in the same humdrum job. 2. If these prospects do not exist, they are likely to be demotivated.
- Such people will be motivated to keep working hard only if there are opportunities for promotion to more challenging jobs.
- Member of staff who wish to turn up, do a simple job and go home will be relatively happy if they believe their work is secure.
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Question 32.
- It is held annually near Essakane, an oasis some 40 miles north-west of Timbuktu, the ancient city on the Niger River.
- The reward of navigating this rough terrain comes in the form of a three-day feast of music and dance.
- Reaching it tests endurance, with miles of impermanent sand tracks to negotiate.
- The “Festival in The Desert” is a celebration of the musical heritage of the Touareg, a fiercely independent nomadic people
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Question 33.
- Anyone wanting to get to the top of international business, medicine or academia needs to be able to speak English to a pretty high level.
- Because so many English-speakers today are monoglots, they have little idea how difficult it is to master another language.
- Many think the best way to make foreigners understand is to be chatty and informal.
- This may seem friendly but, as it probably involves using colloquial expressions, it makes comprehension harder.
- Equally, any native English speaker wanting to deal with these new high achievers needs to know how to talk without baffling them.
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Question 34.
- We took even more than our share of refugees on a population-weighted basic.
- Australia used to have a generous immigration policy for refugees fleeing violence and conflict.
- At the same time, a raft of changes was introduced to alter Australia’s migration law and policy.
- The rate of refugee arrivals has indeed slowed; but, as some argue, at the expense of our human rights reputation.
- With the election of a new administration, all refugees were subject to detention while waiting for a decision on their application
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Question 35.
- Not only are there some good career opportunities in engineering, but there’s a lot of money going into the research side, too. (1)
- With the pressure of climate change, funding from the research council has probably doubled. (2)
- Engineers, in particular, are much needed to develop greener technologies. (3)
- The energy sector has a fantastic skills shortage at all levels. (4)
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