Federal Express is a company that specializes in rapid overnight delivery of high-priority packages. The first company of its type, Federal Express was founded by the youthful Fred Smith in 1971, when he was only28 years old. Smith had actually developed the idea for the rapid delivery service in a term paper for an economics class when he was a student at Yale University.

　　The term paper received a less-than-stellar grade because of the infeasibility of the project that Smith had outlined. The model that Smith proposed had never been tried; it was a model that was efficient to operate but at the same time very difficult to institute.

　　Smith achieved efficiency in his model by designing a system that was separate from the passenger system and could, therefore, focus on how to deliver packages most efficiently. His strategy was to have his own planes so that he could create his own schedules and to ship all packages through the centralized hub city of Memphis, a set-up which resembles the spokes (輪輻) on the wheel of a bicycle. With this combination ofhis own planes and hub set-up, he could get packages anywhere in the United States overnight.

　　What made Smith’s idea difficult to institute was the fact that the entire system had to be created before the company could begin operations. He needed a fleet of aircraft to collect packages from airports every night and deliver them to Memphis, where they were immediately sorted and flown out to their new destinations; he needed a fleet of trucks to deliver packages to and from the various airports; he needed facilities and trained staff all in place to handle the operation. Smith had a $4 million inheritance from his father, and he managed to raise an additional 91 million dollars from venture capitalists to get the companyoperating.

　　練習題：

　　Choose correct answers to the question:

　　1. The most appropriate title for this passage is ”_____”.

　　A. The Problems and Frustrations of a Business Student

　　B. The Importance of Business Studies

　　C. The Capitalization of Federal Express

　　D. The Implementation of a Successful Business

　　2. What is stated in the passage about Smith’s term paper?

　　A. Smith submitted it through a delivery service.

　　B. It was written by a student of Smith’s.

　　C. The grade was not quite satisfactory.

　　D. The professor thought it had great potential.

　　3. What was Smith’s key idea?

　　A. That he should focus on passenger service.

　　B. That package delivery should be separate from passenger service.

　　C. That packages could be delivered on other companies’ planes.

　　D. That passenger service had to be efficient.

　　4. It can be inferred from the passage that Smith selected Memphis as his hub city because it____.

　　A. was near the middle of the country

　　B. had a large number of passenger aircraft

　　C. already had a large package delivery service

　　D. was a favorite passenger airport

　　1.[D] 主旨大意題。本文講述了“聯邦快遞”公司的創立。其創立者在學生時代就這個想法，后來設法使計劃可行。克服了許多困難之后，他籌集到足夠的資金，創辦了這家公司，只有選項D能概括全文的主要內容。 選項A、B、C提到的都只是細節，不是文章的主題。

　　2.[C] 事實細節題。本題考查名詞infeasibility的理解。第1段第4句中的less-than-stellar和infeasibility都有助于推斷史密斯論文的情況。雖然stellar是超綱詞，但是利用構詞法可以推斷infeasibility是由in+feasibl(e)+ity 構成的，并由此可推斷其意義為“不可行”,不可行的方案自然分數也不會令人滿意了，因此選項C是正確答案。

　　3.[B] 事實細節題。本題考査復合句的理解。選擇依據見第2段第1旬。選項A和D說的都是passenger system,但史密斯關注的是package delivery;選項C與本段第2句不符。

　　4.[A] 推理判斷題。第2段第2句提到通過中心樞紐城市孟菲斯(through the centralized hub city of Memphis)運送所有的包裹，由此可推斷孟菲斯處于美國中部，選項A正確

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