37. According to the author, manufacturers .

　　A) should add more useful features to their machines

　　B) often fail to make their products easy to use

　　C) should make their appliances as attractive as possible

　　D) often fail to provide proper training in the use of their products

　　38. It seems that manufacturers will remain reluctant to make improvements unless .

　　A) they can do so at a very low cost

　　B) they find their machines hard to operate

　　C) they have difficulty selling their products

　　D) they receive a lot of complaints about their machines

　　39. According to the passage, before a VCR is sold on the market, its original model should be tried out .

　　A) among ordinary consumers who are not technically minded

　　B) among people who are technically minded

　　C) among experienced technicians and potential users

　　D) among people who are in charge of public relations

　　40. One of the reasons why VCRs are so difficult to use is that .

　　A) the designers are often insensitive to the operational complexities of their machines.

　　B) the range of features provided is unlimited

　　C) there is no ideal way of controlling quality

　　D) their designers often ignore the complaints of their users

　　Unit 9

　　Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension

　　(35 minutes)

　　Directions: There are 4 reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.

　　Passage One

　　Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage:

　　Three English dictionaries published recently all lay claim to possessing a “new” feature. The BBC English Dictionary contains background information on 1,000 people and places prominent in the news since 1988; the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: Encyclopedic (百科全書的) Edition is the OALD plus encyclopedic entries; the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture is the LDOCE plus cultural information.

　　The key fact is that all three dictionaries can be seen to have a distinctly “cultural” as well as language learning content. That being said, the way in which they approach the cultural element is not identical, making direct comparisons between the three difficult.

　　While there is some common ground between the encyclopedic/cultural entries for the Oxford and Longman dictionaries, there is a clear difference. Oxford lays claim to being encyclopedic on content whereas Longman distinctly concentrates on the language and culture of the English-speaking world. The Oxford dictionary can therefore stand more vigorous scrutiny (審視) for cultural bias than the Longman publication because the latter does not hesitate about viewing the rest of the world from the cultural perspectives of the English-speaking world. The cultural objectives of the BBC dictionary are in turn more distinct still. Based on an analysis of over 70 million words recorded from the BBC World Service and National Public Radio of Washington over a period of four years, their 1,000 brief encyclopedic entries are based on people and places that have featured (占顯著地位) in the news recently. The intended user they have in mind is a regular listener to the World Service who will have a reasonable standard of English and a developed skill in listening comprehension.