【易伯华独家】全新雅思阅读全真模考题:致命波动性

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易伯华雅思名师讲堂从今天开始和大家分享一系列阅读仿真模拟题，可以说与雅思真题99%相似，是烤鸭在剑桥雅思之余的良好调剂品。烤鸭们可以先自己试着做一做，做完之后可以对下答案，再看看易伯华名师的悉心讲解。本篇话题：致命波动性。

Volatility Kills

You

Passage below.

A

Despite gun battles in the capital of Chad,

rioting in Kenya and galloping inflation in Zimbabwe, the economics of

sub-Saharan Africa arc, as a whole, in better shape than they were a few

years ago. The World Bank has reported recently that this part of the

continent experienced a respectable growth rate of 5.6 percent in 2006 and a

higher rate from 1995 to 2005 than in previous decades. The bank has given a

cautious assessment that the region may have reached a turning point. An

overriding question for developmental economists remains whether the upswing

will continue so Africans can grow their way out of a poverty that relegates

some 40 percent of the nearly 744 million in that region to living on less

than a dollar a day. The optimism, when inspected more closely, may be

short-lived because of the persistence of a devastating pattern of economic

volatility that has lingered for decades.

B

“In reality, African countries grow as fast

as Asian countries and other developing countries during the good times, but

afterward they see growth collapses,” comments Jorge Arbache, a senior World

Bank economist. “How to prevent collapses may be as important as promoting

growth.” If these collapses had not occurred, he observes, the level of gross

domestic product for each citizen of the 48 nations of sub-Saharan Africa

would have been a third higher.

C

The prerequisite to prevent the next crash

are not in place, according to a World Bank study issued in January. Is

Africa's Recent Growth Robust? The growth period that began in 1995, driven

by a commodities boom spurred in particular by demand from China, may not be

sustainable, because the economic fundamentals—new investment and the ability

to stave off inflation, among other factors—are absent. The region lacks the

necessary infrastructure that would encourage investors to look to Africa to

find the next Bengaluru (Bangalore) or Shenzhen, a November report from the

bank concludes. For sub-Saharan countries rich in oil and other resources, a

boom period may even undermine efforts to institute sound economic practices.

From 1996 to 2005, with growth accelerating, measures of governance—factors

such as political stability, rule of law, and control of corruption—actually

worsened, especially for countries endowed with abundant mineral resources,

the January report notes.

D

Perhaps the most incisive analysis of the volatility

question comes from Paul Collier, a longtime specialist in African economics

at the University of Oxford and author of the recent book The Bottom Billion.

He advocates a range of options that the U.S. and other nations could adopt

when formulating policy toward African countries. They include revamped trade

measures, better-apportioned aid and sustained military intervention in

certain instances, to avert what he sees as a rapidly accelerating divergence

of the world’s poorest, primarily in Africa, from the rest of the world, even

other developing nations such India and China.

E

Collier find that bad governance is the

main reason countries fail to take advantage of the revenue bonanza that

results from a boom. Moreover, a democratic government, he adds, often makes

the aftermath of a boom worse. “Instead of democracy disciplining governments

to manage these resource booms well, what happens is that the resource

revenues corrupt the normal functioning of democracy—unless you stop (them

from) corrupting the normal function of democracy with sufficient checks and

balances”, he said at a talk in January at the Carnegie Council in New York

City.

F

Collier advocates that African nations

institute an array of standards and codes to bolster governments, one of

which would substitute auctions for bribes in apportioning mineral rights and

another of which would tax export revenues adequately. He cites the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, which took in $200 million from mineral

exports in 2006 yet collected only $86,000 in royalties for its treasury. “If

a nation gets these points right,” he argues, “it's going to develop. If it

gets them wrong, it won't.”

G

To encourage reform, Collier recommends

that the G8 nations agree to accept these measures as voluntary guidelines

for multinationals doing business in Africa— companies, for instance, would

only enter new contracts through auctions

monitored by an international verification group. Such an agreement would

follow the examples of the so-called Kimberley Process, which has effectively

undercut the trade in blood diamonds, and the Extractive Industries

Transparency Initiative, in which a government must report to its citizens

the revenues it receives from sales of natural resources.

H

These measures, he says, are more important

than elevating aid levels, an approach emphasized by economist Jeffrey D.

Sachs of Columbia University and celebrity activists such as Bono. Collier

insists that first Angola receives tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue

and whether it gets a few hundred million more or less in aid is really

second-order.

Questions

1-4

Use the

information in the passage to match the people (listed A-C) with opinions or

deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 1 -4 on your answer

sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once

A

Jeffrey D. Sachs

B

Paul Collier

C

Jorge Arbache

1. An

unexpectedly opposite result

2. Estimated

more productive outcomes if it were not for sudden economic downturns

3. A

proposal for a range of recommended instructions for certain countries to

narrow the widening economic gap

4. An

advocate for a method used for a specific assessment

Questions

5-9

Do the following

statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In

write

TRUE if

the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if

the information is not given in the passage

5. The

instability in economy in some African countries might negatively impact their

continuing growth after a certain level has been reached.

6. Collier

is the most influential scholar on the study of volatility problem.

7. Certain

African governments levy considerable taxes on people profiting greatly from

exportation.

8. Some

African nations' decisions on addressing specific existing problems are

directly related to the future of their economic trends.

9. Collier regards Jeffrey D. Sachs' recommended

way of evaluating of little importance.

Questions

10-13

Summary

Complete the

following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using No

More than Three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write

your answers in boxes 10-13 on your

answer sheet.

According to one

research carried by the World Bank, some countries in Africa may suffer from 10 due to the lack of according

preconditions. They experienced a growth stimulated by 11 , but according to another study, they

may not keep this trend stable because they don't have 12 which would attract investors. To some

countries with abundant resources this fast-growth period might even mean

something devastating to their endeavor. During one specific decade accompanied

by 13 as a matter of fact, the

governing saw a deterioration.