Text 3
Never has a straitjacket seemed so ill-fitting or so insecure. The Euro area’s "stability and growth pact" was supposed to stop irresponsible member states running excessive budget deficits, defined as 3% of GDP or more. Chief among the restraints was the threat of large fines if member governments breached the limit for three years in a row. For some time now, no one has seriously believed those restraints would hold. In the early hours of Tuesday November 25th, the Euro’s fiscal straitjacket finally came apart at the seams.
The pact’s fate was sealed over an extended dinner meeting of the euro area’s 12 finance ministers. They chewed over the sorry fiscal record of the Euro’s two largest members, France and Germany. Both governments ran deficits of more than 3% of GDP last year and will do so again this year. Both expect to breach the limit for the third time in 2004. Earlier this year the European Commission
A. sudden alarms.
B. substantial might.
C. extra efforts.
D. sheer reluctance.
Text 3
Never has a straitjacket seemed so ill-fitting or so insecure. The Euro area’s "stability and growth pact" was supposed to stop irresponsible member states running excessive budget deficits, defined as 3% of GDP or more. Chief among the restraints was the threat of large fines if member governments breached the limit for three years in a row. For some time now, no one has seriously believed those restraints would hold. In the early hours of Tuesday November 25th, the Euro’s fiscal straitjacket finally came apart at the seams.
The pact’s fate was sealed over an extended dinner meeting of the euro area’s 12 finance ministers. They chewed over the sorry fiscal record of the Euro’s two largest members, France and Germany. Both governments ran deficits of more than 3% of GDP last year and will do so again this year. Both expect to breach the limit for the third time in 2004. Earlier this year the European Commission
A. vocal in their own interests.
B. angry in face of potential threats.
C. considerate of large members.
D. supportive of a proposed treaty.
Text 1
Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable occupations. Personal consultants give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were perceived as having more integrity than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to account for their success. Attractive female executives were considered to have less integrity than unattrative ones; their success was attributed not to ability but to factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more integrity and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise o
A. turns out to be an obstacle to men
B. affects men and women alike
C. has as little effect on men as on women
D. is more of an obstacle than a benefit to women
Text 3
Shopping has always been something of an impulse activity, in which objects that catch our fancy while strolling are immediately bought on a whim. Advertisers and sellers have taken advantage of this fact, carefully positioning inexpensive but attractive items on paths that we are most likely to cross, hoping that our human nature will lead to a greater profit for them. With the dawn of the Internet and its exploding use across the world, the same tactics apply.
Advertisers now place "banners", links to commercial web sites decorated with attractive pictures designed to catch our eyes while browsing the webs, on key web sites with heavy traffic. They pay top dollar for the right, thus creating profits for the hosting web sites as well. These actions are performed in the hopes that during the course of our casual and leisurely web surfing, we’ll click on that banner that sparks our interest and thus, in theory, buy the products adverti
A. reserved consent but discontent.
B. objective analysis void of opinions.
C. enthusiastic support but slight contempt.
D. approval so far but uncertainty in the future.
Text 1
India has about a billion people and a dozen major languages of its own. One language, and only one, is understood-by the elite- across the country: that of the foreigners who ruled India for less than 200 years and left 52 years ago.
Today, India. Tomorrow, unofficially, the world. That is well under way; at first, because the British not only built global empire but also it was settled by America, and now because the world (and notably America) has acquired its first truly global--and interactive--medium, the Internet.
It is estimated that some 350 million people speak English as their first language. Maybe 250 - 350 million do or can use it as a second language; in excolonial countries, notably, or in English--majority ones, like 30 million recently immigrants to the United States, or Canada’s 6 million francophone Quebeckers. And elsewhere.’ The guess is 100 million--1 billion depending how you define "can". Let us b
A. New pupils are required to learn English at school.
B. Monolingual old people are encouraged to speak English.
C. Employees have to learn English if they want to get a chance of promotion.
D. Scholars use English as the language of their academic works more often than other languages.
我来回答:
