听力真题

Passage Two
30.
A. A chocolate chipmaker.
B. A big real estate agent.
C. A cookie factory.
D. A talent agency.
31.
A. He couldn't sell the cookies.
B. He was a bad manager.
C. He was not a good salesman.
D. He was sued for libel.
32.
A. Because he was sued.
B. Becasue he gave up his trademark rights.
C. Becasue he sold the company to the Shanby Group.
D. Becasue he had no money to register.

听力原文+答案解析

Passage Two
The pioneer of chocolate cookies in America is "Amos cookies". [30]Amos was a talent agent at the William Morris Agency who used home-baked chocolate chip cookies as a calling card. After a while, some of his famous clients began encouraging him to sell the cookies. They even invested in the Famous Amos Cookie Company, which he started in 1975-making him one of the pioneers of the gourmet cookie trend. Sales at Famous Amos hit $12 million by 1982. [31]His cookies were a success, but he was no manager, and his company started losing money. Amos had to bring in new money; from 1985 to 1988, he went through four different co-owners. Each time a change was made, Amos gave up more of his share of the pie. [32]By the time the Shanby Group bought it in 1988, Amos had nothing left; he even signed away his trademark "Amos". In 1992, when he started a new company called "Wally Amos Presents: Chip and Cookie", the Famous Amos Corp. sued him for infringement and libel. After an acrimonious dispute, Wally Amos agreed not to use his own name or a caricature of himself on the cookies and not to badmouth the company that owned his name. Wally Amos then moved to Hawaii and started another cookie company called the "Uncle Noname Cookie Co". This case is an excellent demonstration of the dangers of trademark ownership for entrepreneurs.

答案解析：
30. What kind of company was Amos with in the beginning?
[D]解析：短文一开始说，Amos本来是William Morris公司的一个talent agent（人才代理），故选D。
31. Why did Amos begin to lose money after his initial success?
[B]解析：短文谈到，Amos的饼干生意不错，但是他不是个好的管理者，注意文中的he was no manager意为“他根本不擅长管理”，所以公司开始亏损，故选B。
32. Why couldn't Amos even use his name in his cookies after 1988?
[B]解析：短文谈到，1988年Shanby Group收购了Amos的公司，Amos一无所有，还放弃了他的Amos商标，故选B。A项是强干扰项，正是因为Amos之前已经放弃了商标权，所以才会因为使用自己的名字作为公司名被别人告上法庭，“被起诉”并不是原因，而是后果。