Which two items were traded over long distances at the beginning of the Hallstadt period?
palaces, temples, houses and factories) which attract visitors from home and abroad. Most of these tourist sites have
gift shops where visitors can buy mementos and souvenirs of their visit. These souvenirs often include cups, saucers,
plates and other items which feature a printed image of the particular tourist site.
The Universal Pottery Company (UPC) is the main supplier of these pottery souvenir items to the tourist trade. It
produces the items in its potteries and then applies the appropriate image using specialised image printing machines.
UPC also supplies other organisations that require personalised products. For example, it recently won the right to
produce souvenirs for the Eurasian Games, which are being held in Europia in two years time. UPC currently ships
about 250,000 items of pottery out of its factory every month. Most of these items are shipped in relatively small
packages. All collections from the factory and deliveries to customers are made by a nationwide courier company.
In the last two years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of complaints about the quality of these
items. The complaints, from gift shop owners, concentrate on two main issues:
(i) The physical condition of goods when they arrive at the gift shop. Initial evidence suggests that ‘a significant
number of products are now arriving broken, chipped or cracked’. These items are unusable and they have to be
returned to UPC. UPC management are convinced that the increased breakages are due to packers not following
the correct packing method.
(ii) Incorrect alignment of the image of the tourist site on the selected item. For example, a recent batch of 100 cups
for Carish Castle included 10 cups where the image of the castle sloped significantly from left to right. These
were returned by the customer and destroyed by UPC.
The image problem was investigated in more depth and it was discovered that approximately 500 items were
delivered every month with misaligned images. Each item costs, on average, $20 to produce.
As a result of these complaints, UPC appointed a small quality inspection team who were asked to inspect one in
every 20 packages for correct packaging and correct image alignment. However, although some problems have been
found, a significant number of defective products have still been delivered to customers. A director of UPC used this
evidence to support his assertion that the ‘quality inspection team is just not working’.
The payment system for packers has also been such an issue. It was established ten years ago as an attempt to boost
productivity. Packers receive a bonus for packing more than a target number of packages per hour. Hence, packers
are more concerned with the speed of packing rather than its quality.
Finally, there is also evidence that to achieve agreed customer deadlines, certain managers have asked the quality
inspection team to overlook defective items so that order deadlines could be met.
The company has decided to review the quality issue again. The director who claimed that the quality inspection team
is not working has suggested using a Six Sigma approach to the company’s quality problems.
Required:
(a) Analyse the current and potential role of quality, quality control and quality assurance at UPC. (15 marks)
A thorough review of the main production operation revealed nothing that might explain the increased failure and so attention was focused instead on the QC laboratory. For some years, the QC laboratory at Yaya, managed by Jane Goo, had been marginalised in the company, with its two staff working in a remote laboratory well away from other employees. Operations director Ben Janoon, who designed the internal control systems in Yaya, rarely visited the QC lab because of its remote location. He never asked for information on product failure rates to be reported to him and did not understand the science involved in the QC process. He relied on the two QC staff, Jane Goo and her assistant John Zong, both of whom did have relevant scientific qualifications.
The two QC staff considered themselves low paid. Whilst in theory they reported to Mr Janoon, in practice, they conducted their work with little contact with colleagues. The work was routine and involved testing products against a set of compliance standards. A single signature on a product compliance report was required to pass or fail in QC and these reports were then filed away with no-one else seeing them.
It was eventually established that Jane Goo had found a local buyer to pay her directly for any of Yaya’s products which had failed the QC tests. The increased failure rate had resulted from her signing products as having ‘failed QC’ when, in fact, they had passed. She kept the proceeds from the sales for herself, and also paid her assistant, John Zong, a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of the failed products.
Required:
(a) Explain typical reasons why an internal control system might be ineffective. (5 marks)
(b) Explain the internal control deficiencies that led to the increased product failures at Yaya. (10 marks)
(c) Discuss the general qualities of useful information, stating clearly how they would be of benefit to Mr Janoon, and recommend specific measures which would improve information flow from the QC lab to Mr Janoon. (10 marks)
This question was posed by Benjamin Lee Whorl in the 1930s. Whorl studied Hopi, an Amerindian language very different from the Eurasian languages that had hitherto been the subject of academic linguistics. His work led him to suggest that language not only influences thought but, more strongly, that it determines thought.
While there is no dispute that language influences what people think about, evidence suggesting it determines thought is inconclusive. For example, in 1972, Eleanor Rosch and Karl Heider investigated the colour-naming abilities of the Dani people of Indonesia. The Dani have words for only two colours: black and white. But Dr. Rosch and Dr. Heider found that, even so, Dani could distinguish and comprehend other colours. That does not support the deterministic version of the Whorf hypothesis.
While recognising that there are such things as colours for which you have no name is certainly a cognitive leap, it may not be a good test of Whorf's ideas. Colours, after all, are out there everywhere. Numbers, by contrast, are abstract, so may be a better test. Dr. Gordon therefore spent a month with the Piraha and elicited the help of seven of them to see how far their grasp of numbers extended.
The tests began simply, with a row of, say, seven evenly spaced batteries. Gradually, they got more complicated. The more complicated tests included tasks such as matching numbers of unevenly spaced objects, replicating the number of objects from memory, and copying a number of straight lines from a drawing.
In the tests that involved matching the number and layout of objects they could see, participants were pretty good when faced with two or three items, but found it harder to cope as the number of items rose. Things were worse when the participants had to remember the number of objects in a layout and replicate it "blind", rather than matching a layout they could see. In this case the success rate dropped to zero when the number of items became, in terms of their language, "many".
And line drawing produced the worst results of all—though that could have had as much to do with the fact that drawing is not part of Piraha culture as it did with the difficulties of numerical abstraction. Indeed, Dr. Gordon described the task of reproducing straight lines as being accomplished only with "heavy sighs and groans".
Which of the following is Not true according to the first two paragraphs?
A.Gordon's purpose in his study of the Piraha was to solve a language problem.
B.The Piraha would use the word "many" to describe the number "twenty".
C.Linguists had studied other languages before they switched to Hopi.
D.Whorl claimed that language did more than influence people's thought.
Part B
Directions: You will hear four dialogues or monologues. Before listening to each one, you will have 5 seconds to read each of the questions which accompany it. While listening, answer each question by choosing A, B, C or D. After listening, you will have 10 seconds to check your answer to each question. You will hear each piece ONLY ONCE.
听力原文:Speaker: A couple of months ago, I went to a department store to buy a few things for the house. I needed a set of curtains for the living room, two table lamps, a rug and several cushions. I asked them to deliver the things as soon as possible, but they said they were unable to send them out until 20 days later. After about 3 weeks, I received only the curtains and table lamps. I was a little disappointed when I didn't receive all the items I had bought. But nevertheless, I was eager to see what the curtains and lamps looked like. I first opened the package with the curtains. I had bought a lovely light blue, and instead they had sent me a horrible dark purple. Well, you can just imagine how angry I was. Then I opened the boxes with the lamps. They were exactly what I'd ordered. But one of the lamp shapes was damaged. The next I did was to telephone them to complain. They promised to come and pick them up immediately and also to replace them with the correct order. It has been two weeks since my complaint. They have neither picked up the wrong items nor sent me the rest of my order.
When did the woman want the store to deliver the items?
A.In about 20 years.
B.Within a week.
C.In a couple of weeks.
D.As early as possible.
Question 8
Circle TWO letters A-G.
Which TWO of the following items must people take with them?
[A] sandals
[B] old clothes
[C] pullover
[D] shirt with long sleeves
[E] soft drinks
[F] hat
A.The copper used by colonists was not effective in conducting heat.
B.The copper items created by colonial coppersmiths were not skillfully made.
C.There were no local copper mines from which copper could be obtained.
D.The price of copper suddenly decreased.
Before 1910 actors were employed in films without their names being given because the producers were afraid that if an actor became well known, he might demand more money. But later, it became known that a film with a popular actor in it could be sold at a higher price to theater owners than a film in which the actor was not known. Soon "movie stars" won fame wherever films were shown. By 1915, the most popular stars were earning as much as $ 2, 000 a week, and large theaters were being built downtown in all the larger cities to show films alone. The films shown in those theaters were of several types: comedies emphasizing speed, movement and camera tricks; serious dramas, often with a patriotic theme; "westerns", which showed, then as now, the American cowboy fighting on the side of law and justice; murder mysteries and crime stories, and special films on art, music and other cultural subjects.
Pictures of parades shown in the first films went on for no more than ____.
A.one minute
B.a whole hour
C.20 minutes
D.about two minutes
A、Acquisition orders were determined through a contrast between the first language and the target language, rather than by the nature of the language to be learned.
B、Individual grammar items appeared not to be affected by instruction.
C、Many learners could state rules, but then violate those very rules in communication.
D、Learners from very different language backgrounds appeared to acquire grammatical items in the same order.
The museum aims mainly to display ______ .
A.the area's technological development
B.the nation's important historical events
C.the area's agricultural and industrial development
D.the nation's agricultural and industrial development
为了保护您的账号安全,请在“简答题”公众号进行验证,点击“官网服务”-“账号验证”后输入验证码“”完成验证,验证成功后方可继续查看答案!