(一)AmericanFirms根据以下材料，回答下列问题。TheannualreviewofAmericancompanyboardpractice

共享题干题 (一)American Firms 根据以下材料，回答下列问题。 The annual review of American company board practices by Korn/Ferry, a firm of headhunters,is a useful indicator of the health of corporate governance. This year's review, published on November 12th, shows that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 to try to prevent a repeat of corporate collapses such as Enron's and WorldCom's, has had an impact on the boardroom—albeit at an average implementation cost that Korn/Ferry estimates at $5. lm per firm. Two years ago, only 41% of American firms said they regularly held meetings of directors without their chief executive present; this year the figure was 93%. But some things have been surprisingly unaffected by the backlash against corporate scandals. For example, despite a growing feeling that former chief executives should not sit on their company's board, the percentage of American firms where they do has actually edged up, from 23% in 2003 to 25% in 2004. Also, disappointingly few firms have split the jobs of chairman and chief executive. Another survey of American boards published this week, by A.T. Keamey, a firm of consultants, found that in 2002 14% of the boards of S&P 500 firms had separated the roles, and a further 16% said they planned to do so. But by 2004 only 23% overall had taken the plunge. A survey earlier in the year by consultants at McKinsey found that 70% of American directors and investors supported the idea of splitting the jobs, which is standard practice in Europe. Another disappointment is the slow progress in abolishing"staggered" boards--ones where only one-third of the directors are up for re-election each year, to three-year terms. Invented as a defence against takeover, such boards, according to a new Harvard Law School study by Lucian Bebchuk and Alma Cohen, are unambiguously "associated with an economically significant reduction in firm value". Despite this, the percentage of S&P 500 firms with staggered boards has fallen only slightly- from 63% in 2001 to 60% in 2003, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Centre. And many of those firms that have been forced by shareholders to abolish the system are doing so only slowly. Merck, a pharmaceutical company in trouble over the possible side-effects of its arthritis drug Vioxx, is allowing its directors to run their full term before introducing a system in which they are all re-elected (or otherwise) annually. Other companies' staggered boards are entrenched in their corporate charters, which cannot be amended by a shareholders' vote. Anyone who expected the scandals of 2001 to bring about rapid change in the balance of power between managers and owners was, at best, naive.1.[不定向选择题]The word "backlash" (Line 3, Paragraph 2) most probably mean________A.a violent force B.a strong impetus. C.a firm measure. D.a strong negative reaction. 2.[不定向选择题]According to the text, separating the roles between chairman and chief executive is________A.a common practice in American companies B.what many European companies do. C.a must to keep the health of a company. D.not a popular idea among American entrepreneurs.

1.参考答案：D
参考解析：猜词题。首先确定backlash与反对公司丑闻有关；其次，下文对backlash给了一个具体的例子，就是“越来越多的人认为前任总裁不应该继续留在董事会里”，显然这符合选项D中的“强烈的负面／消极反应”。
2.参考答案：B
参考解析：细节题。根据文章第三段最后一句，将董事长和总裁的职务区分开来是“欧洲的行业惯例”。3.[不定向选择题]We learn from the text that a "staggered" board________A.is adverse to the increment of firm value. B.gives its board members too much power. C.has been abolished by most American companies. D.can be voted down by shareholders.

正好我需要