osted a toolkit on its website. this toolkit let bmw’s customers develop ideas showing how the firm could take advantage of advances in telematics and in-car online services. from the 1,000 customers who used the toolkit, bmw chose 15 and invited them to meet its engineers in munich. some of their ideas (which remain under wraps for now) have since reached the prototype stage, says bmw. “they were so happy to be invited by us, and that our technical experts were interested in their ideas,” says mr reimann. “they didn’t want any money.”

westwood studios, a game developer now owned by ea, first noticed its customers innovating its products after the launch of a game, “red alert,” in 1996: gamers were making new content for existing games and posting it freely on fan websites. westwood made a conscious decision to embrace this phenomenon. soon it was shipping basic game-development tools with its games, and by 1999 had a dedicated department to feed designers and producers working on new projects with customer innovations of existing ones. “the fan community has had a tremendous influence on game design,” says mr verdu, “and the games are better as a result.”

researchers call such customers “lead users.” ge’s healthcare division calls them “luminaries.” they tend to be well-published doctors and research scientists from leading medical institutions, says ge, which brings up to 25 luminaries together at regular medical advisory board sessions to discuss the evolution of ge’s technology. ge then shares some of its advanced technology with a subset of luminaries who form an “inner sanctum of good friends,” says sholom ackelsberg of ge healthcare. ge’s products then emerge from collaboration with these groups.

21. why does bmw post a toolkit on its website?

a) because it wants to interest more customers.

b) because it wants to improve their website.

c) because it wants their customers to give advices or ideas on theirs products.

d) because it wants to see if the customers’ ideas match their prototype.

22. we may conclude from the text that .

a) ea is a computer game producer

b) ea is the largest hi-tech company in the world

c) “red alert” made its first appearance before 1996

d) westwood studios used to be owned by ea for many years

23. which of the following behavior does not reflect that we are now in a customer-driven market?

a) bmw posts a toolkit to collect customers’ ideas.

b) ge brings up 25 luminaries to discuss the evolution of ge’s technology.

c) westwood establishes a department to deal with customers’ innovations.

d) ge’s healthcare division calls some of the well-published doctors and research scientists “luminaries”.

24. which of the following can replace the word “customer-driven”?

a) customer-centered b) customer-satisfied

c) customer-analyzed d) customer-evaluate

25. customers invited by bmw didn’t want any money, instead, they just want .

a) to be invited in a conference

b) their suggestions and ideas to be accepted by the company and be of use in the cars’ upgrade

c) take a look at bmw’s newest models

d) get together and exchange experience on driving the bmws

passage four

questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.

half of literature concerns the perils of falling for a soul mate: the victorian heroine runs off with the gardener; romeo decides he can’t live without the daughter of a family with whom his is feuding. and these tales always end badly, with disgrace and death, so that the normal order of society can be soberly restored.

the new matchmakers take a traditional approach. they believe that people do and should marry within their tribes. the count’s daughter is not going to be happy as a gardener’s wife, no matter how mad she was for him at first, whereas a person from an affluent neighborhood will find comfort in a spouse who grew up in a similar area and went to the same tennis camp. they will speak the same dialect. they will move back to their hometowns and send their kids to that same tennis camp. the matchmakers themselves need not necessarily speak their — or any of their clients’— languages. rather, matchmakers are like linguists who recognize the sounds and structure of many languages and then get the natives together. and if the clients protest that their hearts aren’t beating fast enough (that town? near my parents?), the matchmakers will insist that the pairing is right. once they commit and start building that long-delayed life, they’ll be happy — or happier, at least, than when they were single.

of course, you wonder if these kinds of matches actually last, or whether a few months or years after that hefty wedding bonus