中国留学之家，中国最优秀的留学咨询公司，全球顶尖大学申请专家！ 2004年11月作文机经总结2

飘香哈达 - 2008-3-31 11:10:00

Analysis of Argument

1. The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen foods.

“Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits.” .”【本月频率1，上月频率2】

6. The following appeared as part of an article in a magazine devoted to regional life.

“Corporations should look to the city of Helios when seeking new business opportunities or a new location. Even in the recent recession, Helios’s unemployment rate was lower than the regional average. It is the industrial center of the region, and historically it has provided more than its share of the region’s manufacturing jobs. In addition, Helios is attempting to expand its economic base by attracting companies that focus on research and development of innovative technologies.”【本月频率2，上月频率1】

10. The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper.

“This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters. Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students.”【本月频率1，上月频率3】

14. The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial.

“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”【本月频率5，本月新题】

31. The following appeared as part of the business plan of an investment and financial consulting firm.

“Studies suggest that an average coffee drinker’s consumption of coffee increases with age, from age 10 through age 60. Even after age 60, coffee consumption remains high. The average cola drinker’s consumption of cola, however, declines with increasing age. Both of these trends have remained stable for the past 40 years. Given that the number of older adults will significantly increase as the population ages over the next 20 years, it follows that the demand for coffee will increase and the demand for cola will decrease during this period. We should, therefore, consider transferring our investments from Cola Loca to Early Bird Coffee.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

32. The following appeared in the editorial section of a West Cambria newspaper.

“A recent review of the West Cambria volunteer ambulance service revealed a longer average response time to accidents than was reported by a commercial ambulance squad located in East Cambria. In order to provide better patient care for accident victims and to raise revenue for our town by collecting service fees for ambulance use, we should disband our volunteer service and hire a commercial ambulance service.”【本月频率3，本月新题】

34.The following appeared as part of a plan proposed by an executive of the Easy Credit Company to the president.

“The Easy Credit Company would gain an advantage over competing credit card services if we were to donate a portion of the proceeds from the use of our cards to a well-known environmental organization in exchange for the use of its symbol or logo on our card. Since a recent poll shows that a large percentage of the public is concerned about environmental issues, this policy would attract new customers, increase use among existing customers, and enable us to charge interest rates that are higher than the lowest ones available.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

38. The following appeared in the editorial section of a campus newspaper.

“Because occupancy rates for campus housing fell during the last academic year, so did housing revenues. To solve the problem, campus housing officials should reduce the number of available housing units, thereby increasing the occupancy rates. Also, to keep students from choosing to live off-campus, housing officials should lower the rents, thereby increasing demand.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

39. The following appeared in an Avia Airlines departmental memorandum. “On average, 9 out of every 1,000 passengers who traveled on Avia Airlines last year filed a complaint about our baggage-handling procedures. This means that although some 1 percent of our passengers were unhappy with those procedures, the overwhelming majority were quite satisfied with them; thus it would appear that a review of the procedures is not important to our goal of maintaining or increasing the number of Avia’s passengers.【本月频率4，上月频率1】

43. The following appeared in an article in the health section of a newspaper.

“There is a common misconception that university hospitals are better than community or private hospitals. This notion is unfounded, however: the university hospitals in our region employ 15 percent fewer doctors, have a 20 percent lower success rate in treating patients, make far less overall profit, and pay their medical staff considerably less than do private hospitals. Furthermore, many doctors at university hospitals typically divide their time among teaching, conducting research, and treating patients. From this it seems clear that the quality of care at university hospitals is lower than that at other kinds of hospitals.”【本月频率3，上月频率1】

46.The following appeared in a memorandum from the directors of a security and safety consulting service.

“Our research indicates that over the past six years no incidents of employee theft have been reported within ten of the companies that have been our clients. In analyzing the security practices of these ten companies, we have further learned that each of them requires its employees to wear photo identification badges while at work. In the future, therefore, we should recommend the use of such identification badges to all of our clients.”【本月频率1，上月频率3】

52. The following editorial appeared in the Elm City paper.

“The construction last year of a shopping mall in downtown Oak City was a mistake. Since the mall has opened, a number of local businesses have closed, and the downtown area suffers from an acute parking shortage, and arrests for crime and vagrancy have increased in the nearby Oak City Park. Elm City should pay attention to the example of the Oak City mall and deny the application to build a shopping mall in Elm City.”【本月频率2，上月频率1】

62. The following appeared in the letters-to-the-editor section of a local newspaper.

“Muscle Monthly, a fitness magazine that regularly features pictures of bodybuilders using state-of-the-art exercise machines, frequently sells out, according to the owner of Skyview Newsstand. To help maximize fitness levels in our town's residents, we should, therefore, equip our new community fitness center with such machines.”【本月频率1，上月频率1】

64.The following appeared in a memorandum from the Director of Human Resources to the executive officers of Company X.

“Last year, we surveyed our employees on improvements needed at Company X by having them rank, in order of importance, the issues presented in a list of possible improvements. Improved communications between employees and management was consistently ranked as the issue of highest importance by the employees who responded to the survey. As you know, we have since instituted regular communications sessions conducted by high-level management, which the employees can attend on a voluntary basis. Therefore, it is likely that most employees at Company X now feel that the improvement most needed at the company has been made.” 【本月频率1，上月频率1】

83. The following appeared in the editorial section of a newspaper in the country of West Cambria.

“The practice of officially changing speed limits on the highways — whether by increasing or decreasing them — is a dangerous one. Consider what happened over the past decade whenever neighboring East Cambria changed its speed limits: an average of 3 percent more automobile accidents occurred during the week following the change than had occurred during the week preceding it — even when the speed limit was lowered. This statistic shows that the change in speed limit adversely affected the alertness of drivers.”【本月频率1，上月频率1】

92.The following is taken from an editorial in a local newspaper.

“Over the past decade, the price per pound of citrus fruit has increased substantially. Eleven years ago, Megamart charged 5 cents apiece for lemons, but today it commonly charges over 30 cents apiece. In only one of these last eleven years was the weather unfavorable for growing citrus crops. Evidently, then, citrus growers have been responsible for the excessive increase in the price of citrus fruit, and strict pricing regulations are needed to prevent them from continuing to inflate prices.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

93. The following appeared as part of an article in a local newspaper.

“Over the past three years the tartfish industry has changed markedly: fishing technology has improved significantly, and the demand for tartfish has grown in both domestic and foreign markets. As this trend continues, the tartfish industry on Shrimp Island can expect to experience the same over-fishing problems that are already occurring with mainland fishing industries: without restrictions on fishing, fishers see no reason to limit their individual catches. As the catches get bigger, the tartfish population will be dangerously depleted while the surplus of tartfish will devalue the catch for fishers. Government regulation is the only answer: tartfish-fishing should be allowed only during the three-month summer season, when tartfish reproduce and thus are most numerous, rather than throughout the year.”【本月频率1，本月新题】

97. The following appeared as part of an article in a computer magazine.

“A year ago Apex Manufacturing bought its managers computers for their homes and paid for telephone connections so that the managers could access Apex computers and data files from home after normal business hours. Since last year, productivity at Apex has increased by 15 percent. Other companies can learn from the success at Apex: given home computers and access to company resources, employees will work additional hours at home and thereby increase company profits.”【本月频率1，上月频率1】

105. The following appeared in an editorial from a newspaper serving the town of Saluda.

“The Saluda Consolidated High School offers over 200 different courses from which its students can choose. A much smaller private school down the street offers a basic curriculum of only 80 different courses, but it consistently sends a higher proportion of its graduating seniors on to college than Consolidated does. By eliminating at least half of the courses offered there and focusing on a basic curriculum, we could improve student performance at Consolidated and also save many tax dollars.”【本月频率3，上月频率1】

106.The following appeared as part of a business plan by the Capital Idea Investment firm.

“Currently more and more books are becoming available in electronic form — either free of charge on the Internet or for a very low price per book on CD-ROM.* People who would not pay bookstore prices will now have access to whatever book they want from their home or work computers. Consequently, literary classics are likely to be read more widely than ever before: 72 percent of those responding to a recent online survey said they would read books in electronic form, and 81 percent said they believed that reading classic works was important. Given this newly developing market, we should invest in E-Classics, a new company that sells electronic versions of literary classics.”

A CD-ROM is a small portable disc capable of storing relatively large amounts of data that can be read by a computer.【本月频率1，上月频率1】

108. The following appeared as part of a business plan created by the management of the Take Heart Fitness Center.

“After opening the new swimming pool early last summer, Take Heart saw a 12 percent increase in the use of the center by members. Therefore, in order to increase the number of our members and thus our revenues, which depend on membership fees, we should continue to add new recreational facilities in subsequent years: for example, a multipurpose game room, a tennis court, and a miniature golf course. Being the only center in the area offering this range of activities would give us a competitive advantage in the health and recreation market.” 【本月频率1，上月频率1】

110. The following appeared as part of a memorandum from the loan department of the Frostbite National Bank.

“We should not approve the business loan application of the local group that wants to open a franchise outlet for the Kool Kone chain of ice cream parlors. Frostbite is known for its cold winters, and cold weather can mean slow ice cream sales. For example, even though Frostbite is a town of 10,000 people, it has only one ice cream spot — the Frigid Cow. Despite the lack of competition, the Frigid Cow’s net revenues fell by 10 percent last winter.”【本月频率1，上月频率1】

113. The following appeared in a memorandum written by the assistant manager of a store that sells gourmet food items from various countries.

“An interesting discovery was made last month at a local wine store: the store sold more French than Italian wine on days when recordings of French accordion music were played, but more Italian wine was sold on days when Italian songs were played. Therefore, I recommend that we put food specialties from one particular country on sale for a week at a time and play only music from that country while the sale is going on. By this means we will increase our profits in the same way that the wine store did, and we will be able to predict more precisely what items we should stock at any given time.”【本月频率4，上月频率3】

124. The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Carlo’s Clothing to the staff.

“Since Disc Depot, the music store on the next block, began a new radio advertising campaign last year, its business has grown dramatically, as evidenced by the large increase in foot traffic into the store. While the Disc Depot’s owners have apparently become wealthy enough to retire, profits at Carlo’s Clothing have remained stagnant for the past three years. In order to boost our sales and profits, we should therefore switch from newspaper advertising to frequent radio advertisements like those for Disc Depot.”【本月频率2，上月频率1】

125. The following appeared as part of the business plan of the Capital Idea investment firm.

“Across town in the Park Hill district, the Thespian Theater, Pizzazz Pizza, and the Niblick Golf Club have all had business increases within the past two years. Capital Idea should therefore invest in the Roxy Playhouse, the Slice-o’-Pizza, and the Divot Golf Club, three new businesses in the Irongate district. As a condition, we should require them to participate in a special program: Any customer who patronizes two of the businesses will receive a substantial discount at the third. By motivating customers to patronize all three, we will thus contribute to the profitability of each and maximize our return.”【本月频率1，上月频率1】

128. The following appeared in a memorandum from the human resources department of Diversified Manufacturing.

“Managers at our central office report that their employees tend to be most productive in the days immediately before a vacation. To help counteract our declining market share, we could increase the productivity of our professional staff members, who receive a total of four weeks paid vacation a year, by allowing them to take no more than one week of vacation at a time. They will thus take more vacation breaks during a year and give us more days of maximum productivity, thereby helping to increase our market share.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

129. The following appeared in a memorandum from a regional supervisor of post office operations.

“During a two-week study of postal operations, the Presto City post office handled about twice as many items as the Lento City post office, even though the cities are about the same size. Moreover, customer satisfaction appears to be higher in Presto City, since the study found fewer complaints regarding the Presto City post office. Therefore, the postmasters at these two offices should exchange assignments: the Presto City postmaster will solve the problems of inefficiency and customer dissatisfaction at the Lento City office while the Lento City postmaster learns firsthand the superior methods of Presto City.”【本月频率3，本月新题】

130. The following appeared in a memorandum written by the managing director of the Exeunt Theater Company.

“Now that we have moved to a larger theater, we can expect to increase our revenues from ticket sales. To further increase profits, we should start producing the plays that have been most successful when they were performed in our nation’s largest cities. In addition, we should hire the Adlib Theater Company’s director of fund-raising, since corporate donations to Adlib have increased significantly over the three years that she has worked for Adlib.”【本月频率1，上月频率1】

A2. A planning consultant to the Banbridge Riverfront Festival Committee made the following recommendation to the committee.

“The Riverfront Festival drew 10,000 visitors — not bad for your first year. You should double that number, however, by bringing in the Jolly Pirate Ship. In St. Clyde, the Harbor Week Festival averaged 30,000 visitors per year over the last decade, but the attendance reached a high point of 45,000 a couple of years ago, when the Jolly Pirate was at the Harbor Week Festival. One of the organizers reported that the ship was especially popular with school groups. Have the Jolly Pirate Ship sail into the Riverfront Festival next summer, and your festival will be much more successful.” 【本月频率1，上月频率1】

A3. The following appeared in a memorandum from the development director of the Largo Piano Company.

“The Largo Piano Company has long been known for producing carefully handcrafted, expensive pianos used by leading concert pianists. During the past few years, however, our revenues have declined; meanwhile, the Allegro Musical Instrument Company introduced a line of inexpensive digital pianos and then saw its revenues increase. In order to increase Largo’s sales and in fact outsell Allegro, we should introduce a line of digital pianos in a variety of price ranges. Our digital pianos would be likely to find instant acceptance with customers, since they would be associated with the prestigious Largo name.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

A6. The following appeared as part of a business plan created by the general manager of the Multon Electronic Company.

“In response to complaints from customers about the difficulty of installing and operating Multon’s products, Multon Electronic Company tried an experiment. The Customer Service Department has long suspected that customers are not reading the instructions that are included with every new purchase, and so it inserted a gift certificate at the end of every instruction manual. Because only 75 people returned the certificates in a three-month period last year, Multon Electronics has proved its point that customers are not reading the instructions. The Customer Service Department can solve this problem by providing every new customer with an instructional videotape.” 【本月频率2，上月频率1】

A7. The following is a memorandum to the president of the EZ-Manufacturing Company from the manager of cafeteria services.

“Offering pizza in our cafeteria has proved extremely profitable. To further increase our profits from pizza sales, we should switch to PDQ Pizzeria to supply our pizza. PDQ pizza was twice voted the ‘best pizza’ in the neighboring town of Hamiltonia in on-line surveys of Hamiltonia Gazette readers. The PDQ branch in our town currently sells pizza for only slightly more than our cafeteria does and has begun offering free daily delivery. Switching to PDQ pizza will clearly improve satisfaction with our cafeteria and hence increase the cafeteria’s profits.”【本月频率3，上月频率2】

A8. The following appeared in a memorandum from the marketing department of Reel magazine.

“In order to determine the cause of the recent decline in sales of our magazine, we sent a survey to customers who have canceled their subscription during the last nine months. Results indicate that 80 percent of the 450 respondents feel that Reel contains too many ads. In order to retain current customers and win back customers who have canceled their subscriptions, we should reduce the number of ads. This solution will not only improve customer satisfaction but also increase our revenue by boosting magazine sales.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

A11. The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a newspaper:

“Last year when Washington County received a special appropriation for improving highway safety, it spent all those funds to straighten sections of certain county roads. Unfortunately, the number of traffic accidents in the county was actually higher than in the previous year. Although Adams County received a smaller appropriation for improving highway safety, it hired more police officers and enforced traffic laws more strictly. Last year Adams County reported 15% fewer traffic accidents than during the previous year. Since money for improving highway safety throughout the state is limited, we can achieve greater success with less expenditure by using all such funds for stricter enforcement of speed limits.” 【本月频率1，上月频率1】

A12. The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Mama Mia's, a chain of Italian restaurants:

“Officials of the movie industry report that over 70% of the movies released last year targeted a teenage audience. Furthermore, national sales data indicate that the favorite food of teenagers is pizza. Since a branch store of Good Times Movie Rental opened on Center Street six months ago, sales of takeout pizza at our restaurant next door have been higher than at any other restaurant in our chain. Because the rental of movies seems to stimulate pizza sales, the best way to increase our profits is to open new Mama Mia's restaurants next to or very near all of the Good Times Movie Rental stores.”【本月频率1，上月频率6】

A13. The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of the Fizzle Soda Company.

“There is apparently a market for new beverages, as can be seen from the fact that other companies have recently introduced new juice drinks and sports drinks. Given this market and customer surveys indicating that many drinkers of regular Fizzle soda add chocolate syrup to their soda, we can increase our company’s sales by creating a new chocolate-flavored soda, ‘Choco-Fizz.’ Choco-Fizz will help us attract new customers and keep our customers who might otherwise switch to our competitors’ chocolate beverages. And Choco-Fizz will be more successful than Fizzle Plus, our most recently introduced flavor, because it will be easier to distinguish from regular Fizzle soda.”【本月频率2，本月新题】

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