四级笔试模拟试卷4Part III Reading ComprehensionSection ADirections： In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank before the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.Debt is as powerful a drug as alcohol and nicotine. In(1) times Western consumers used it to enhance their lifestyles, companies borrowed to(2)their businesses and investors employed debt to enhance their returns. For as long as the boom lasted, Micawber's famous warning appeared to be wrong: when annual expenditure exceeded income, the result was happiness, not misery.For a long time debt in the rich world has grown faster than incomes. As our special report this week(3)out, it is not just government deficits that have increased. In America private-sector debt alone rose from around 50% of GDP in 1950 to nearly 300% at its recent(4). The origins of the boom go even further back, reflecting huge changes in social attitudes. In the 19th century defaulting borrowers were sent to prison. The generation that lived through the Great Depression learned to save. But the wider take-up of credit cards in the 1960s created a "buy now, pay later" society. Default became just a lifestyle choice. The(5)lender, rather than the imprudent (轻率的) debtor, was likely to get the blame.As consumers leveraged (借债度日) up, so did companies. Firms that held cash on their balance sheets were criticized for their timidity, while bankruptcy laws, such as America's Chapter 11, prevented creditors from foreclosing (取消赎回权) on companies. That forgiving policy encouraged entrepreneurs but also allowed too many dying companies to(6). And no industry was more addicted to leverage than finance. Banks ran balance sheets with ever lower levels of capital; hedge funds, which used debt(7), brought out billionaires. The road to riches was simple: buy an asset with borrowed money, then sit back and watch its price rise.Rich-world countries now face two sets of problems. The most(8)is how to pay off their debts. Many people who have cut back their credit-card spending and firms which have seen their credit lines slashed would be horrified to see how little the rich world's overall burden has fallen. Much of the debt has merely moved from the private to the public sector as governments have correctly stepped in to support banks and save the economy from falling into(9). And in the future, even more money will have to be raised, because of governments' promises of health care for the retiring baby-boom generation.Piling up more debt does not seem an option. There is little appetite on behalf of borrowers or(10). All governments face the balance of appeasing the markets without damaging growth: Britain's new government had a go this week. But living with less debt will present a second set of longer-term challenges.A) debtors B) aggressively C) spells D) creditors E) expand F) perish G) peak H) expend I) pressing J) boom K) depression L) figures M) survive N) reckless O) careful