Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D . Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
The core of Greece' s troubles is too much spending, too little tax-collecting and book-cooking. Spain and Ireland are in trouble even if the percentage of their public debt in gross domestic product is much smaller than that of Germany. Italy, also in the financial markets' crosshairs, has high public debt but a lower deficit than the eurozone' s average.
The root of these countries' problems is that their prices and wages have risen much faster than those of other eurozone members.
There are two ways to mitigate the pain. First, to adopt temporarily more expansionary fiscal policies for a while. Or, more powerfully, the wider euro area could adopt more expansionary monetary policies for several years. As to the second option, the "inflation fundamentalists" will have none of it. This elite consisting of central bankers, top economic officials, politicians, academics and journalists insists that it is unacceptable to allow inflation to climb above two percent.
Hyper-inflation in Germany in the 1930s and stagflation in industrial countries in the 1970s and 1980s support their view. It' s true that moderate inflation can creep up to become high inflation. But inflation fundamentalism can also hurt. There is little if any empirical evidence that moderate inflation hurts growth. In most countries, cutting actual wages is politically difficult if not impossible. But, to regain competitiveness and balance the books, real wage adjustments are sometimes inevitable. A slightly higher level of inflation allows for this painful adjustment with a lower level of political conflict.
On the other hand, ultra-low inflation, in a recession, can easily become deflation. Falling prices encourage people to defer spending, which makes things worse and erodes tax payments, impairing a government' s ability to pay debt. That in turn increases the debt' s size and costs.
In addition, a single-minded focus on inflation makes it easy for policymakers to lose sight of the broader picture-asset prices, growth and employment. Policy can become too tight or too loose—as in the run-up to the crisis in the U. S. when low inflation was seen as a comforting sign that things were in order.
In a recession, ultra-low inflation also reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy since interest rates cannot go below zero. The crisis in the euro area highlights the need for a more open-minded discussion of the merits and costs of ultra-low inflation.
In the author' s opinion, the second way to mitigate the pain is_________.
A. cutting the spending
B. controlling inflation within two percent
C. ultra-low inflation
D. moderate inflation
We can infer from the sentence" Later, the policy of killing Indians or ... contradicted with their widespread employment as slaves" that________.
A. many Indians were killed by White settlers
B. many Indians were drove away from white settlements
C. the Indians were slaves in a wide-spread way
D. white settlers must have to find other source of labor
Why are people advised not to travel to Mexico?
A. Because it is the most serious area for the outbreak of swine flu.
Because a travel ban to the country has been ordered.
C. Because more than 100 cases of swine flu have been reported.
D. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forbids doing so.
Which of the following wasn't the opinion of the colonists towards the Native American slaves?
A. The Native American slaves were very haughty.
B. The Native American slaves were very lazy.
C. The Native American slaves were hard to control.
D. The Native American slaves always found ways to escape.