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C
Conventional wisdom is a major barrier to innovation（创新）that threatens the survival of companies everywhere. It’s based on the assumption that old ideas will always work, so they shouldn’t be challenged. While this may be a valid assumption in situations that don’t change, it’s unlikely to hold true in a changing situation. In today’s rapid changing global environment, old methods often don’t work, and stubbornly using them can lead to major problems.
    Most people seem to agree with conventional wisdom because it gives one a false sense of security. If everyone else believes it, then it must be tree. Individuals who use conventional wisdom are certain that they are right, and being fight is good. They want to continue using old ideas rather than take risks with changes that might not work. In 1977, Ken Olsen, co-founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation（DEC）, stated “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” Despite being a dominant leader in the computer industry, DEC no longer exists.
    People seem to forget that since innovation is a change, there can be no innovation without change. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom prevents leaders, followers and companies from changing and therefore innovating. If companies don’t innovate, but their competitors do, the future is likely to be problematic（成问题的）. Breaking from conventional wisdom has led to many of the most innovative companies and products in history across many industries, so it has a powerful effect on business success.
    Ted Turner（founder of CNN） knew little, if anything, about the news business, but he knew it was inconvenient to watch news only at the dinner hour, as was common before CNN. Turner’s solution was to create a cable （有线的）channel devoted to news 24 hours a day. The news establishment reflected conventional wisdom at the time, and predicted his idea would fail because no one wanted to watch the news all day. However, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that viewers don’t have to watch the news all day for the CNN to work. Viewers just have to watch when they want to get information. Due to conventional thinking, the critics failed to recognize the opportunity that was clear to Ted. They assumed that only what was familiar to them could work in the future.
    Conventional wisdom prevents creativity, flexibility and risk-taking, so unconventional leaders enthusiastically break from it. To survive, boom and maintain competitive advantage, companies must be flexible when reacting to change.
28. DEC has disappeared probably because ________.
A. the CEO stuck to the conventional ideas
    B. the consumers didn’t like its products
    C. the leaders lacked the sense of security
    D. the employees took many risks with changes
29. The founding of CNN is used as an example to prove ________.
    A. missing opportunities could lead to failure
    B. watching news at the dinner hour is convenient
C. changing could contribute to business success
    D. conventional wisdom influences business success
30. What does the underlined part probably mean?
    A. Rocket scientists can ensure the CNN works properly.
    B. It’s easy to know people needn’t watch the news all the time.
    C. It’s necessary to understand when people watch the news.
    D. Most of the viewers don’t like to watch the news at work.
31. The passage is mainly written to tell us that ________.
    A. old methods are changing with time
    B. opportunities lead to business success
    C. successful companies need wise leaders
    D. conventional wisdom limits innovation
D
    This year, Face book, the social media website announced that it would cooperate with several news organizations — including The New York Times, The Guardian, and the BBC — to place news stories directly into users’ personal Face book webpage. Stories published using Face book Instant will load more quickly and keep the style of the original publisher, who will keep all the advertising income the stories earn — at least for now. The deal shows how important social media has become to news organizations, and is a clear sign of how the world of news is changing — and has been for a while.
    Many thought of it as the death of the newspaper, when Google News began in 2002. It had no human editor. Instead Google used, and still uses, a secret computer program that selects and displays news stories according to the reader’s personal interests, More recently, Associated Press and Yahoo have been publishing computer-written articles. Both use special software to automatically produce stories about company financial results and sports reports — areas where the quality of writing is felt to be of secondary importance to the accuracy of the data.
I think we should be concerned about such developments. One concern is that Facebook, Google and other social media websites see journalism as a sideline （副业）, a way of putting people in front of advertisements. It isn’t their primary function — so if it stops making them lots of money, they’re likely to stop doing it.
    There’s another concern that computer-written articles are not actually journalism at all, because what a human news team produces is actually quite complex. A well-written news story puts information in context, offers a voice to each side of an argument and brings the public new knowledge. 高考英语模拟试题库  http://www.17xuexiba.com/yy/