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雅思阅读练习题:致命波动性

2017-04-05 10:50:09来源:网络 柯林斯词典

  新东方在线雅思网第一时给大家带来了雅思阅读练习题:致命波动性,希望以下内容能够为同学们的雅思备考提供帮助。新东方在线雅思网将第一时间为大家发布最新、最全、最专业的雅思报名官网消息和雅思考试真题及解析,供大家参考。

  Volatility Kills

  You should spend about 20 minutes on Question 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage below.

  A

  Despite gun battles in the capital of Chad, rioting in Kenya and galloping inflation in Zimbabwe, the economics of sub-Saharan Africa arc, as a whole, in better shape than they were a few years ago. The World Bank has reported recently that this part of the continent experienced a respectable growth rate of 5.6 percent in 2006 and a higher rate from 1995 to 2005 than in previous decades. The bank has given a cautious assessment that the region may have reached a turning point. An overriding question for developmental economists remains whether the upswing will continue so Africans can grow their way out of a poverty that relegates some 40 percent of the nearly 744 million in that region to living on less than a dollar a day. The optimism, when inspected more closely, may be short-lived because of the persistence of a devastating pattern of economic volatility that has lingered for decades.

  B

  “In reality, African countries grow as fast as Asian countries and other developing countries during the good times, but afterward they see growth collapses,” comments Jorge Arbache, a senior World Bank economist. “How to prevent collapses may be as important as promoting growth.” If these collapses had not occurred, he observes, the level of gross domestic product for each citizen of the 48 nations of sub-Saharan Africa would have been a third higher.

  C

  The prerequisite to prevent the next crash are not in place, according to a World Bank study issued in January. Is Africa's Recent Growth Robust? The growth period that began in 1995, driven by a commodities boom spurred in particular by demand from China, may not be sustainable, because the economic fundamentals—new investment and the ability to stave off inflation, among other factors—are absent. The region lacks the necessary infrastructure that would encourage investors to look to Africa to find the next Bengaluru (Bangalore) or Shenzhen, a November report from the bank concludes. For sub-Saharan countries rich in oil and other resources, a boom period may even undermine efforts to institute sound economic practices. From 1996 to 2005, with growth accelerating, measures of governance—factors such as political stability, rule of law, and control of corruption—actually worsened, especially for countries endowed with abundant mineral resources, the January report notes.

  D

  Perhaps the most incisive analysis of the volatility question comes from Paul Collier, a longtime specialist in African economics at the University of Oxford and author of the recent book The Bottom Billion. He advocates a range of options that the U.S. and other nations could adopt when formulating policy toward African countries. They include revamped trade measures, better-apportioned aid and sustained military intervention in certain instances, to avert what he sees as a rapidly accelerating divergence of the world’s poorest, primarily in Africa, from the rest of the world, even other developing nations such India and China.

  E

  Collier find that bad governance is the main reason countries fail to take advantage of the revenue bonanza that results from a boom. Moreover, a democratic government, he adds, often makes the aftermath of a boom worse. “Instead of democracy disciplining governments to manage these resource booms well, what happens is that the resource revenues corrupt the normal functioning of democracy—unless you stop (them from) corrupting the normal function of democracy with sufficient checks and balances”, he said at a talk in January at the Carnegie Council in New York City.

  F

  Collier advocates that African nations institute an array of standards and codes to bolster governments, one of which would substitute auctions for bribes in apportioning mineral rights and another of which would tax export revenues adequately. He cites the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which took in $200 million from mineral exports in 2006 yet collected only $86,000 in royalties for its treasury. “If a nation gets these points right,” he argues, “it's going to develop. If it gets them wrong, it won't.”

  G

  To encourage reform, Collier recommends that the G8 nations agree to accept these measures as voluntary guidelines for multinationals doing business in Africa— companies, for instance, would only enter new contracts through auctions monitored by an international verification group. Such an agreement would follow the examples of the so-called Kimberley Process, which has effectively undercut the trade in blood diamonds, and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, in which a government must report to its citizens the revenues it receives from sales of natural resources.

  H

  These measures, he says, are more important than elevating aid levels, an approach emphasized by economist Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University and celebrity activists such as Bono. Collier insists that first Angola receives tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue and whether it gets a few hundred million more or less in aid is really second-order.

  Questions 1-4

  Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-C) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 1 -4 on your answer sheet.

  NB you may use any letter more than once

  A Jeffrey D. Sachs

  B Paul Collier

  C Jorge Arbache

  1. An unexpectedly opposite result

  2. Estimated more productive outcomes if it were not for sudden economic downturns

  3. A proposal for a range of recommended instructions for certain countries to narrow the widening economic gap

  4. An advocate for a method used for a specific assessment

  Questions 5-9

  Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet, write

  TRUE if the statement is true

  FALSE if the statement is false

  NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

  5. The instability in economy in some African countries might negatively impact their continuing growth after a certain level has been reached.

  6. Collier is the most influential scholar on the study of volatility problem.

  7. Certain African governments levy considerable taxes on people profiting greatly from exportation.

  8. Some African nations' decisions on addressing specific existing problems are directly related to the future of their economic trends.

  9. Collier regards Jeffrey D. Sachs' recommended way of evaluating of little importance.

  Questions 10-13

  Summary

  Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using No More than Three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

  According to one research carried by the World Bank, some countries in Africa may suffer from 10 due to the lack of according preconditions. They experienced a growth stimulated by 11 , but according to another study, they may not keep this trend stable because they don't have 12 which would attract investors. To some countries with abundant resources this fast-growth period might even mean something devastating to their endeavor. During one specific decade accompanied by 13 as a matter of fact, the governing saw a deterioration.

  参考译文:

  致命的波动性

  A

  尽管乍得共和国的首都都有枪支交火,肯尼亚经历着暴乱,津巴布上演着骇人的通货膨胀,撒哈拉以南的非地区的经济作为一个整体比前几年要发展好很多。世界银行最近的一项报告显示非洲南部的地区在2006年经济增长率为5.6%1995至2005年之间的增长率也比过去几十年的增长率要高。世界银行已经给予了谨慎的评估,认为该地区可能已经达到了一个转折点,发展经济学家要面临的一个最重要的问题是非洲是否还可以以这种高增长率继续发展,以解决贫困问题,该地区以7亿4400万总人口中的近40%人每天的生活成本不到1美元,如果进行更加周密的调查的话,非洲南部这种经济增长可能只是昙花一现,因为一种毁灭性的经济波动格局在过去的几十年一直存在。

  B

  世界银行的一位高级经济学家Jorge Arbache评论道:“在现实中,非洲国家在好的时候其发展速度不亚于亚国家或是其他发展中国家,但后来这种增长崩溃了。如何防止这种经济崩溃和促进经济增长同等重要。”根据他的观察,如果这些崩溃没有发生,撒哈拉以南的非洲地区的48个国家的每个公民的国内生产总值水平会高出实际水平三分之一。

  C

  根据一月份发布的世界银行的一项题为“非洲近期的增长势头强劲吗?”的研究报告显示,非洲国家为防止下一次危机发生的前提条件还不到位。始于1995年的增长期 ,推动是由特别是受中国需求推动的大宗商品的热潮驱动的,这种增长期可能不会持久。因为缺乏经济基本面里的若干因素——其中特别是新投资和避开通货膨胀的能力。一份银行11月份的报告总结道,该地区缺乏必要的基础设施来鼓励投资者将目光投向非洲以寻找下一个“班加罗尔”或 “深圳”。对于撒哈拉以南富含丰富的石油和其他资源的非洲国家来说,蓬勃发展的时期甚至可能会破坏努力建立起来的完善的经济行为。一月份的报告指出,从1996年到2005年,随着增长额加快,治理因素如政治稳定,法制和控制腐败实际上是恶化了,特别是拥有丰富矿产资源的国家,恶化情况更加严重。

  D

  也许对于波动问题做出的最精辟的分析来自于Paul Collier,他是牛津大学一位长期专门研究非洲经济的专家,也是最近初版的The Bottom Billion一书的作者。他列出一系列美国和其他国家在制定有关非洲国家的政策时可以采取的一系列选项。他们包括修补贸易措施,在某些情况下比例更为恰当的援助和持续的军事干预,以避免世界上最贫困地区特别是非洲的一些国家和世界其他地区甚至是和其他发展中国家如印度和中国之间的差距进一步加剧。

  E

  Collier发现不良治理的主要原因是国家没有利用好经济增长所带来的巨额收入。此外,他补充道,一个民主的政府往往会往往会使经济增长带来的结果更加恶化。他在纽约市卡内基委员会一月一次的谈话中说道“民主的政府非但不能很好地管理好这些经济增长,反而会被这些经济增长破坏,除非你能通过足够的制衡阻止他们破坏民主制度的正常功能。

  F

  Collier主张非洲国家推行一系列标准和规范的数组以加强各国政府,其中一项是用拍卖来代替通过贿赂推派破产权,而另一项则是向出口收入征收足够的税收。他以刚果民主共和国为例,该国在2006年矿物出口收入达2亿美元,但是只向国库缴纳了8600美元的特许权使用费。他认为,“如果一个国家在这些方面处理妥当,他将会发展。但如果它做出了错误的选择,该国家就不会发展。

  G

  为了鼓励改革,Collier建议G8国家应该同意接受这些措施成为跨国公司在非洲做生意时的自愿原则,例如,公司签订新的合同时,必须通过由一个国际核查小组监控的拍卖来决定合同合作方。这种协议将效仿以下两个例子,一个是有效地削弱了血钻贸易的所谓的金伯利进程,另一个是采掘业透明度行动倡议,其倡导政府必须向公民报告它收到的来自销售自然资源的收入。

  H

  他说,这些措施比由哥伦比亚大学经济学家Jeffery D. Sachs 和著名的活动家如Bono所强调评估援助水平的方法更为重要。Collier指出,首先应该考虑到安哥拉政府收到数百亿美元的是由收入。其次才该考虑其是否得到了几亿美元左右的援助这件事。


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