Mention the word "multinational", and most people think of borderless mobility—of companies at home everywhere and nowhere, movi

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问题     Mention the word "multinational", and most people think of borderless mobility—of companies at home everywhere and nowhere, moving huge quantities of men, money and materials around the globe in the restless pursuit of profit. Aurelio Peccei, a director of Fiat, once claimed that the multinational corporation was "the most powerful agent for the internationalization of society". Carl Gerstacker, sometime chairman of Dow Chemicals, confessed that he had "long dreamed of buying an island owned by no nation and of establishing the world headquarters of the Dow company on the truly neutral ground of such an island, beholden to no nation or society".
    Mention of the word "multinational" also makes people think of global products—of consumers in Greenwich Village and some village in Bengal drinking identical soft drinks. Theodore Levitt, a marketing guru at Harvard Business School, once argued that companies no longer need to be so "respectful" of local quirks and peculiarities, and that global companies can sell the same thing in the same way anywhere.
    Multinationals should beware of following Mr. Levitt down this path. After a brief flirtation with globalization, companies such as Nestle and Unilever now realize that their local managers represent an invaluable resource. General Electric has broken with its strict practice of dividing its operations into global product lines by setting up a regional headquarters in Asia. Even the most powerful global brand has had to bow before local differences. People in the south of Japan like their Coca-cola slightly sweeter than people in Tokyo, and the company obliges. PepsiCo was puzzled why one of its best-selling products, "7-Up" remained on the shelves in Shanghai until it discovered that, in the local dialect, the phrase means "death through drinking". Even those pillars of American Puritanism, IBM and Disney, have dropped their strict no-alcohol policy in France. Philips Morris has had to make local adjustments to its familiar advertising symbol, Marlboro man: In Hong Kong the advertisement focuses on the horse, because the man reminds locals of coolie, and in Argentina the man was dropped entirely for a while, because cowboys were regarded as low-class wasters. Companies are also learning to their cost that the apparent convergence between different cultures has not gone as far as they thought. EuroDisney failed to take off, among other things, because the company assumed that Micky Mouse and other cartoon characters would be familiar in Europe as they are in the U. S. , and did not invest nearly enough in promoting their product.
From the failure of EuroDisney we can learn that

选项 A、Europeans don’t like Disney’s cartoon characters.
B、American and European cultures are not convergent at all.
C、America and Europe have not so much in common as the company thought.
D、not all people around the world like cartoons.

答案C

解析 从欧洲迪斯尼公司的失败中我们可知,[A]欧洲人不喜欢迪斯尼公司的卡通形象。[B]美国和欧洲文化完全不一致。[C]在美国和欧洲之间没有该公司想象的那么多共同点。[D]这个世界上,不是所有人都喜欢卡通。文章最后讲到了欧洲迪斯尼公司。欧洲迪斯尼公司没有赢利,因为它臆断米老鼠和其他卡通形象在欧洲和在美国一样广为人知,而没有进行充分的投资宣传自己的产品。也就是说,欧洲文化和美国文化虽然有共同点,但两者之间的一致性并非他们想象得那么多,故正确答案是[C]。[A]和[B]的表达都太绝对;[D]概括的范围太大。[B]甚至培训课在提供应对压力的技能方面也没有效果。[C]人们在寻求帮助时应该先知道压力的来源。[D]虽然吸毒和酗酒不是应对压力的好方式,但或许有用。根据第二段第二句可知[C]的意思与文意相符,故为正确答案。根据最后一段第一句可知[A]与文意不符.[B]与第五段的内容不符。根据第二段最后一句“吸毒和酗酒是控制压力的极坏方法,因为你还得处理吸毒和酗酒所带来的不良后果”,可知文章对这种控制压力的方法完全否定,故排除[D]。
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