1、雅思（阅读）历年真题试卷汇编 6及答案与解析 0 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. The Sweet Scent of Success Many innovations end up as lemons OzKleen turned lemons into a winning formula. A Innovation and entrepreneurship, in the right mix, can bring spectacul
2、ar results and propel a business ahead of the pack. Across a diverse range of commercial successes, from the Hills Hoist clothes line to the Cochlear ear implant, it is hard to generalize beyond saying the creators tapped into something consumers could not wait to get their hands on. However, most i
3、deas never make it to the market. Some ideas that innovators are spruiking to potential investors include new water-saving shower heads, a keyless locking system, ping-pong balls that keep pollution out of rainwater tanks, making teeth grow from stem cells inserted in the gum, and technology to stop
4、 LPG tanks from exploding. Grant Kearney, chief executive of the Innovation Xchange, which connects businesses to innovation networks, says he hears of great business ideas that he knows will never get on the market. “Ideas by themselves are absolutely useless,“ he says. “An idea only becomes innova
5、tion when it is connected to the right resources and capabilities.“ B One of Australias latest innovation successes stems from a lemon-scented bathroom cleaner called Shower Power, the formula for which was concocted in a factory in Yatala, Queensland. In 1995, Tom Quinn and John Heron bought a stru
6、ggling cleaning products business, OzKleen, for 250,000. It was selling 100 different kinds of cleaning products, mainly in bulk. The business was in bad shape, the cleaning formulas were ineffective and environmentally harsh, and there were few regular clients. Now Shower Power is claimed to be the
7、 top-selling bathroom cleaning product in the country. In the past 12 months, almost four million bottles of OzKleens Power products have been sold and the company forecasts 2004 sales of 10 million bottles. The companys sales in 2003 reached $11 million, with 70% of business being exports. In parti
8、cular, Shower Power is making big inroads on the British market. C OzKleens turnaround began when Quinn and Heron hired an industrial che-mist to revitalize the product line. Market research showed that people were looking for a better cleaner for the bathroom, universally regarded as the hardest ro
9、om in the home to clean. The company also wanted to make the product formulas more environmentally friendly. One of Tom Quinns sons, Peter, aged 24 at the time, began working with the chemist on the formulas, looking at the potential for citrus-based cleaning products. He detested all the chlorine-b
10、ased cleaning products that dominated the market. “We didnt want to use chlorine, simple as that,“ he says. “It offers bad working conditions and theres no money in it.“ Peter looked at citrus ingredients, such as orange peel, to replace the petroleum by-products in cleaners. He is credited with fin
11、ding the Shower Power formula. “The recipe is in a vault somewhere and in my head,“ he says. The company is the sole owner of the intellectual property. D To begin with, Shower Power was sold only in commercial quantities but Tom Quinn decided to sell it in 750ml bottles after the constant “raves“ f
12、rom customers at their retail store at Beenleigh, near Brisbane. Customers were travelling long distances to buy supplies. Others began writing to OzKleen to say how good Shower Power was. “We did a dummy label and went to see Wool-worths,“ Tom Quinn says. The Woolworths buyer took a bottle home and
13、 was I able to remove a stain from her basin that had been impossible to shift. From that point on, she championed the product and OzKleen had its first supermarket order, for a palette of Shower Power worth $3000. “We were over the moon,“ says OzKleens financial controller, Belinda McDonnell. E Sho
14、wer Power was released in Australian supermarkets in 1997 and became the top-selling product in its category within six months. It was all hands on deck at the factory, labeling and bottling Shower Power to keep up with demand. OzKleen ditched all other products and rebuilt the business around Showe
15、r Power. This stage, recalls McDonnell, was very tough. “It was hand-to-mouth, cashflow was very difficult,“ she says. OzKleen had to pay new-line fees to supermarket chains, which also squeezed margins. F OzKleens next big break came when the daughter of a Coles Myer executive used the product whil
16、e on holidays in Queensland and convinced her father that Shower Power should be in Coles supermarkets. Despite the product success, Peter Quinn says the company was wary of how long the sales would last and hesitate to spend money on upgrading the manufacturing process. As a result, he remembers lo
17、ng periods of working around the clock to keep up with orders. Small tanks were still being used so batches were small and bottles were labeled and filled manually. The privately owned OzKleen relied on cashflow to expand. “The equipment could not keep up with demand,“ Peter Quinn says. Eventually a
18、 new bottling machine was bought for $50,000 in the hope of streamlining production, but he says: “We got ripped off.“ Since then he has been developing a new automated bottling machine that can control the amount of foam produced in the liquid, so that bottles can be filled more effectively “I love
19、 coming up with new ideas.“ The machine is being patented. G Peter Quinn says OzKleens approach to research and development is open slather. “If I need it, I get it. It is about doing something simple that no one else is doing. Most of these things are jus sitting in front of people . its just seein
20、g the opportunities.“ With a tried and tested product, OzKleen is expanding overseas and developing more Power-brand household products. Tom Quinn, who previously ran a real estate agency, says: “We are competing with the same market all over the world, the(cleaning)products are sold everywhere.“ Sh
21、ower Power, known as Bath Power in Britain, was launched four years ago with the help of an export development grand from the Federal Government. “We wanted to do it straight away because we realized we had the same opportunities worldwide.“ OzKleen is already number three in the British market, and
22、 the next stop is France. The Power range includes cleaning products for carpets, kitchens and pre-wash stain removal. The Quinn and Heron families are still involved. OzKleen has been approached with offers to buy the company, but Tom Quinn says he is happy with things as they are. “Were having too
23、 much fun.“ Questions 1-7 Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet. 1 The description of one family member persuading another of selling cleaning products 2 An account of the coopera
24、tion of all factory staff to cope with sales increase 3 An account of the creation of the formula of Shower Power 4 An account of buying the original OzKleen company 5 The description of Shower Powers international expansion 6 The reason of changing the packaging size of Shower Power 7 An example of
25、 some innovative ideas 7 Look at the following people and list of statements below. Match each person with the correct statement. Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 8-11 on your answer sheet. List of Statements A Described his story of selling his product to a chain store B Explained there was a
26、shortage of money when sales suddenly increased C Thinks innovations need support to succeed D Believes new products like Shower Power may incur risks E Says businesses wont succeed without innovations 8 Grant Kearney 9 Tom Quinn 10 Peter Quinn 11 Belinda McDonnell 11 Choose the correct letter A, B,
27、 C or D. Write your answers in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet. 12 Tom Quinn changed the bottle size to 750ml to make Shower Power （ A） easier to package. （ B） appealing to individual customers. （ C） popular in foreign markets. （ D） attractive to supermarkets. 13 Why did Tom Quinn decide not to sel
28、l OzKleen? （ A） No one wanted to buy OzKleen. （ B） New products were being developed in OzKleen. （ C） He couldnt make an agreement on the price with the buyer. （ D） He wanted to keep things unchanged. 13 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
29、 Ms. Carlill and the Carbolic Smoke Ball On 14 January 1892, Queen Victorias grandson Prince Albert Victor, second in line to the British throne, died from flu. He had succumbed to the third and most lethal wave of the Russian flu pandemic sweeping the world. The nation was shocked. The people mourn
30、ed. Albert was relegated to a footnote in history. Three days later, London housewife Louisa Carlill went down with flu. She was shocked. For two months she had inhaled thrice daily from a carbolic smoke ball, a preventive measure guaranteed to fend off flu if you believed the advert. Which she did.
31、 And why shouldnt she when the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company had promised to cough up 100 for any customer who fell ill. Unlike Albert, Louisa recovered, claimed her 100 and set in train events that would win her lasting fame. IT STARTED in the spring of 1889. The first reports of a flu epidemic came
32、from Russia. By the end of the year the world was in the grip of the first truly global flu pandemic. The disease came in waves, once a year for the next four years, and each worse than the last. Whole cities came to a standstill. London was especially hard-hit. As the flu reached each annual peak,
33、normal life stopped. The postal service ground to a halt, trains stopped running, banks closed. Even courts stopped sitting for lack of judges. At the height of the third wave in 1892, 200 people were buried every day at just one London cemetery. This flu was far more lethal than previous epidemics,
34、 and those who recovered were left weak, depressed and often unfit for work. It was a picture repeated across the continent. Accurate figures for the number of sick and dead were few and far between but Paris, Berlin and Vienna all reported a huge upsurge in deaths. The newspapers took an intense in
35、terest in the disease, not just because of the scale of it but because of who it attacked. Most epidemics carried off the poor and weak, the old and frail. This flu was cutting as great a swathe through the upper classes, dealing death to the rich and famous and the young and fit. The newspaper-read
36、ing public was fed a daily diet of celebrity victims. The flu had worked its way through the Russian imperial family and invaded the royal palaces of Europe. It carried off the Dowager Empress of Germany and the second son of the king of Italy, as well as Englands future king. Aristocrats and politi
37、cians, poets and opera singers, bishops and cardinals none escaped the attentions of the Russian flu. The public grew increasingly fearful. The press might have been overdoing the doom and gloom, but their hysterical coverage had exposed one terrible fact. The medical profession had no answer to the
38、 disease. This flu, which might not even have begun in Russia, was a mystery. What caused it and how did it spread? No one could agree on anything. By now, the theory that micro-organisms caused disease was gaining ground, but no one had identified an organism responsible for flu(and wouldnt until 1
39、933). In the absence of a germ, many clung to the old idea of bad airs, or miasmas, possibly stirred by some great physical force earthquakes, perhaps, or electrical phenomena in the upper atmosphere, even a passing comet. Doctors advised people to eat well, avoid “unnecessary assemblies“ and if the
40、y were really worried, to stuff cotton wool up their nostrils. If they fell ill, they should rest, keep warm and eat a nourishing diet of “milk, eggs and farinaceous puddings“. Alcohol figured prominently among the prescriptions: one eminent English doctor suggested champagne, although he conceded “
41、brandy in considerable quantities has sometimes been given with manifest advantages“. French doctors prescribed warm alcoholic drinks, arguing that they never saw an alcoholic with flu. Their prescription had immediate results: over a three-day period, 1200 of the 1500 drunks picked up on the street
42、s of Paris claimed they were following doctors orders. Some doctors gave drugs to ease symptoms quinine for fever, salicin for headache, heroin for an “incessant cough“. But nothing in the pharmacy remotely resembled a cure. Not surprisingly, people looked elsewhere for help. Hoping to cash in while
43、 the pandemic lasted, purveyors of patent medicines competed for the publics custom with ever more outrageous advertisements. One of the most successful was the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company. The carbolic smoke ball was a hollow rubber ball, 5 centimetres across, with a nozzle covered by gauze. Inside
44、 was a powder treated with carbolic acid, or phenol. The idea was to clutch it close to the nose and squeeze gently, inhaling deeply from the emerging cloud of pungent powder. This, the company claimed, would disinfect the mucous membranes, curing any condition related to “taking cold“. In the summe
45、r of 1890 sales were steady at 300 smoke balls a month. In January 1891, the figure skyrocketed to 1500. Eager to exploit the publics mounting panic, the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company made increasingly extravagant claims. On 13 November 1892, its latest advert in the Pall Mall Gazette caught the eye o
46、f south London housewife Louisa Carlill. “Carbolic Smoke Ball,“ it declared, “will positively cure“ colds, coughs, asthma, bronchitis, hoarseness, influenza, croup, whooping cough . the list went on. But it was the next part Mrs. Carlill found compelling. “ 100 reward will be paid by the Carbolic Sm
47、oke Ball Company to any person who contracts the increasing epidemic influenza, colds or any disease caused by taking cold, after having used the carbolic smoke ball according to the printed directions supplied with each ball. 1000 is deposited with the Alliance bank, Regent Street, showing our sinc
48、erity in the matter.“ Mrs. Carlill hurried off to buy a smoke ball, price 10 shillings. After carefully reading the instructions she diligently dosed herself thrice daily until 17 January when she fell ill. On 20 January, Louisas husband wrote to the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company. Unfortunately for th
49、em, Mr. Carlill happened to be a solicitor. His wife, he wrote, had seen their advert and bought a smoke ball on the strength of it. She had followed the instructions to the letter, and yet now as their doctor could confirm she had flu. There was no reply. But 100 was not a sum to be sneezed at. Mr. Carlill persisted. The company resisted. Louisa recovered and sued. In June, Mr. Justice Hawkins found in Mrs. Carlills favour. The companys main defence was that adverts were mere “puffery“ and only an idiot would believe such extravagant claims
