Competition. It's a simple word, yet a very complex word that covers many angles when it comes to how gasoline prices are determined. It seems so easy to explain, but don't let that trick you--it's incredibly difficult to explain and adequately understand. Say you're on a Sunday afternoon drive, and notice a gas station near you charging $3.50. Down the road a few miles, that price could easily be 10 or more cents higher or lower. The question is "how" or "why" is that? Think of it this way. Are you more likely to get a better deal on a car if there are two similar car dealers next to each other? Perhaps, because the dealers are too close. Say there is a third similar car dealer miles away. Is he going to be at the same level of competition and sell his cars for the same price as the two dealers next to each other? Likely not. He may charge more or less. Maybe people don't know there are two other dealers down the road. Maybe the dealer is almost outside of the city and the land value isn't as high, so his taxes aren't as high. These situations do take place at gas stations. And more factors can impact what a station will charge. Timing can greatly impact what price a station charges as well! Many motorists fail to realize that the price a station pays for gasoline changes daily. If one station gets lucky and buys gas on Monday and the cost goes up Tuesday, the station that bought on Monday doesn't necessarily have to raise prices like the station that bought on Tuesday. Maybe the station that got caught buying for a higher price on Tuesday will pass that higher cost on by raising its gas price. Perhaps the difference is what brand the station is---branded stations usually pay a slightly higher cost for their gasoline. In return for paying a higher cost, those stations are guaranteed first supply in case of emergency situations. Independent stations don't pay as much, but aren't guaranteed supply. While competition sounds easy to understand, there are always a large number of factors that could influence what... The gas prices of a station always change partly because _ . A) a gas station always wants to charge more B) the gasoline is in great demand C) the cost of the gas the station buys varies daily D) gas is in greater need on Monday
C
Travis is the manager of G&G where he is responsible for forty employees and profits of over $2 million per year. He's never late to work. He does not get upset on the job. When one of his employees started crying after a customer screamed at her, Travis took her away. "Your working uniform is your shelter," he told her. "Nothing anyone says will ever hurt you. You will always be as strong as you want to be." Travis picked up that lecture in one of his G&G training courses, an education program that began on his first day and continues throughout an employee's occupation. The training has, Travis says, changed his life. G&G has taught him how to live, how to focus, how to get to work on time, and how to master his emotions . Most importantly, it taught him willpower. At the center of that education is an extreme focus on an all-important habit; willpower. Dozens of cases show that willpower is the single most important habit for a person's success. And the best way to strengthen willpower is to make it into a habit. "Sometimes it looks like people with great self-control aren't working hard--but that's because they've made it automatic," Angela Duckworth, one of the University of Pennsylvania researchers said. "Their willpower occurs without them having to think about it." The company spent millions of dollars developing programs of study to train employees on self-control. Managers wrote workbooks that serve as guides to how to make willpower a habit in workers' lives. Those courses arc, in part, why G&G has grown from a sleepy company into a large one with more than seventeen thousand stores and profits of more than $10 billion a year. What can we infer from the passage? A) G&G has grown into a large company. B) G&G will spend half its profits training employees. C) G&G may become more successful in the future. D) G&G has to produce more workbooks for managers.
C
(Q).
Oprah Winfrey,born in 1954,is all American talk show host,best known for her multiawardwinning talk show. She is also,according to some assessments,the most influential woman in theworld. It's no surprise that her endorsement can bringovernight sales fortune that defeats most,if not all,marketingcampaigns .The star features about 20 products each year On her"Favorite Things" show.There's even a term for it: the Oprah Effect. Her television career began unexpectedly. When she was 16 year old,she had the idea of being a journalist to tell other people's stories in a way that made a difference in their lives and the world.She was on television by the time she was 19 years old. And in 1986 she started her own television show with a continuous determination to succeed at first TIME magazine wrote,"People would have doubted Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of The most popular talk show on TV .In a field ruled by white males,she is a black female of big size. As interviewers go,she is no match for,say,what she lacks in journalistic toughness.She makes up for in plainspoken curiosity,rich humor and,above all understanding Guests with sad stories to tell tend to bring out a tear in Oprah's eye .They,in turn,often find themselves exposing things they would not imagine telling anyone,much less a national TV audience." "I was nervous about the competition and then I became my own competition raising the bar every year,pushing,pushing,pushing myself as hard as I knew. It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to fall if you're constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you're constantly pushing yourself higher,higher the law of averages,you will at some point fall. And when you do I want you to know this,remember this:there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction"as Oprah addressed graduates at Harvard on May 30,2013. The Oprah Effect refers to _ . A) the effect On a business B) the power of Oprah's opinions C) the impact On talk shows D) the assessment of Oprah's talk show
(A).
A