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Part IV Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth) (25 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete statements in the fewest possible words. Please write your answers on Answer Sheet 2.
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
Oil is the substance that lubricates the world's economy. Because so many of our modern technologies and services depend on oil, nations, corporations, and institutions that control the trade in oil exercise extraordinary power. The "energy crisis" of 1973-1974 in the United States demonstrated how the price of oil can affect US government policies and the energy-using .
By 1973, domestic US sources of oil were peaking, and the nation was importing more of its oil, depending on a constant flow from abroad to keep cars on the road and machines running. In addition, at that time a greater percentage of homes and electrical plants were run on petroleum than today. Then, in 1973, the predominantly Arab nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) resolved to stop selling oil to the United States. The move was prompted by OPEC's desire to raise prices by restricting supply and by its opposition to US support of Israel in the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War. The embargo (禁運) created panic in the West and caused oil prices to shoot up. Short-term oil shortage drove American consumers to wait in long lines at gas pumps.
In response to the embargo, the US government enforced a series of policies designed to reduce reliance on foreign oil. These included developing additional domestic sources (such as those on Alaska's North Slope), resuming extraction at sites that had been shut down because of cost inefficiency, capping the price that domestic producers could charge for oil, and beginning to import oil from a greater diversity of nations. The government also established a stockpile (貯存) of oil as a short-term buffer (緩沖) against future shortages. Stored underground in large salt caves in Louisiana, this stockpile is called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and currently contains over 600 million barrels of oil, roughly equivalent to one month's supply.
注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2 上作答。
47. We learn from the passage that in today's world, whoever monopolizes the oil market will be able to ______.
48. Oil prices may exert influence not only on American government policies but on how energy ______.
49. Besides the sharp increase in oil prices, OPEC's 1973 oil embargo caused _______.
50. Over the years before the OPEC's embargo America had depended heavily on _______.
51. As a measure to counter future shortages, the American government decided to _______ in caves underground.
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices maked A),B),C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.
"Depression" is more than a serious economic downturn. What distinguishes a depression from a harsh recession is paralyzing fear - fear of the unknown so great that it causes consumers, businesses, and investors to retreat and panic. They save up cash and desperately cut spending. They sell stocks and other assets. A shattering loss of confidence inspires behavior that overwhelms the normal self-correcting mechanisms that usually prevent a recession from becoming deep and prolonged: a depression.
Comparing 1929 with 2007-09, Christina Romer, the head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, finds the initial blow to confidence far greater now than then. True, stock prices fell a third from September to December 1929, but fewer Americans then owned stocks. Moreover, home prices barely dropped. From December 1928 to December 1929, total household wealth declined only 3%. By contrast, the loss in household wealth between December 2007 and December 2008 was 17%. Both stocks and homes, more widely held, dropped more. Thus traumatized (受到創(chuàng)傷) the economy might have gone into a free fall ending in depression. Indeed, it did go into free fall. Shoppers refrained from buying cars, appliances, and other big-ticket items. Spending on such "durables" dropped at a 12% annual rate in 2008's third quarter, a 20% rate in the fourth. And businesses shelved investment projects.
That these huge declines didn't lead to depression mainly reflects, as Romer argues, countermeasures taken by the government. Private markets for goods, services, labor, and securities do mostly self-correct, but panic feeds on itself and disarms these stabilizing tendencies. In this situation, only government can protect the economy as a whole, because most individuals and companies are involved in the self-defeating behavior of self-protection. Government's failure to perform this role in the early 1930s transformed recession into depression. Scholars will debate which interventions this time - the Federal Reserve's support of a failing credit system, guarantees of bank debt, Obama's ''stimulus" plan and bank "stress test" - counted most in preventing a recurrence. Regardless, all these complex measures had the same psychological purpose: to reassure people that the free fall would stop and, thereby, curb the fear that would perpetuate (使持久) a free fall.
All this improved confidence. But the consumer sentiment index remains weak, and all the rebound has occurred in Americans' evaluation of future economic conditions, not the present. Unemployment (9.8%) is abysmal (糟透的) , the recovery's strength unclear. Here, too, there is an echo from the 1930s. Despite bottoming out in 1933, the Depression didn't end until World War II. Some government policies aided recovery; some hindered it. The good news today is that the bad news is not worse.
注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2 上作答。
52. Why do consumers, businesses and investors retreat and panic in times of depression?
A) They suffer great losses in stocks, property and other assets.
B) They find the self-correcting mechanisms dysfunctioning.
C) They are afraid the normal social order will be paralyzed.
D) They don't know what is going to happen in the future.
53. What does Christina Romer say about the current economic recession?
A) Its severity is no match for the Great Depression of 1929.
B) Its initial blow to confidence far exceeded that of 1929.
C) It has affected house owners more than stock holders.
D) It has resulted in a free fall of the prices of commodities.
54. Why didn't the current recession turn into a depression according to Christina Romer?
A) The government intervened effectively.
B) Private markets corrected themselves.
C) People refrained from buying durables and big-ticket items.
D) Individuals and companies adopted self-protection measures.
55. What is the chief purpose of all the countermeasures taken?
A) To create job opportunities.
B) To curb the fear of a lasting free fall.
C) To stimulate domestic consumption.
D) To rebuild the credit system.
56. What does the author think of today's economic situation?
A) It may worsen without further stimulation.
B) It will see a rebound sooner or later.
C) It has not gone from bad to worse.
D) It does not give people reason for pessimism.
Passage Two
Questions 57 to 62 are based on the following passage.
"Usually when we walk through the rain forest we hear a soft sound from all the moist leaves and organic debris on the forest floor," says ecologist Daniel Nepstad. "Now we increasingly get rustle and crunch. That's the sound of a dying forest."
Predictions of the collapse of the tropical rain forests have been around for years. Yet until recently the worst forecasts were almost exclusively linked to direct human activity, such as clear-cutting and burning for pastures or farms. Left alone, it was assumed, the world's rain forests would not only flourish but might even rescue us from disaster by absorbing the excess carbon dioxide and other planet-warming greenhouse gases. Now it turns out that may be wishful thinking. Some scientists believe that the rise in carbon levels means that the Amazon and other rain forests in Asia and Africa may go from being assets in the battle against rising temperatures to liabilities. Amazon plants, for instance, hold more than 100 billion metric tons of carbon, equal to 15 years of tailpipe and chimney emissions. If the collapse of the rain forests speeds up dramatically, it could eventually release 3.5-5 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year - making forests the leading source of greenhouse gases.
Uncommonly severe droughts brought on by global climate changes have led to forest-eating wildfires from Australia to Indonesia, but nowhere more acutely than in the Amazon. Some experts say that the rain forest is already at the .
Extreme weather and reckless development arc plotting against the rain forest in ways that scientists have never seen. Trees need more water as temperatures rise, but the prolonged droughts have robbed them of moisture, making whole forests easily cleared of trees and turned into farmland. The picture worsens with each round of El Nino, the unusually warm currents in the Pacific Ocean that drive up temperatures and invariably presage (預(yù)示) droughts and fires in the rain forest. Runaway fires pour even more carbon into the air, which increases temperatures, starting the whole vicious cycle all over again.
More than paradise lost, a perishing rain forest could trigger a domino effect - sending winds and rains kilometers off course and loading the skies with even greater levels of greenhouse gases - that will be felt far beyond the Amazon basin. In a sense, we are already getting a glimpse of what's to come. Each burning season in the Amazon, fires deliberately set by frontier settlers and developers hurl up almost half a billion metric tons of carbon a year, placing Brazil among the top five contributors to greenhouse gases in the world.
注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2 上作答。
57. We learn from the first paragraph that _______.
A) dead leaves and tree debris make the same sound
B) trees that are dying usually give out a soft moan
C) organic debris echoes the sounds in a rain forest
D) the sound of a forest signifies its health condition
58. In the second paragraph, the author challenges the view that _______.
A) the collapse of rain forests is caused by direct human interference
B) carbon emissions are the leading cause of current global warming
C) the condition of rain forests has been rapidly deteriorating
D) rain forests should not be converted into pastures or farms
59. The author argues that the rising carbon levels in rain forests may ______.
A) turn them into a major source of greenhouse gases
B) change the weather patterns throughout the world
C) pose a threat to wildlife
D) accelerate their collapse
60. What has made it easier to turn some rain forests into farmland?
A) Rapid rise in carbon levels.
B) Reckless land development.
C) Lack of rainfall resulting from global warming.
D) The unusual warm currents in the Pacific Ocean.
61. What makes Brazil one of the world's top five contributors to greenhouse gases?
A) The domino effect triggered by the perishing rain forests.
B) Its practice of burning forests for settlement and development.
C) The changed patterns of winds and rains in the Amazon area.
D) Its inability to curb the carbon emissions from industries.
