Will Quality Eat up the US Lead in Software?

1. What country has more highest-rating companies in the world than any other country has?

Will Quality Eat up the US Lead in Software?

1. If U.S. software companies don't pay more attention to quality, they could kiss their business good-bye. Both India and Brazil are developing a world-class software industry. Their weapon is quality and one of their jobs is to attract the top US quality specialist whose voices are not listened to in their country.

2. Already, of the world's 12 software houses that have earned the highest rating in the world, seven are in India.

1. What country has more highest-rating companies in the world than any other country has?s

A. Germany.

B. The U.S.s

C. Brazil

D. India

「答案」：D

2. Which of the following statements about Humphrey is true?

That's largely(=mainly)because they have used new methodologies rejected by American software specialists. For example, for decades, quality specialists, W. Edwards Deming and J. M. Juran had urged (=strongly advise)US software companies to change their attitudes to quality. But their quality call mainly fell on deaf ears in the US─ but not in Japan. By the 1970s and 1980s,Japan was grabbing market share with better, cheaper products. They used Deming's and Juran's ideas to bring down(=reduce)the cost of good quality to as little as 5% of total production costs. In US factories, the cost of quality then was 10 times as high: 50%. In software, it still is.

3. Watts S. Humphrey spent 27 years at IBM heading up software production and then quality assurance. But his advice was seldom paid attention to. He retired from IBM in 1986. In 1987, he worked out a system for assessing and improving software quality. It has proved its value time and again. For example, in 1990 the cost of quality at Raytheon Electronics Systems was almost 60% of total software production costs. It fell to 15% in 1996 and has since further dropped to below 10%.

assess 评价

improve 改善，提高

4. Like Deming and Juran, Humphrey seems to be winning more praises overseas than at home.The Indian government and several companies have just founded the Wattts Humphrey Software Quality Institute at the SoftwareTechnologyPark in Chennai, India.

课文讲解(2)～(5)题

2. Which of the following statements about Humphrey is true?

A. He is now still an IBM employer.

B. He has worked for IBM for 37 years.

C. The US pays much attention to his quality advice.

D. India honors him highly.

「答案」：D

3. By what means did Japan grab its large market share by the 1970s and the 1980s?

A. Its products were cheaper in price and better in quality.

B. Its advertising was most successful.

C. The US software industry was lagging behind.

D. Japan hired a lot of Indian software specialists.

「答案」：A

4. What does the founding of the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute symbolize?

A. It symbolizes the US determination to move ahead with its software.

B. It symbolizes the Indian ambition to take the lead in software.

C. It symbolizes the Japanese efforts to solve the software quality problem.

D. It symbolizes the Chinese policy on improving software.

「答案」：B

Let's hope that U.S Lead in software will not be eaten up by its quality problems.

5. What is the writer worrying about?

A. Many US software specialists are working for Japan.

B. The quality problem has become a worldwide problem.

C. The US will no longer be the first software player in the world.

D. India and Japan are joining hands to compete with the US.

「答案」：C

评析：第二题所对应的原文本应出现在第三题所对应的原文的前面，但却出现了相反的情况，即第二题所对应的原文出现在了第三题所对应的原文的后面。当试题的出题顺序与文章的行进顺序不一致时，重点是要抓住关键词，在它的上一段或下一段寻找答案。但是这种情况在职称英语阅读理解的考试中很少出现。

回顾：解答阅读理解中的细节题的三个原则：

1)先看试题，后读原文。

2)一般来说，试题的出题顺序和文章的叙述顺序存在高度的一致性，所以可以对试题在原文中的位置进行模糊定位。

3)寻找、抓住问题中的关键词和标志词(标志词是指表示时间、地点、人物的名称的词;关键词是指涉及问题主要内容的中心词)，从而对试题在原文中的位置进行准确定位。