听力原文: The stock market in New York has drifted up and down after comments from the chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan who said the recent falls on the world market could be salutary in the long term. The market rose by more than 100 points in the first hour of trading, but fell back after Mr Greenspan's remarks. He told the congressional committee that the US economy should not be threatened by market problems in the Southeast Asia and said the economy was robust.
Mr Greenspan said that even after the recovery on Wall Street, many investors were less wealthy than they had been a week ago. But it was a salutary event. The head of the US Central Bank implied that there had been an excessive optimism about the future of share prices and the recent decline might cool things down. If it hadn't been in Southeast Asia, something else would eventually have brought about this week's events. Mr Greenspan traced the origins of the Asian crisis in some details. There'd been an explosion in the flow of money into the region and this has helped fuel unsustainable property boom. Bank borrowed abroad and lent too much to the construction industry. When the project went sour, they had to meet their foreign currency borrowings with their own currencies devalued.
The recent fluctuation of the stock market in New York was due to
A. Greenspan's remarks.
B. the slack US business.
C. the excessive optimism.
D. the weakened US economy.
The insurance industry has long been aware of the dangers of natural disasters; the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, California, bankrupted scores of insurance companies. But the industry has focused particular attention on disaster prediction in recent years, as spiraling costs revealed that many companies had underestimated their financial exposure. For instance, prior to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, many insurance experts thought that the worst hurricane possible would do no more than $8 billion in damages to the industry. The damages caused by Hurricane Andrew, estimated at about $17 billion, shattered these beliefs. Today, estimates of worst-case disaster scenarios approach $100 billion.
The insurance industry has therefore increased its support for research into disaster prediction. One such effort involves a number of companies that have joined together to support the Bermuda-based Risk Prediction Initiative, which funds disaster research. The expectation is that the resulting information will place the industry on a more solid foundation to make decisions about the risk of future disasters. The industry has also lobbied for the government to bear some of the financial burden of disaster insurance. Such a programme already exists for flood insurance, set up in the late 1960s by the federal government to insure flood-prone areas. These types of programmes, effectively implemented, could be increasingly necessary in the future to make insurance available in areas prone to disasters.
Because the stakes are so high, the science of disaster prediction has a bright future. The various projects and programmes illustrate that disaster prediction is a topic of concern to scientists and policy makers alike. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes all show that the effective use of disaster predictions not only requires advanced technology but also requires that society consider the entire process of prediction forecasts, communication, and use of information. Because they cannot predict the future with certainty, and because much remains to be learned, scientists warn that society must understand the limits of scientific predictions and be prepared to employ alternatives. Wisely used, however, disaster prediction has the potential to reduce society's vulnerability to natural disasters.
The result of the increasing costs in natural disasters is
A. great loss suffered by commercial companies.
B. government's increased attention on disasters.
C. individual awareness to natural disasters.
D. more funds to support the prediction research.
As college seniors hurtle into the job hunt, little fibs on the resume--for example, claiming a degree when they're three credits shy of graduation--seem harmless enough. So new grads ought to read this memo now: those 20-year-old falsehoods on cream-colored, 32-lb. premium paper have poleaxed so many high-profile executives that you wonder who in the business world hasn't got the message. A resume listing two fictitious degrees led to the resignation of David Edmondson, CEO of RadioShack. Untruthful curricula vitae have also hobbled the careers of executives at Bausch & Lomb, Veritas Software and the U. S. Olympic Committee.
The headlines haven't dented job seekers' desire to dissemble even as employers have grown increasingly able to detect deception. InfoLink Screening Services, a background-checking company, estimates that 14% of job applicants in the U. S. lie about their education on their resumes. (A common boast by guys: that they played on the college football team. )Resume Doctor. Com ,a resume-writing business, found that of 1, 000 resumes it vetted over six months, 43% contained one or more "significant inaccuracies."
Leery of executive Pinocchios lurking in their boardrooms, employers are stepping up efforts to spot them. and weed them out. In the field of industrial and organizational psychology, figuring out why and how job applicants lie is a hot research topic, and new studies are warning companies about the dangers of employing a liar. As a result, 96% of businesses now conduct some sort of background check on job applicants, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (S. H. R. M. ), a trade group. MeanWhile, the ranks of third-party screeners have exploded in the past 10 years into a $ 2 billion industry.
Psychologists call lying a form. of impression management-an extension of the common human impulse to look better in someone else's eyes. "It's a way to resolve the discrepancy between the average applicant you think you are and the ideal applicant you think they seek, "says Roland Kidwell, associate professor at the University of Wyoming's College of Business, who has researched resume padding. Lies about education are perhaps prevalent because only 35% of employers say they "always' verify degrees conferred, says S. H.R.M.
Employees who lie to get in the door can wreak untold havoc on a business, experts say, from tarnishing the reputation and credibility of a firm to upending co-workers and projects to igniting shareholder wrath--and that's if the lie is found out. Even when it isn't, the falsified resume can indicate a deeply rooted inclination toward unethical behavior.
"There's a lot of evidence that those who cheat on job applications also cheat in school and in life, " says Richard Griffith, director of the industrial and organizational psychology program at the Florida Institute of Technology and author of a forthcoming book on job-applicant faking. "If someone says they have a degree and they don't, I'd have little faith that person would tell the truth when it came to financial statements and so on."
Employers' fears have sparked a boom in the background-screening industry. About 700 firms exist now, compared to only a handful 10 years ago. Analysts say revenues for the industry are growing 7% to 10% a year. Though exhaustive checks on CEO-level individuals can cost $10, 000 or more, some companies offer basic vetting for as little as $10. Hire Right of Irvine, Calif. , screens 1 million resumes a year and says business has grown tenfold over the past five years: employers have grown so watchful, says David Nachman, the company's head of marketing and business development, that they now check the resumes of temporary staff and local hires in their offices overseas.
But guarding the henhouse does little good if the fox is already nestled inside. To unmask the deceivers among them, some employers are conducting checks up
A. one's dishonest acts might be punished someday.
B. many graduates tell trivial lies when preparing their resumes.
C. some untruthful resumes have enabled new grads to hunt jobs.
D. high-profile executives are able to identify the truthfulness of a resume.