商务英语考试

【单选题】

How to get to the top
Marketing used to be the route to the chief executive’s chair，but the world has changeD、Now，says Monika Hamori．professor of human resources at Instituto deEmpresa in Madrid，it is finance chiefs who are most likely to get the top job，though experience in opera-tions-running parts of the companyis also essential．CFO Magazine found in 2005 that onefifth of chief ex-ecutives inAmerica were former chief financiaI officers，almost double the share of a decade earlier．The importance of quarterly financial reporting，and closer scrutiny since the imposition of the Sarbanesoxley corporategovernance act，have putCFOs in the limelightand given them the chance to shine．
Another factor in reaching the top is whether you stay with the company you joined as a youngster．Ms．Hamori’s research looked at companies in the S&P 500 and the FTSEurofirst 300．She finds that‘lifers’get to the top in 22 years inAmerica and 24 years inEurope：‘Hoppers’who jump between four or more companies，by contrast，take at least 26 years on average to become chief executives．Insiders get promotions that reflect their potential，because their bosses have enough information to be reasonably confident about their ability．When executives switch from one company to another，however，they tend to move less far up the hierarchy，the researchers founD、
The time taken to reach the top is falling．The average time from first job to chief executive fell from 28 years in 1980 to 24 in 2001．Successful executives are spending less time than they used to in each intermediate joban average of four yearsand they fill five posts on the way up．down from six．One reason for this acceleration is that company hierarchies are flatter than they used to be．Another important shift is the advent of female chief executives． 1n 2001 women accounted for 11%of bosses at leadingAmerican companies．ac-cording to the Hamori/Cappelli survey；in the early 1980s there were none．
America is usually regarded as the home of raw capitalism．with youthful managers hopping from firm to firm and pushing their way to the top．But the HamorL/Cappelli study and another byBooz &Company，a consultancy，show thatEurope is a more dynamic and harsher environ-menl thanAmerica or Japan for chief executives．For a start，European chief executives are younger，with an average age of 54．compared with over 56 inAmericA、The Hamor/Cappelli study shows that 26%ofAmerican bos-ses were lifers，compared with only 18%inEurope．
TheEuropeans also have a harder time once they get to the top.Booz ＆Company’s annual survey of chiefexecutive succession shows that 17.6%ofEuropean bosses moved on last year．compared with 15%ofAmericans and 10%of Japanese．Chief executives．the survey found，last longer inAmerica：the average tenure over the past decade was just over nine years．But inEurope the average tenure over the same period was less than seven years．
Moreover．a whopping 37%of changes at the top inEurope were more or less firings，according toBooz，compared with only 27%inAmerica and 12%in Japan．Booz puts this down to the more recent tightening of corporate governance inEurope,AnotherBooz finding is common to both sides of theAtlantic：looking back over recent years，board disputes and power struggles lie behind a third of chiefexecutive firings．In short，shareholder activism is making its presence felt，putting pressure on bosses to perform．
According to the last paragraph，A．employees are more likely to be fired as they get higher in position．
B．executives in Japan are more likely to get fired than those inAmericA、
C．corporate governance inAmerica and Japan is too loose．
D．shareholders in bothAmerica andEurope put great pressure on the management．

网考网参考答案：D
网考网解析：
本题用筛选法可以很快确定答案D。 只要正确理解本段的第一句话就可以排除A和B。第一句话的意思是“根据Booz的调查，在欧洲，高达37%的高层人事变动都多少带有被解雇的性质，而美国和日本则分别为27%和12%”。A项的意思是“职位越高的职员更容易被解雇”，与本句不符。此外，参考句中“美国和日本(的高层解雇比例)分别为27%和12%”可以判断B为错误。至于选项C，它的意思是“美国和日本的企业管理太过松散”，这并没有在本段提及，而且也不能从段中的第二句“：Booz puts this down to the more recent tightening of cor-porate governance in Europe．”作出这样的推论，所以C也不正确。D项的意思为“欧洲和美国的股东都给管理层施加了巨大的压力”，它与本段最后两句话的内容相符，为正确答案。 document.getElementById("warp").style.display="none"; document.getElementById("content").style.display="block"; 查看试题解析出处>>