English: Reading Comprehension Set 1
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follows.
For students of geopolitics, the visit by Xi Jinping, China’s president, to Berlin was a highlight of the week. Students of economics may have been more taken with Mr Xi’s stop in the industrial western state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), to toasts, cheers and favourable press coverage. His visit points up a rising trend: Chinese purchases of Germany’s prized, medium-sized and high-tech Mittelstand companies. A study published in January by EY, a firm of consultants, found that companies from China or Hong Kong had bought 25 German firms in 2013, thrice the rate of just a few years earlier. Only Britain was as popular, but if the trend continues German companies will soon stand alone in Chinese estimation. After America, China is the biggest non-European investor in Germany. Another study, by Prognos, a research firm, expects Chinese investment there to quadruple between 2011 and 2020, to $2 billion.
Unlike Chinese purchases in America, the shopping spree in Germany causes little alarm. Germans are proud that “Made in Germany” is a mark of quality not only for products but also for companies. Their economics ministry believes that the country has over 1,300 “hidden champions”, world leaders in specialised products, more by far than anywhere else. China’s purchases have included Putzmeister, a Swabian maker of concrete pumps, and Kiekert, from NRW, which makes car-door latches. Some German bosses have naturally worried that the Chinese buyers were just looking to strip out technical knowledge, while workers worried for their jobs. But to the target companies’ pleasant surprise, Chinese buyers have mostly been content to leave the companies to run much as they had before.
The Chinese are attracted by the Germans’ attitudes as much as by their know-how. The buyers know that “Made in China” still stands, in many minds, for cheap stuff assembled in the Middle Kingdom but designed elsewhere. German companies excel at incremental but constant innovation. They have continued to grind out productivity gains during Germany’s decade-long recovery from stagnation.
Chinese managers, by contrast, are mostly used to pursuing growth, says Nils Stieglitz of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. He expects the Chinese investors to spend a good bit of time watching and learning from their German acquisitions. Besides fresh capital, what do the Germans get from the deal? Ingeborg Neumann, vice-president of the Federation of German Industry (and founder of a medium-sized textile company), thinks the Chinese may be the answer to the succession problem facing many Mittelstand companies: if the founders’ children do not want to take over, as increasingly seems the case, the Chinese can do so instead. China may solve another kind of succession problem, says EY’s Yi Sun, by buying former state-owned firms privatised after the fall of communism in East Germany,
The Chinese may be too optimistic about their German purchases. Transferring a management style, after all, is a lot harder than transferring technical know-how. Language and cultures differ: Ms Sun tells of a Chinese buyer who was surprised not to be able to get his German managers on the phone 24 hours a day. But in some ways the cultures may suit each other well. German efficiency and incremental innovation was honed by ten years of slow growth and testing competition. As their economy slows, their companies mature and competition gets stiffer, the Chinese may be glad to have those Germans on the payroll.
- Which writing style has been used by the author in the passage?
A) Analytical
B) Descriptive
C) Judgmental
D) Narrative
E) None of these
- What does “taken with“ as highlighted in the passage means?
A) going with
B) frustrated with
C) interested in
D) enjoying
E) went along
- Which of the following statement(s) is/are false as per the above passage?
(i) America is the biggest European investor in Germany.
(ii) Transfer of management style is harder than transfer of technical knowledge.
(iii) Chinese are attracted by the knowledge of Germans.
A) Only (ii)
B) Both (ii) and (i)
C) Only (i)
D) Only (iii)
E) None is false
- Which of the following as per the passage is/are not a benefit that Germans have or may have because of the Chinese firms buying German firms?
(i) Germans get capital
(ii) Succession problem is solved.
(iii) Transfer of management style will be eased
A) Only (i)
B) Both (i) and (iii)
C) Only (iii)
D) All are the benefit
E) Both (ii) and (I)
- By how many times will the Chinese investment in German firms increase between 2012 and 2020?
A) 4
B) 8
C) 16
D) 2
E) Not mentioned in the passage
- Why are the German bosses worried about the Chinese firms buying German firms?
A) They think that workers will loose job.
B) They think that it will lead to stealing of technical knowledge
C) Chinese company will leave the German firms to run as they were running before
D) All of these
E) Not mentioned in the passage
- In the passage what difference(s) between German and Chinese has/have been mentioned that creates problem in the operation of the company?
(i) Language Difference
(ii) Cultural Difference
(iii) Efficiency Difference
A) Only (i)
B) Both (i) and (ii)
C) All
D) Both (ii) and (iii)
E) Both (i)and (iii)
- Which of the following word has the most similar meaning of “succession” as mentioned in the passage?
A) inheritance
B) continuation
C) cycle
D) order
E) connection
- Which of the following word means the farthest of “honed” as mentioned in the passage?
A) sharpen
B) blunt
C) deteriorated
D) improved
E) lost
- Which of the following word has the most similar meaning of “stiffer“ as mentioned in the passage?
A) inflexible
B) inelastic
C) fixed
D) strong
E) brittle