【GMAT考满分阅读RC题库】The modern multinational corporation is described _真题_答案

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The modern multinational corporation is described as having originated when the owner-managers of nineteenth-century British firms carrying on international trade were replaced by teams of salaried managers organized into hierarchies. Increases in the volume of transactions in such firms are commonly believed to have necessitated this structural change. Nineteenth-century inventions like the steamship and the telegraph, by facilitating coordination of managerial activities, are described as key factors. Sixteenth-and seventeenth—century chartered trading companies, despite the international scope of their activities, are usually considered irrelevant to this discussion：the volume of their transactions is assumed to have been too low and the communications and transport of their day too primitive to make comparisons with modern multinationals interesting.

In reality, however, early trading companies successfully purchased and outfitted ships, built and operated offices and warehouses, manufactured trade goods for use abroad, maintained trading posts and production facilities overseas, procured goods for Import, and sold those goods both at home and in other countries. The large volume of transactions associated with these activities seems to have necessitated hierarchical management structures well before the advent of modern communications and transportation. For example, in the Hudson's Bay Company, each far-flung trading outpost was managed by a salaried agent, who carried out the trade with the Native Americans, managed day-to-day operations, and oversaw the post's workers and servants. One chief agent, answerable to the Court of Directors in London through the correspondence committee, was appointed with control over all of the agents on the bay.

The early trading companies did differ strikingly from modern multinationals in many respects. They depended heavily on the national governments of their home countries and thus characteristically acted abroad to promote national interests. Their top managers were typically owners with a substantial minority share, whereas senior managers' holdings in modern multinationals are usually insignificant.They operated in a preindustrial world, grafting a system of capitalist international trade onto a premodern system of artisan and peasant production. Despite these differences however, early trading companies organized effectively in remarkably modern ways and merit further study as analogues of more modern structures.

The passage suggests that one of the reasons that early chartered trading companies deserve comparison with early modern multinationals is

Athe degree to which they both depended on new technology
Bthe similar nature of their management structures
Csimilarities in their top managements' degree of ownership in the company
Dtheir common dependence on political stability abroad in order to carry on foreign operations
Etheir common tendency to revolutionize systems of production

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正确答案: B

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cloudye

谢谢分享，抓住了一开始的脉络和每一段的TS，答案就呼之欲出了。重新回顾一下全文的逻辑架构（临场简略版）：A=现代跨国公司，B=16,17世纪早期贸易公司。1）探讨19世纪A的起源：a)Normally 交易量→公司结构变化；b)将B排除在讨论范围之外，理由是：Vol.low and 运=旧；2）大转折--B在很多地方success（activities-list）→因为与这些活动相关的交易量其实很大，因此B与管理层结构相关（即：B也可能是起源，应该纳入讨论）。3）以B的角度阐述两者的不同点：1,2,3；转折：两者其实在高效运作的理念上是有联系的。

2012-09-26 16:49:22 IP属地：保留地址举报

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Winnie熊

定位是这句吗？The large volume of transactions associated with these activities seems to have necessitated hierarchical management structures well before the advent of modern communications and transportation.

2015-03-24 04:45:52 IP属地：美国举报

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Replica7

題目是要找兩間company值得比較的點，剛好就落在大眾觀點跟作者觀點那兩句話圍繞的點(necessitated structural change.)

大眾觀點：
Increases in the volume of transactions in such firms[= modern multinational corporation] are commonly believed to have necessitated this structural change.
作者觀點(反駁大眾觀點)：
The large volume of transactions associated with these activities [by early trading companies] seems to have necessitated hierarchical managemen

2015-07-07 21:57:38 IP属地：局域网举报

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正确率： 83%

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cloudye

Winnie熊

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