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 (轮辐) 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.
练习题：
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
参考答案
1.[D] 主旨大意题。本文讲述了“联邦快递”公司的创立。其创立者在学生时代就这个想法，后来设法使计划可行。克服了许多困难之后，他筹集到足够的资金，创办了这家公司，只有选项D能概括全文的主要内容。 选项A、B、C提到的都只是细节，不是文章的主题。
2.[C] 事实细节题。本题考查名词infeasibility的理解。第1段第4句中的less-than-stellar和infeasibility都有助于推断史密斯论文的情况。虽然stellar是超纲词，但是利用构词法可以推断infeasibility是由in+feasibl(e)+ity 构成的，并由此可推断其意义为“不可行”,不可行的方案自然分数也不会令人满意了，因此选项C是正确答案。
3.[B] 事实细节题。本题考査复合句的理解。选择依据见第2段第1旬。选项A和D说的都是passenger system,但史密斯关注的是package delivery;选项C与本段第2句不符。
4.[A] 推理判断题。第2段第2句提到通过中心枢纽城市孟菲斯(through the centralized hub city of Memphis)运送所有的包裹，由此可推断孟菲斯处于美国中部，选项A正确
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