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Consider GDP.In October, the Commerce Department announced — to rejoicing in the media, on Wall Street and in the White House — that the economy had grown at a 3.5% annual pace in the third quarter. By late December, GDP had been revised downward to a less impressive 2.2%, and revisions to come could ratchet it down even more (or revise it back up). The first fourth-quarter GDP stimate comes out Jan. 29. Some are saying it could top 5%. If it does, should we really believe it?
Or take jobs. In early December, the Labor Department's monthly report surprised on the upside — and brought lots of upbeat headlines — with employers reporting only 11,000 jobs lost and the unemployment rate dropping from 10.2% to 10%. A month later, the surprise was in the other direction — unemployment had held steady, but employers reported 85,000 fewer jobs. Suddenly the headlines were downbeat, and pundits were pontificating about the political implications of a stalled labor market. Chances are, the disparity between the two reports was mostly statistical noise. Those who read great meaning into either were deceiving themselves. It is a classic case of information overload making it hard to see the trends and patterns that matter. In other words, we might be better off paying less (or at least less frequent) attention to data.
以上兩段中，舉了兩個(gè)很詳細(xì)的例子：GDP 與就業(yè)問題。分別除了兩個(gè)題目，都屬于例子功能題。其中一題問：關(guān)于GDP的不同數(shù)據(jù)說明什么？從上文的misleading 一詞可以看出，應(yīng)該說明的是數(shù)據(jù)經(jīng)常是not convincing 或not reliable.
另一題問到：關(guān)于失業(yè)率的兩份報(bào)告說明什么？與上一題幾乎是一樣的答法。
With that in mind, I asked a few of my favorite economic forecasters to name an indicator or two that I could afford to start ignoring. Three said they disregarded the index of leading indicators, originally devised at the Commerce Department but now compiled by the Conference Board, a business group. Forecasters want new hard data, and the index "consists entirely of already released information and the Conference Board's forecasts," says Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs. (The leading-indicators index topped a similar survey by the Chicago Tribune in 2005, it turns out.) The monthly employment estimate put out by payroll-service firm ADP got two demerits, mainly because it doesn't do a great job of predicting the Labor Department employment numbers that are released two days later. And consumer-sentiment indexes, which offer the tantalizing prospect of predicting future spending patterns but often function more like an echo chamber, got the thumbs-down from two more forecasters.
本段開頭告訴我們，頂尖經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家一般會選擇忽略哪些經(jīng)濟(jì)指標(biāo)，一系列的并列結(jié)構(gòu)過后，結(jié)尾句出現(xiàn)考點(diǎn)：thumbs-down.在這里顯然也是“忽略”的意思。在這里，有兩個(gè)選項(xiàng)可能會使考生迷惑 disapproval 還是strong criticism? 后一項(xiàng)顯然是闡述過度了。
The thing is, I already ignore all these (relatively minor) indicators. I had been hoping to learn I could skip GDP or the employment report.
I should have known that professional forecasters wouldn't forgo real data. As Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com put it in an e-mail, "I cherish all economic indicators."
Most of us aren't professional forecasters. What should we make of the cacophony of monthly and weekly data? The obvious advice is to focus on trends and ignore the noise. But the most important economic moments come when trends reverse — when what appears to be noise is really a sign that the world has changed. Which is why, in these uncertain times, we jump whenever a new economic number comes out. Even one that will be revised in a month.
最后一段考察了段義。很顯然，本段的重點(diǎn)在于but 引導(dǎo)的轉(zhuǎn)折句上：經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)折事件往往是逆潮流而動的——這時(shí)，原來的“noise”即干擾性指標(biāo)也會具有說服力。
