The passage supplies information for a...

单项选择题In a sense, the new protectionism is not protectionism at all, at least not in the traditional sense of the term. The old protectionism referred only to trade restricting and trade expanding devices, such as the tariff or export subsidy. The new protectionism is much broader than this: it includes interventions into foreign trade but is not limited to them. The new protectionism, in fact, refers to how the whole of government intervention into the private economy affects international trade. The emphasis on trade is still there, thus came the term "protection". But what is new is the realization that virtually all government activities can affect international economic relations.
The emergence of the new protectionism in the Western World reflects the victory of the interventionist, or welfare economy over the market economy. Jab Tumiler writes, "The old protectionism...coexisted, without any apparent intellectual difficulty with the acceptance of the market as a national as well as an international economic distribution mechanism--deed, protectionists as well as (if not more than) free traders stood for laissez faire (放任政策). Now, as in the 1930s, protectionism is an expression of a profound skepticism as to the ability of the market to distribute resources and incomes to society’s satisfaction."
It is precisely this profound skepticism of the market economy that is responsible for the protectionism. In a market economy, economic change of various colors implies redistribution of resources and incomes. The same opinion in many communities apparently is that such redistributions often are not proper. Therefore, the government intervenes to bring about a more desired result.
The victory of the welfare state is almost complete in northern Europe. In Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, government intervention in almost all aspects of economic and social life is considered normal. In Great Britain this is only somewhat less true. Government traditionally has played a very active role in economic life in France and continued to do so. Only West Germany dares to go against the tide towards excessive interventionism in Western Europe. It also happens to be the most successful Western European economy.
The welfare state has made significant progress in the United States as well as in Western Europe. Social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, and rent control are by now traditional welfare state elements on the American scene.
The passage supplies information for answering which of the following questions

A．When did the new protectionism arise
B．Why is the new protectionism so popular in northern European countries
C．Does the American government play a more active role in economic life than the British government
D．Why does the government intervene in economic life

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1.单项选择题Federal Reserve System, central banking system of the United States, popularly called the Fed, is a central bank that serves as the banker to both the banking community and the government；it also issues the national currency, conducts monetary policy, and plays a major role in supervision and regulation of banks and bank holding companies．In the U.S.these functions are the responsibilities of key officials of the Federal Reserve System：the Board of Governors located in Washington, D.C., and the top officers of the 12 district Federal Reserve banks, located throughout the nation．The Fed’s actions, described below, generally have a significant effect on the U.S.interest rates and, subsequently, on stock, bond, and other financial markets．
The Federal Reserve’s basic powers are concentrated in the Board of Governors, which is paramount(极为重要的)in all policy issues concerning bank regulation and supervision and in most aspects of monetary control. The board enunciates(阐明) the Fed’s policies on both monetary and banking matters. Because the board is not an operating agency, most of the day-to-day implementation of policies decosions is left to the district Federal Reserve banks, stock in which is owned by the commercial banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System. Ownership in this instance, however, does not imply control; the Board of Governors and the heads of the Reserve banks orient their policies to the public interest rather than to the benefit of the private banking systera.
The U.S. banking system’s regulatory apparatus is complex; the authority of the Federal Reserve is shared in some instances, for example, in mergers or the examination of banks with other federal agencies such as the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Cooperation (FDIC). In the critical area of regulating the nation’s money supply in accordance with national economic goals, however, the Federal Reserve is independent within the government.
Income and expenditures of the Federal Reserve banks and of the Board of Governors are not subject to the congressional appropriation process; the Federal Reserve is subject to the congressional appropriation process; the Federal Reserve is self-financing. Its income ($20.2 billion in 1992 ) comes mainly from Reserve bank holdings of income-earning securities, primarily those of the U.S. government. Outlays ($1.5 billion in 1992) are mostly for operational expenses in providing services to the government and for expenditures connected with regulation and monetary policy. In 1992 the Federal Reserve returned $16.8 billion in earnings to the U.S. Treasury.
The fact that stock in the Fed belongs to commercial banks ______.

A．doesn’t mean the latter is in control
B．means the latter is in control
C．means the latter is subject to the Reserve banks
D．means the Reserve banks orient the latter’s policies

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2.单项选择题Until recently, the planet was a large world in which human activities and their effects were neatly compartmentalized within nations, within sectors (energy, agriculture, trade), and within broad areas of concern ( environmental, economic, social). These compartments have begun to dissolve. This applies in particular to the various "global" rises that have seized public concern, particularly over the past decade. These are not separate crises: an environmental crisis, a development crisis, and energy crisis. They are all one. The planet is passing through a period of dramatic growth and fundamental change. Our human world of 5 billion must make room in a finite environment for another human world. The population could stabilize at between 8 billion and 14 billion in this century, according to U.N. predictions. More than 90 percent of the increase will occur in the poorest countries, and 90 percent of that growth in already bursting cities.
Economic activity has multiplied to create a 13 trillion world economy, and this could grow five or ten-fold in the coming half-century. Industrial production has grown more than fifty told over the past century, four-fifths of this growth since 1950. Such figures reflect and presage(预示) profound impacts upon the biosphere, as the world invests in houses, transport, farms and industries.
Much of the economic growth pulls raw material from forests, soils, seas and waterways. A mainspripg of economic growth is new technology, and while this technology offers the potential for slowipg the dangerously rapid consumptiop of finite resources, it also entails high risks, including new forms of population and the introduction to the planet of new variations of life forms that could change evolutionary pathways. Meanwhile, the industries most heavily reliant on environmental resources and most heavily polluting are growing most rapidly in the developing world, where there is both more urgency for growth and less capacity to minimize damaging side effects.
These related changes have locked the global economy and global ecology together in new ways. We have in the past been concerned about the impacts of economic growth upon the environment. We are now forced to concern ourselves with the impacts of ecological stress degradation of soils, water regimes, atmosphere, and forests upon our economic prospects. We have in the more recent past been forced to face up to a sharp increase in economic interdependence among nations. We are becoming ever more interwoven locally, nationally, and globally into a seamless net of causes and effects.
According to the United Nations, the world’s population in the new century will be ______.

A．developing faster and then slower
B．growing slower and then faster
C．limited within a certain level
D．controlled under well-planned projects

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3.单项选择题Last year’s economy should have won the Oscar for best picture. Growth in gross domestic product was 4.1 percent; profits soared; exports flourished; and inflation stayed around 3 percent for the third year. So why did so many Americans give the picture a lousy B rating The answer is jobs. The macroeconomic situation was good, but the microeconomic numbers were not. Yes, 3 million new jobs were there, but not enough of them were permanent, good jobs paying enough to support a family. Job insecurity was wide-spread.
Yes, unemployment went down. But over 1 million workers were so discouraged they left the labor force. More than 6 million who wanted full-time work were only partially employed, and another large group was either overqualified or sheltered behind the euphemism of self-employment. We lost a million good manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 1995, continuing the trend that has reduced the blue-collar work force from about 30 percent in the 1950s to about half of that today. White-collar workers found out they were no longer immune. For the first time, they were let go in numbers virtually equal to those for blue-collar workers. Many resorted to temporary work--with lower pay, fewer benefits and less status.
The Labor Department recently reported that real wages fell 2.3 percent in the 12- month period ending this March. Since 1973, wages adjusted for inflation have declined by about a quarter for high school dropouts, by a sixth for high school graduates and by about 7 percent for those with some college education. Only the wages of college graduates are up, by 5 percent, and recently starting salaries, even for this group, have not kept up with inflation. While the top 5 percent of the population was setting new income records almost every year, poverty rates rose from 11 percent to 15 percent. No wonder this is beginning to be called the Silent Depression.
Of all the reasons given for the wage squeeze international competition, technology, deregulation, the decline of unions and defense cuts technology is probably the most critical. It has favored the educated and skilled. America is simply not growing fast enough to tighten the labor market and push up real wages. In the long run it is potentially self-destructive because there will not be enough purchasing power to grow the economy.
How many blue—collar workers are there among the whole work force in U.S.A.

A．30%．
B．15%．
C．60%．
D．5%．

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4.单项选择题Microsoft is no longer the world’s biggest company by market capitalization. Three other U.S. companies have overtaken the software giant in terms of stock market value. The firm’s value has gone down sharply by 41% so far this year, from nearly $600 billion to $358 billion.
Much of the reason for the fall has been the uncertainty prompted by the on-going anti-trust case. It has been overtaken by General Electric, now worth $506 billion, Intel, worth $441 billion and Cisco Systems, $436 billion. Over the past year Microsoft shares have moved downwards from a high of $120 to $68 in early trading on 7 June. Meanwhile rival Cisco has seen its share price rise by $25 to more than $60 as the company has gained its role in providing the hardware for the Internet. And for most of the year it has been competing with computer chip maker Intel for the second place. Intel’s Pentium chips are widely used in personal computers worldwide.
The company that now holds the title of the world’s biggest company is an industrial giant which makes everything from toasters to jet engines. GE has sales of $110 billion--nearly ten times that of Microsoft and 340,000 employees worldwide. It has seen its profits grow by 15% a year to $11 billion.
GE Capital Services, its financial subsidiary, make up nearly half its sales. GE produces power generation systems, locomotive, medical imaging equipment and electrical appliances. It also owns the U.S. television network NBC and its financial news subsidiary, CNBC, and ironically, a joint venture with Microsoft to provide news on the Internet.
Microsoft’s shares now face a further period of uncertainty as the company’s legal battle continues. It could also face difficulty in recruiting and retaining employees whose pay has been boosted by their share options. The Seattle based firm is likely to go to an appeals court on any rulings. It could suffer further losses from lawsuits brought by competitors, who would be able to claim triple damages for any losses suffered. And with its energy and resources tied up in the lawsuits, the company may find it difficult to continue to innovate in the future, or move so aggressively to buy up competitors.
Cisco Systems’ share price has risen considerably ______.

A．after it has overtaken part of Microsoft’s shares
B．after it has beaten Intel and risen to the second place
C．since it has gained a firm footing in the market
D．because it is developing jointly with Microsoft

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5.单项选择题Nearly two thousand years have passed since a census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have a manager to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the census taker that does the traveling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to get a good sampling.
Methods of gathering, recording, and evaluating information have probably been improved a great deal. ①And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and prophets to get a clue to future events.
The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more immediate concern, the reliability of present economic forecasting, there are considerable differences of opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association. ②There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some speakers talked about newfangled(新花样的)computers and complicated mathematical systems in terms of excitement and endearment which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associate more readily with the description of a fair maiden. ③But others pointed to the deplorable(可叹的) very bad record of highly esteemed forecasts and forecaster with a batting average below that of the Nets, and the President elect of the Association cautioned that "high powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and inadequate, the exact contrary of that crude and inadequate statisticians assume."
④We left somewhere between hope and despair and with the conviction, not really newly acquired that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is induced into mistaking the description of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical attitude.
On the basis of the passage, which of the following statements would the author agree with

A．Computers have significantly improved the application of statistics in business.
B．Statistics is not, at the present time, a science.
C．It is useless to try to predict the economy.
D．Most mathematical systems are inexact.

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6.单项选择题Federal Reserve System, central banking system of the United States, popularly called the Fed, is a central bank that serves as the banker to both the banking community and the government；it also issues the national currency, conducts monetary policy, and plays a major role in supervision and regulation of banks and bank holding companies．In the U.S.these functions are the responsibilities of key officials of the Federal Reserve System：the Board of Governors located in Washington, D.C., and the top officers of the 12 district Federal Reserve banks, located throughout the nation．The Fed’s actions, described below, generally have a significant effect on the U.S.interest rates and, subsequently, on stock, bond, and other financial markets．
The Federal Reserve’s basic powers are concentrated in the Board of Governors, which is paramount(极为重要的)in all policy issues concerning bank regulation and supervision and in most aspects of monetary control. The board enunciates(阐明) the Fed’s policies on both monetary and banking matters. Because the board is not an operating agency, most of the day-to-day implementation of policies decosions is left to the district Federal Reserve banks, stock in which is owned by the commercial banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System. Ownership in this instance, however, does not imply control; the Board of Governors and the heads of the Reserve banks orient their policies to the public interest rather than to the benefit of the private banking systera.
The U.S. banking system’s regulatory apparatus is complex; the authority of the Federal Reserve is shared in some instances, for example, in mergers or the examination of banks with other federal agencies such as the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Cooperation (FDIC). In the critical area of regulating the nation’s money supply in accordance with national economic goals, however, the Federal Reserve is independent within the government.
Income and expenditures of the Federal Reserve banks and of the Board of Governors are not subject to the congressional appropriation process; the Federal Reserve is subject to the congressional appropriation process; the Federal Reserve is self-financing. Its income ($20.2 billion in 1992 ) comes mainly from Reserve bank holdings of income-earning securities, primarily those of the U.S. government. Outlays ($1.5 billion in 1992) are mostly for operational expenses in providing services to the government and for expenditures connected with regulation and monetary policy. In 1992 the Federal Reserve returned $16.8 billion in earnings to the U.S. Treasury.
The authority of the Federal Reserve ______.

A．has to be shared with other establishments
B．is exclusive sometimes
C．isn’t limited by Comptroller of the Currency and FDIC
D．is limited by Board of Governors

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7.单项选择题Until recently, the planet was a large world in which human activities and their effects were neatly compartmentalized within nations, within sectors (energy, agriculture, trade), and within broad areas of concern ( environmental, economic, social). These compartments have begun to dissolve. This applies in particular to the various "global" rises that have seized public concern, particularly over the past decade. These are not separate crises: an environmental crisis, a development crisis, and energy crisis. They are all one. The planet is passing through a period of dramatic growth and fundamental change. Our human world of 5 billion must make room in a finite environment for another human world. The population could stabilize at between 8 billion and 14 billion in this century, according to U.N. predictions. More than 90 percent of the increase will occur in the poorest countries, and 90 percent of that growth in already bursting cities.
Economic activity has multiplied to create a 13 trillion world economy, and this could grow five or ten-fold in the coming half-century. Industrial production has grown more than fifty told over the past century, four-fifths of this growth since 1950. Such figures reflect and presage(预示) profound impacts upon the biosphere, as the world invests in houses, transport, farms and industries.
Much of the economic growth pulls raw material from forests, soils, seas and waterways. A mainspripg of economic growth is new technology, and while this technology offers the potential for slowipg the dangerously rapid consumptiop of finite resources, it also entails high risks, including new forms of population and the introduction to the planet of new variations of life forms that could change evolutionary pathways. Meanwhile, the industries most heavily reliant on environmental resources and most heavily polluting are growing most rapidly in the developing world, where there is both more urgency for growth and less capacity to minimize damaging side effects.
These related changes have locked the global economy and global ecology together in new ways. We have in the past been concerned about the impacts of economic growth upon the environment. We are now forced to concern ourselves with the impacts of ecological stress degradation of soils, water regimes, atmosphere, and forests upon our economic prospects. We have in the more recent past been forced to face up to a sharp increase in economic interdependence among nations. We are becoming ever more interwoven locally, nationally, and globally into a seamless net of causes and effects.
According to the author, human activities and their effects cannot be compartmentalized because of ______.

A．the rise in population and economic growth
B．the energy and other different crises
C．the development of modern technology
D．the unification of the world’s economy and others

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8.单项选择题Last year’s economy should have won the Oscar for best picture. Growth in gross domestic product was 4.1 percent; profits soared; exports flourished; and inflation stayed around 3 percent for the third year. So why did so many Americans give the picture a lousy B rating The answer is jobs. The macroeconomic situation was good, but the microeconomic numbers were not. Yes, 3 million new jobs were there, but not enough of them were permanent, good jobs paying enough to support a family. Job insecurity was wide-spread.
Yes, unemployment went down. But over 1 million workers were so discouraged they left the labor force. More than 6 million who wanted full-time work were only partially employed, and another large group was either overqualified or sheltered behind the euphemism of self-employment. We lost a million good manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 1995, continuing the trend that has reduced the blue-collar work force from about 30 percent in the 1950s to about half of that today. White-collar workers found out they were no longer immune. For the first time, they were let go in numbers virtually equal to those for blue-collar workers. Many resorted to temporary work--with lower pay, fewer benefits and less status.
The Labor Department recently reported that real wages fell 2.3 percent in the 12- month period ending this March. Since 1973, wages adjusted for inflation have declined by about a quarter for high school dropouts, by a sixth for high school graduates and by about 7 percent for those with some college education. Only the wages of college graduates are up, by 5 percent, and recently starting salaries, even for this group, have not kept up with inflation. While the top 5 percent of the population was setting new income records almost every year, poverty rates rose from 11 percent to 15 percent. No wonder this is beginning to be called the Silent Depression.
Of all the reasons given for the wage squeeze international competition, technology, deregulation, the decline of unions and defense cuts technology is probably the most critical. It has favored the educated and skilled. America is simply not growing fast enough to tighten the labor market and push up real wages. In the long run it is potentially self-destructive because there will not be enough purchasing power to grow the economy.
According to the passage, which statement is TRUE

A．Last year, the rate of unemployment in the U.S.A. kept rising.
B．White-collar workers used to keep good and high-paying jobs much easier.
C．The development of technology is the only cause of the wage-cutting for all Americans.
D．Most Americans are completely satisfied with the economic development of last year.

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9.单项选择题In a sense, the new protectionism is not protectionism at all, at least not in the traditional sense of the term. The old protectionism referred only to trade restricting and trade expanding devices, such as the tariff or export subsidy. The new protectionism is much broader than this: it includes interventions into foreign trade but is not limited to them. The new protectionism, in fact, refers to how the whole of government intervention into the private economy affects international trade. The emphasis on trade is still there, thus came the term "protection". But what is new is the realization that virtually all government activities can affect international economic relations.
The emergence of the new protectionism in the Western World reflects the victory of the interventionist, or welfare economy over the market economy. Jab Tumiler writes, "The old protectionism...coexisted, without any apparent intellectual difficulty with the acceptance of the market as a national as well as an international economic distribution mechanism--deed, protectionists as well as (if not more than) free traders stood for laissez faire (放任政策). Now, as in the 1930s, protectionism is an expression of a profound skepticism as to the ability of the market to distribute resources and incomes to society’s satisfaction."
It is precisely this profound skepticism of the market economy that is responsible for the protectionism. In a market economy, economic change of various colors implies redistribution of resources and incomes. The same opinion in many communities apparently is that such redistributions often are not proper. Therefore, the government intervenes to bring about a more desired result.
The victory of the welfare state is almost complete in northern Europe. In Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, government intervention in almost all aspects of economic and social life is considered normal. In Great Britain this is only somewhat less true. Government traditionally has played a very active role in economic life in France and continued to do so. Only West Germany dares to go against the tide towards excessive interventionism in Western Europe. It also happens to be the most successful Western European economy.
The welfare state has made significant progress in the United States as well as in Western Europe. Social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, and rent control are by now traditional welfare state elements on the American scene.
What does the phrase "stood for" (Line 6, Par

A．2) meanA. Represented.B. Held out.C. Tolerated.D. Disapprove

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10.单项选择题Nearly two thousand years have passed since a census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have a manager to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the census taker that does the traveling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to get a good sampling.
Methods of gathering, recording, and evaluating information have probably been improved a great deal. ①And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and prophets to get a clue to future events.
The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more immediate concern, the reliability of present economic forecasting, there are considerable differences of opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association. ②There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some speakers talked about newfangled(新花样的)computers and complicated mathematical systems in terms of excitement and endearment which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associate more readily with the description of a fair maiden. ③But others pointed to the deplorable(可叹的) very bad record of highly esteemed forecasts and forecaster with a batting average below that of the Nets, and the President elect of the Association cautioned that "high powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and inadequate, the exact contrary of that crude and inadequate statisticians assume."
④We left somewhere between hope and despair and with the conviction, not really newly acquired that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is induced into mistaking the description of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical attitude.
The author refers to the Romans primarily in order to ______.

A．prove the superiority of modern sampling methods to ancient ones
B．provide a historical framework for the passage
C．relate an unfamiliar concept to a familiar one
D．show that statistical forecasts have not significantly improved

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