六级考试就要来了,同学们从现在开始一定要坚持做练习哦!以下是小编为大家整理的 大学英语 六级仔细阅读练习题,供各位参考。
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
Yet with economies in free fail, managers also need up-to-date information about what is happening to their businesses, so that they can change course rapidly if necessary. Cisco, an American network-equipment giant, has invested over many years in the technology needed to generate such data .Frank Caideroni, the firms CFO, says that every day its senior executives can track exactly what orders are coming in from sales teams around the world, and identify emerging trends in each region and market segment. And at the end of each month, the firm can get reliable financial results within four hours of closing its books. Most firms have to wait days or even weeks for such certainty.
Admittedly, Ciscos financial results have not made happy reading recently because, in common with many other large technology companies, it has seen demand for its products decline in the downturn. In early February it announced that its fiscal second-quarter revenues of $ 9.1 billion were 7.5% lower than the same period in 2008 and that its profit had fallen by 27%, to $1.5 billion.
In response to hard times, Cisco plans to cut $1 billion of costs this year by, among other things, making use of its own video-conferencing and other communications technologies to reduce the amount its executives travel. It is also using these facilities to relay information from employees on the ground to its senior managers, and to get instructions from Ciscos leaders back out to its 67,000 staff. A rapid exchange of information and instructions is especially valuable if the company wants to alter course in stormy times.