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In recent years, Western business managers have been heeding the exhortations of business journalists and academics to move their companies toward long-term, collaborative ""strategic partnerships"" with their external business partners (e.g., suppliers). The experts' [hl:2]advice[/hl:2] comes as a natural reaction to numerous studies conducted during the past decade that compared Japanese production and supply practices with those of the rest of the world. The link between the [hl:3]success of a certain well-known Japanese automaker[/hl:3] and its effective management of its suppliers, for example, has led to an unquestioning belief within Western management circles in the value of strategic partnerships. Indeed, in the automobile sector all three United States manufacturers and most of their European competitors have launched programs to reduce their total number of suppliers and move toward having strategic partnerships with a few.However, new research concerning supplier relationships in various industries demonstrates that the widespread assumption of Western managers and business consultants that Japanese firms manage their suppliers primarily through strategic partnerships is unjustified. Not only do Japanese firms appear to conduct a far smaller proportion of their business through strategic partnerships than is commonly believed, but they also make extensive use of ""market-exchange"" relationships, in which either party can turn to the marketplace and shift to different business partners at will, a [hl:4]practice[/hl:4] usually associated with Western manufacturers."
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The passage is primarily concerned with
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According to the passage, the advice (highlight text) referred to was a response to which of the following?
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The author mentions "the success of a certain well-known Japanese automaker" (highlight) most probably in order to
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Which of the following is most clearly an example of the practice referred to in highlight text of the passage?
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The author mentions the seamstresses' view of guild membership as a "mark of independence from the patriarchal family" primarily in order to
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It can be inferred from the passage that refraction would be most likely to cause errors in measurements of a mountain's elevation under which of the following conditions?
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 The graphic displays results of an Internet survey on the effectiveness and popularity of various treatments for depression. The scale on the horizontal axis represents popularity, P, defined as the fraction of all respondents who tried the treatment; the scale on the vertical axis represents effectiveness, E, defined as the fraction of all respondents who considered a given treatment to be effective.On the basis of the information provided, select from each of the drop-down menus the option that creates the most accurate statement.The most effective treatment used by the greatest number of people is .Among the labeled treatments tried by more than half of the respondents, was the least effective.
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 The flowchart represents a mathematical algorithm that takes two positive integers as the input and returns a positive integer as the output. Processes are indicated in the rectangular symbols in the flowchart. Each process is symbolized by an equation, such as T = T + a. In this particular process, the current values of the variables T and a are added together and the sum then becomes the value of T. For example, if the value of T is 3 and the value of a is 7 before the process T = T + a is completed, then the value of T is 10 and the value of a is 7 after the process is completed.Use the drop-down menus to fill in the blanks in the following statements based on the algorithm represented by the flowchart.If 24 and 35 are entered as the values for a and b, respectively, then the first nonzero value of T is .If 35 and 27 are entered as the values for a and b, respectively, then after the process b=b/2 is completed for the second time, the value of b is .
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The six regions in which Techtyx Appliance Company sells appliances are labeled A through F in the graph. The size of each circle and the corresponding number in the circle indicate the proportion of Techtyx customer transactions in that region. The position of each circle's center relative to the vertical axis shows hoe many different product types are marketed in the region, and the position relative to the horizontal axis shows last year's sales in thousand of euros for the region. For each of the following, use the drop-down menu to create the most accurate statement on the basis of the information provided.Among the six regions, the one with the most Techtyx customer transactions ranks in the number of product types marketed.The region for which the value of the average transaction was greatest is region .
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.png) Refer to the pictograph of a survey of students at Central Community College. Each symbol represents 10 students in a sample of 300.Use the drop-down menus to complete each statement according to the information presented in the diagram.If one student is selected at random from the 300 surveyed, the chance that the student will be under 30 o ra high school graduate or both is.If one student is selected at random from the 300 surveyed, the chance that the student will be both under 30 and a high school graduate is.
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 The diagram shows, in three column groupings, various divisions of Earth's geological history since its formation approximately 4,600 million years ago. In the leftmost column grouping, the Precambrian eon is subdivided into chronometric eons shown on the far left; but otherwise, in the rest of the graphic, each subsequent column to the right shows the subdivisions of the timeframes to its left. Each of the rightmost two column groupings is a magnification—with additional information—of a portion of the grouping directly to its left.Fill each blank using the drop-down menu to create the most accurate statement on the basis of the information provided.The Miocene epoch spans closest to of the era of which it is a part.According to the diagram the beginning of the marks the onset of a new eon, era, and period in geological history.
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 The graph at the left is a scatter plot with 40 points, each representing the temperature of the ocean water, measured at a fixed location off the coast of West Iceland, and the air temperature, measured on land at a fixed location in West Iceland. Both the water temperature and the air temperature, in degrees Celsius, were measured at noon on Wednesday of each of 40 consecutive weeks last year. The solid line is the regression line and the dashed line is the line through the points (0,0) and (6,6).The relationship between the water temperature and the air temperature is .The slope of the regression line is the slope of the dashed line.
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The remarkable similarity of Thule artifacts throughout a vast region can, in part, be explained as a very rapid movement of people from one end of North America to the other.
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Covering 71 percent of Earth's surface, the oceans play an essential role in maintaining the conditions for human existence on land, moderating temperature by the absorption of heat and carbon dioxide, and giving pure water back to the atmosphere through evaporation.
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Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised corn and soybean prices.
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Similar to other early Mississippi Delta blues singers, the music of Robert Johnson arose from an oral tradition beginning with a mixture of chants, fiddle tunes, and religious music and only gradually evolved into the blues.
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Although she was considered among her contemporaries to be the better poet than her husband, later Elizabeth Barrett Browning was overshadowed by his success.
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Is it possible to decrease inflation without causing a recession and its concomitant increase line in unemployment? The orthodox answer is “no”, whether they support the “inertia” theory of inflation (that today's inflation rate is caused by yesterday's inflation, the state of the economic cycle, and external influences such as import prices) or the “rational expectations” theory (that inflation is caused by workers' and employers' expectations, coupled with a lack of credible monetary and fiscal policies), most economists agree that tight monetary and fiscal policies, which cause recessions, are necessary to decelerate inflation. They point out that in the 1980's, many European countries and the United States conquered high (by these countries' standards) inflation, but only by applying tight monetary and fiscal policies that sharply increased unemployment. Nevertheless, some governments' policymakers insist that direct controls on wages and prices, without tight monetary and fiscal policies, can succeed in decreasing inflation. Unfortunately, because this approach fails to deal with the underlying causes of inflation, wage and price controls eventually collapse, the hitherto-repressed inflation resurfaces, and in the meantime, though the policy-makers succeed in avoiding a recession, a frozen structure of relative prices imposes distortions that do damage to the economy's prospects for longterm growth.
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Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the author's conclusion about the use of wage and price controls?
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