Model Test Two
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. 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 and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.
Passage 1
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:
In a sense, the new protectionism is not protectionism at all, at least not in the traditional sense of the term. The old protectionism referred only to trade restricting and trade expanding devices, such as the tariff or export subsidy. The new protectionism is much broader than this: it includes interventions into foreign trade but is not limited to them. The new protectionism, in fact, refers to how the whole of government intervention into the private economy affects international trade. The emphasis on trade is still there, thus came the term “protection.” But what is new is the realization that virtually all government activities can affect international economic relations.
The emergence of the new protectionism in the Western world reflects the victory of the interventionist, or welfare economy over the market economy. Jab Tumiler writes, “The old protectionism…coexisted, without any apparent intellectual difficulty with the acceptance of the market as a national as well as an international economic distribution mechanism — indeed, protectionists as well as (if not more than) free traders stood for laissez faire(放任政策). Now, as in the 1930s, protectionism is an expression of a profound skepticism as to the ability of the market to distribute resources and incomes to societies satisfaction.”It is precisely this profound skepticism of the market economy that is responsible for the protectionism. In a market economy, economic change of various color simplies redistribution of resources and incomes. The same opinion in many communities apparently is that such redistributions often are not proper. Therefore, the government intervenes to bring about a more desired result.
The victory of the welfare state is almost complete in northern Europe. In Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, government intervention in almost all aspects of economic and social life is considered normal. In Great Britain this is only somewhat less true. Government traditionally has played a very active role in economic life in France and continued to do so. Only West Germany dares to go against the tide towards excessive interventionism in Western Europe. It also happens to be the most successful Western European economy.
The welfare state has made significant progress in the United States as well as in Western Europe. Social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, and rent control are by now traditional welfare state elements on the American scene.
11. This passage is primarily concerned with discussing ____.
A) the definition of the new protectionism
B) the difference between new and old protectionism
C) the emergence of the new protectionism in the Western world
D) the significance of the welfare state
12. What does the phrase “stood for(Para.2)” mean?
A) represented. B) held out. C) tolerated. D) disapproved.
13. Which of the following statements is NOT a characteristic of a welfare state mentioned in this passage?
A) Free education is available to a child.
B) Laws are made to fix the minimum wage.
C) A jobless person can be insured.
D) There are regulations for rent.
14. Which of the following inferences is true, according to this passage?
A) The economy developed faster in welfare states than in non-welfare states.
B) In the 1930s, protectionism began to rise.
C) The new protectionism is so called mainly because it is the latest.
D) Government plays a more active role in economic life in Northern Europe than in Great Britain.
15. The passage supplies information for answering which of the following questions?
A) When did the new protectionism arise?
B) Why is the new protectionism so popular in northern European countries?
C) Does the American government play a more active role in economic life than the British government?
D) Why does the government intervene in economic life?
Passage 2
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage:
When I was growing up, the whole world was Jewish. The heroes were Jewish and the villains were Jewish. The landlord, the doctor, the grocer, your best friend, the village idiot, and the neighborhood bully: all Jewish. We were working class and immigrants as well, but that just come with the territory. Essentially we were Jews on the streets of New York. We learned to be kind, cruel, and smart and feeling in a mixture of language and gesture that was part street slang, part grade-school English, part kitchen Yiddish.
One Sunday evening when I was eight years old my parents and I were riding in the back seat of my rich uncle’s car. We had been out for a ride and now we were back in the Bronx, headed for home. Suddenly, another car sideswiped us. My mother and aunt shrieked. My uncle swore softly. My father, in whose lap I was sitting, said out the window at the speeding car, “That’s all right. Nothing but a few Jews in here.” In an instant I knew everything. I knew there was a world beyond our streets, and in that world my father was a humiliated man, without power or standing.
When I was sixteen a girl in the next building had her nose straightened; we all went toge
