A lot of management training each year for Circle K Corporation, a national chain of convenience stores. Among the topics we address in our course is the retention(保护力) of quality employees-a real challenge to managers when you consider the pay scale(标准)in the service industry. During these discussions, I ask the participants(参加者), “What has caused you to stay long enough to become a manager?” Some time back a new manager took the question and slowly, with her voice almost breaking, said, “It was a $19 baseball glove.”

Cynthia told the group that she originally took a Circle K clerk job as an interim(临时的) position while she looked for something better. On her second or third day behind the counter, she received a phone call from her nine-year-old son, Jessie. He needed a baseball glove for Little League. She explained that as a single mother, money was very tight, and her first check would have to go for paying bills. Perhaps she could buy his baseball glove with her second or third check. When Cynthia arrived for work the next morning, Patricia, the store manager, asked her to come to the small room in the back of the store that served as an office. Cynthia wondered if she had done something wrong or left some part of her job incomplete from the day before. She was concerned and confused.

Patricia handed her a box. “I overheard you talking to your son yesterday,” she said, “and I know that it is hard to explain things to kids. This is a baseball glove for Jessie because he may not understand how important he is, even though you have to pay bills before you can buy gloves. You know we can’t pay good people like you as much as we would like to; but we do care, and I want you to know you are important to us.”

The thoughtfulness, empathy and love of this convenience store manager demonstrates vividly that people remember more how much an employer cares than how much the employer pays. An important lesson for the price of a Little League baseball glove.

Among many of the problems in the service industry, talked about in this passage, is         .

       A.how to ensure his employees’ high pay

       B.how to attract more customers

       C.how to look carefully after the employees

       D.how to keep the good employees from leaving

Although a new manager, Cynthia would do her job well in keeping quality employees because she         .

       A.had mastered all the courses for the manager

       B.had already formed good relationship with the employees

       C.know the way how to deal with her employees

       D.had her own personal experience

This passage shows us that to run a business well it is necessary for managers to let their employees know         .

       A.how much they can get for their job.

       B.what good positions they can get later

       C.they are very necessary to the business  

       D.they are nice as well as useful

The story told in this passage tells us that employees care about         .

       A.only how large a pay they can get

       B.love from the managing people rather than only money

       C.if their children could be properly taken care of

       D.what position they can be offered

Celebrity (名人) has become one of the most important representatives of popular culture. Fans used to be crazy about a specific film, but now the public tends to base its consumption (消费) on the interest of celebrity attached to any given product. Besides, fashion magazines have almost abandoned (given up) the practice of putting models on the cover because they don’t sell nearly as well as famous faces. As a result, celebrities have realized their unbelievably powerful market potential, moving from advertising for others’ products to developing their own.

Celebrity clothing lines aren’t a completely new phenomenon, but in the past they were typically aimed at the ordinary consumers, and limited to a few TV actresses. Today they’re started by first-class stars whose products enjoy equal fame with some world top brands. The most successful start-ups have been those by celebrities with specific personal style. As celebrities become more and more experienced at the market, they expand their production scale rapidly, covering almost all the products of daily life.

However, for every success story, there’s a related warning tale of a celebrity who overvalued his consumer appeal. No matter how famous the product’s origin is, if it fails to impress consumers with its own qualities it begins to resemble an exercise in self-promotional marketing. And once the initial (最初的) attention dies down, consumer interest might fade, loyalty returning to tried-and-true labels.

    Today, celebrities face even more severe embarrassment. The pop-cultural circle might be bigger than ever, but its rate of turnover has speeded up as well. Each misstep threatens to reduce a celebrity’s shelf life, and the same newspaper or magazine that once brought him fame has no problem picking him to pieces when the opportunity appears. Still, the ego’s(自我的)potential for expansion is limitless. Having already achieved great wealth and public recognition, many celebrities see fashion as the next frontier to be conquered. As the saying goes, success and failure always go hand in hand. Their success as designers might last only a short time, but fashion—like celebrity—has always been temporary.

Fashion magazines today        .

    A. seldom put models on the cover

    B. no longer put models on the cover

    C. need not worry about celebrities’ market potential

    D. judge the market potential of every celebrity correctly

A change in the consumer market can be found today that        .

A. price rather than brand name is more concerned

    B. producers prefer models to celebrities for advertisements

    C. producers prefer TV actresses to film stars for advertisements

D. quality rather than the outside of products is more concerned

The underlined sentence in paragraph 4 indicates that any wrong step will possibly        .

    A. decrease the popularity of a celebrity and the sales of his products

    B. damage the image of a celebrity in the eyes of the general public

    C. cut short the artistic career of a celebrity in show business

    D. influence the price of a celebrity’s products

The passage is mainly about         .

    A. celebrity and personal style                       B. celebrity and markets potential

C. celebrity and fashion design                      D. celebrity and clothing industry

It was the summer of 1965. DeLuca, then 17, visited Peter Buck, a family friend. Buck asked DeLuca about his plans for his future. “ I’m going to college, but I need a way to pay for it,” DeLuca recalled saying, “ Buck said, ‘You should open a sandwich shop’.”

      That afternoon, they agreed to be partners. And they set a goal: to open 32 stores in ten years. After doing some research, Buck wrote a check for $ 1,000. DeLuca rented a storefront (店面) in Connecticut, and when they couldn’t cover their start-up costs, Buck kicked in another $1,000.

   But business didn’t go smoothly as they expected. DeLuca says, “After six months, we were doing poorly, but we didn’t know how badly, because we didn’t have any financial control.” All he and Buck knew was that their sales were lower than their costs.

DeLuca was managing the store and going to the University of Bridgeport at the same time. Buck was

working at his day job as a nuclear physicist in New York. They’d meet on Monday evenings and brainstorm ideas for keeping the business running. “We convinced(使…相信) ourselves to open a second store. We figured we could tell the public, ‘We are so successful, we are opening a second store.’”And they did---in the spring of 1966. Still, it was a lot of learning by trial and error.

But the partners’ learn-as-you-go approach turned out to be their greatest strength. Every Friday, DeLuca would drive around and hand-deliver the checks to pay their suppliers. “It probably took me two and a half hours and it wasn’t necessary, but as a result, the suppliers got to know me very well, and the personal relationships established really helped out,” DeLuca said.

 And having a goal was also important. “ There are so many problems that can get you down. You just have to keep working toward your goal,” DeLuca adds.

DeLuca ended up founding Subway sandwich, the multimillion-dollar restaurant chain.

66. DeLuca opened the first sandwich shop in order to ________________.

A. support his family

B. pay for his college education

C. help his partner expand business

D. do some search

67. Which of the following is true of Buck?

A. He put money into the sandwich business.

B. He was a professor of business administration.

C. He was studying at the University of Bridgeport.

 D. He rented a storefront for DeLuca.

68. What can we learn about their first shop?

A. It stood at an unfavorable place.

B. It lowered the prices to promote sales.

C. It made no profits due to poor management.

D. It lacked control over the quality of sandwiches.

69. They decided to open a second store because they____________.

A. had enough money to do it.

B. had succeeded in their business.

C. wished to meet the increasing demand of customers.

D. wanted to make people believe that they were successful.

70. What contributes most to their success according to the author?

A. Learning by trial and error.

B. Making friends with suppliers.

C. Finding a good partner.

D. Opening chain stores.

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