GMAT Reading Comprehension Question

GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions MARK HUGHES is a master of the fine art of survival. His Los Angeles-based Herbalife International Inc. is a pyramid outfit that peddles weight-loss and nutrition concoctions of dubious value. Bad publicity and regulatory crackdowns hurt his U.S. business in the late 1980s. But Hughes, 41, continues to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle in a $20 million Beverly Hills mansion. He has been sharing the pad and a yacht with his third wife, a former Miss Petite U.S.A. He can finance this lavish lifestyle just on his salary and bonus, which last year came to $7.3 million. He survived his troubles in the U.S. by moving overseas, where regulators are less zealous and consumers even more naive, at least initially. Today 77% of Herbalife retail sales derive from overseas. Its new prowling grounds: Asia and Russia. Last year Herbalife's net earnings doubled, to $45 million, on net sales of $632 million. Based on Herbalife's Nasdaq-traded stock, the company has a market capitalization of $790 million, making Hughes 58% worth $454 million. There's a worm, though, in Hughes apple. Foreigners aren't stupid. In the end they know when they've been had. In France, for instance, retail sales rose to $97 million by 1993 and then plunged to $12 million last year. In Germany sales hit $159 million in 1994 and have since dropped to $54 million. Perhaps aware that the world may not provide an infinite supply of suckers, Hughes wanted to unload some of his shares. But in March, after Herbalife's stock collapsed, he put off a plan to dump about a third of his holdings on the public. Contributing to Hughes' woes, Herbalife's chief counsel and legal attack dog, David Addis, quit in January. Before packing up, he reportedly bellowed at Hughes, "I can't protect you anymore." Addis, who says he wants to spend more time with his family, chuckles and claims attorney-client privilege. Trouble on the home front, too. On a recent conference call with distributors, Hughes revealed he's divorcing his wife, Suzan, whose beaming and perky image adorns much of Herbalife's literature. Meanwhile, in a lawsuit that's been quietly moving through Arizona's Superior Court, former Herbalife distributor Daniel Fallow of Sandpoint, Idaho charges that Herbalife arbitrarily withholds payment to distributors and marks up its products over seven times the cost of manufacturing. Fallow also claims Hughes wanted to use the Russian mafia to gain entry to that nation's market. Fallow himself is no angel, but his lawsuit, which was posted on the Internet, brought out other complaints. Randy Cox of Lewiston, Idaho says Herbalife "destroyed my business" after he and his wife complained to the company that they were being cheated out of their money by higher-ups in the pyramid organization. Will Hughes survive again? Don't count on it this time. Herbalife Inc is based in: Los Angeles Columbus New York Austin Ans : A Daniel Fallow: Was a former attorney for Hughes Was a former distributor of Herbalife Co-founded Herbalife Ran Herbalife's German unit Ans : B Which of the following countries is mentioned where Hughes operated Herbalife? India China Germany Ukraine Ans : C The complaint of Randy Cox of Lewiston, Idaho, against Herbalife was: The company did not pay them their dues The products supplied by Hughes were inferior Their higher-ups in the pyramid cheated them Hughes had connections with the Russian mafia Ans : C Which of the following countries is NOT mentioned in the passage? Russia USA France Italy Ans : D In the year in which Hughes' salary and bonuses came to US$ 7.3 million, what was the retail sales for Herbalife in France? $12 million $159 million $54 million $97 million Ans :A At the time when this article was written, if Herbalife had had a market capitalisation of $ 1 billion, what would have been Hughes' share? $420 million $580 million $125 million $500 million Ans : B The rich analyses of Fernand Braudel and his fellow Annales historians have made significant contributions to historical theory and research. In a departure from traditional historical approaches, the Annales historians assume (as do Marxists) that history cannot be limited to a simple recounting of conscious human actions, but must be understood in the context of forces that underlie human behavior. Braudel was the first Annales historian to gain widespread support for the idea that history should synthesize data from social sciences, especially economics, to provide a broader historical view of human societies over time (although Febvre and Bloch, founders of the Annales school, originated this approach). Braudel conceived of history as the dynamic interaction of three temporalities. The first of these, the evenementielle, involved short-lived dramatic "events," such as battles, revolutions, and the actions of great men, which had preoccupied traditional historians like Carlyle. Conjonctures was Braudel's term for the larger, cyclical processes that might last up to half a century. The longue duree, a historical wave of great length, was for Braudel the most fascinating of the three temporalities. Here he focused on those aspects of everyday life that might remain relatively unchanged for centuries. What people ate, what they wore, their means and routes of travel—for Braudel these things create "structures" that define the limits of potential social change for hundreds of years at a time. Braudel's concept of the longue duree extended the perspective of historical space as well as time. Until the Annales school, historians had taken the juridicial political unit—the the nation-state, duchy, or whatever—as their starting point. Yet, when such enormous timespans are considered, geographical features may have more significance for human populations than national borders. In his doctoral thesis, a seminal work on the Mediterranean during the reign of Philip II, Braudel treated the geohistory of the entire region as a "structure" that exerted myriad influences on human lifeways since the first settlements on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. And so the reader is given such arcane information as the list of products that came to Spanish shores from North Africa, the seasonal routes followed by Mediterranean sheep and their shepherds, and the cities where the best ship timber could be bought. Braudel has been faulted for the imprecision of his approach. With his Rabelaisian delight in concrete detail, Braudel vastly extended the realm of relevant phenomena; but this very achievement made it difficult to delimit the boundaries of observation, a task necessary to beginning any social investigation. Further, Braudel and other Annales historians minimize the differences among the social sciences. Nevertheless, the many similarly designed studies aimed at both professional and popular audiences indicate that Braudel asked significant questions which tradional historians had overlooked. The primary purpose of the passage is to show how Braudel's work changed the conception of Mediterranean life held by previous historians. evaluate Braudel's criticisms of traditional and Marxist historiography contrast the perspective of the longue duree with the actions of major historical figures illustrate the relevance of Braudel's concepts to other social sciences outline some of Braudel's influential conceptions and distinguish them from conventional approaches Answer : E The author refers to the work of Febvre and Bloch in order to illustrate the limitations of the Annales tradition of historical investigation suggest the relevance of economics to historical investigation debate the need for combining various sociological approaches show that previous Annales historians anticipated Braudel's focus on economics deomonstrate that historical studies provide broad structures necessary for economic analysis Answer : D According to the passage, all of the following are aspects of Braudel's approach to history EXCEPT that he attempted to unify various social sciences studied social and economic activities that occurred across national boundaries pointed out the link between increased economic activity and the rise of nationalism examined seemingly unexciting aspects of everyday life visualized history as involving several different time frames Answer : C The passage suggests that, compared to traditional historians, Annales historians are more interested in other social sciences than in history more critical of the achievements of famous historical figures more skeptical of the validity of most economic research more interested in the underlying context of human behavior provided by social structure more inclined to be dogmatic in their approach to history Answer : D The author is critical of Braudel's perspective for which of the following reasons? It seeks structures that underlie all forms of social activity. It assumes a greater similarity among the social sciences than actually exists. It fails to consider the relationship between short-term events and long-term social activity. It clearly defines boundaries for social analysis. It attributes too much significance to conscious human actions. Answer : B