Business and government leaders also consider the inflation rate to be an important general indicator. Inflation is a period of increased 【C1】______ that causes rapid rises in prices. 【C2】______ . your money buys fewer goods so that you get 【C3】______ for the same amount of money as before, inflation is the problem. There is a general rise 【C4】______ the price of goods and services. Your money buys less. Sometimes people describe inflation as a 【C5】______ when "a dollar is not worth a dollar anymore." Inflation is a problem for all consumers.
People who live on a fixed income are hurt the 【C6】______ . Retired people, for instance, can not 【C7】______ on an increase in income as prices rise. Elderly people who do not work face serious problems in stretching their incomes to 【C8】______ their needs in time of inflation. Retirement income 【C9】______ any fixed income usually does not rise as fast as prices. Many retired people must cut their spending to 【C10】______ rising prices. In many cases they must stop 【C11】______ some necessary items, such as food and clothing. Even 【C12】______ working people whose incomes are going up, inflation can be a problem. The 【C13】______ of living goes up, too. People who work must have even more money to keep up their standard of living. Just buying the things they need costs more. When incomes do not keep 【C14】______ with rising prices, the standard of living goes down. People may be earning the same amount of money, but they are not living 【C15】______ because they are not able to buy as many goods and services. Government units gather information about prices in our economy and publish it as price indexes 【C16】______ the rate of change can be determined. A price index measures changes in prices using the price for a 【C17】______ year as the base. The base price is set 【C18】______ 100, and the other prices are reported as a 【C19】______ of the base price. A price index makes 【C20】______ possible to compare current prices of typical consumer goods, for example, with prices of the same goods in previous years.
【C1】
A. spending
B. demanding
C. consuming
D. saving
A.America or Japan.B.Asia or Japan.C.Europe or Asia.D.Scotland or France.
America or Japan.
B. Asia or Japan.
C. Europe or Asia.
D. Scotland or France.
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
Doors and windows can't keep them out; airport immigration officers can't stop them and the Internet is an absolute reproduction soil. They seem harmless in small doses, but large imports threaten Japan's very uniqueness, say critics. "They are foreign words and they are infecting the Japanese language".
"Sometimes I feel like 1 need a translator to understand my own language," says Yoko Fujimura with little anger, a 60-year-old Tokyo restaurant worker. "It's becoming incomprehensible. '
It's not only Japan who is on the defensive. Countries around the globe are wet through their hands over the rapid spread of American English. Coca-Cola, for example, is one of the most recognized terms on Earth.
It is made worse for Japan, however, by its unique writing system. The country writes all imported utterances except Chinese—in a different script. called katakana(片假名). It is the only country to maintain such a distinction. Katakana takes far more space to write than kanji—the core pictograph(象形文字)characters that the Japanese borrowed from China 1,500 years ago. Because it stands out, readers complain that sentences packed with foreign words start to resemble extended strings of lights. As if that weren't enough, katakana terms tend to get confusing. For example, digital camera first appears as degitaru kamera. Then they became the more ear-pleasing digi kamey. But kamey is also the Japanese word for turtle. "It's very frustrating not knowing what young people are talking about," says humorously Minoru Shiratori, a 53-year-old bus driver. "Sometimes I can't tell ff they're discussing cameras or turtles."
In a bid to stop the flood of katakana, the government has formed a Foreign Words Committee to find suitable Japanese replacements. The committee is slightly different from French-style. language police, which try to support a law that forbids advertising in English. Rather, committee members and traditionalists hope a sustained campaign of persuasion; gentle criticism and leadership by example can turn the tide.
According to the author, the possible reason wily the Japanese is infected greatly by English is ______.
A. that nothing can prevent it from entering into Japan
B. that English is the most recognized language in the world
C. that the government has not set up a special administration department to control this trend before it becomes popular in Japan
D. its peculiar language system
The Security Council is the most powerful body in the UN. It is responsible for maintaining international peace, and for restoring peace when conflicts arise. Its decisions are binding on all UN members.
The Security Council has the power to define what is a threat to security, to determine how the UN should respond, and to enforce its decisions by ordering UN members to take certain actions.
The Council convenes(召集)any time there is a threat to peace. A representative from each member country who sits on the Council must be available at all times so that the Council can meet at a moment's notice. The Security Council also frequently meets at the request of a UN member—often a nation with a grievance (委屈,冤情) about another nation's actions.
The Security Council has 15 members, five of which hold permanent seats. The Assembly elects the other ten members for two-year terms. The five permanent members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), and China have the most power. These nations were the winning powers at the end of World War II, and they still represent the bulk of the world's military might.
Decisions of the Council require nine votes. But any one of the permanent members can veto an important decision. This authority is known as the veto right of the great powers. As a result, the Council is effective only when its permanent members can reach a consensus(一致同意).
The Council has a variety of ways it can try to resolve conflicts among countries. Usually the Council's first step is to encourage the countries to settle their disagreements without violence. The Council can mediate (仲裁,调停) a dispute or recommend guidelines for a settlement. It can send peacekeeping troops into a distressed area. If a war breaks out, the Council can call for a ceasefire. It can enforce its decisions by imposing economic sanctions on a country, or through joint military action.
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A. The Security Council convenes annually.
B. All UN members should observe the decisions adopted by the Security Council.
C. Although one member seriously complains about another member's action, the Security Council will not convene at its request.
D. The five permanent members of the Security Council hold less than one half armed forces in the world.