剑桥商务英语中级口语-10及答案解析.doc

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1、剑桥商务英语中级口语-10 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、SPEAKING(总题数：1，分数：100.00)(1) Causes of GlobalizationWhat explains this globalization? It is certainly not attributable to conquest, the source of most previous historical episodes where a single economic system has held sway over a vast geographical terrain

2、. The source lies instead in the development of technology. The costs of transport, of travel, and above all the costs of communicating information have fallen dramatically in the postwar period, almost entirely because of the progress of technology. A 3-minute telephone call from the USA to Britain

3、 cost 12 in 1946, whereas today it can cost as little as 48 cents, despite the fact that consumer prices have multiplied by over eight times in the intervening period. The first computers were lumbering away with piles of punched cards in the early postwar years, and telegrams provided the only rapi

4、d means of written communication. There was no fax or internet or e-mail or world-wide web, no PCs or satellites or cell-phones. Today we witness phenomena that no futurist dreamed of half a century ago, such as Indians with medical degrees residing in Bangalore who earn a living by acting as secret

5、aries to American doctors by transcribing their tapes overnight.It is clearly the availability of cheap, rapid and reliable communications that permits such phenomena, just as this is the key to the integration of the international capital market. I presume the same factor is important in nurturing

6、the growth of multinational corporations, since it is this which enables them to exploit their intellectual property efficiently in a variety of locations without losing the ability to maintain control from head office. But I would surmise that other factors are also at work, such as the spread of c

7、onsumer knowledge about what is available that comes from travel and from advertising, itself encouraged by the communications revolution and its children like CNN. The reduction in transport costs is also a key factor underlying the growth in trade.Of course, it needed a reasonably peaceful world t

8、o induce economic agents to exploit the opportunities for globalization presented by technological progress. But the technological basis for the phenomenon of globalization implies that, barfing an end to the “Pax Americana“ or else extremely vigorous conscious actions to reverse the process, global

9、ization is here to stay.(2) Consequences of GlobalizationGlobalization certainly permits an increase in the level of global output. Whether as a result of the old Heckscher-Ohlin theory of the basis of comparative advantage as lying in different factor abundance in different countries, or as a resul

10、t of the new trade theories that explain trade by increasing returns to scale, trade will increase world output. 2 Likewise FDI brings the best technology, and other forms of intellectual capital, to countries that would otherwise have to make do without it, or else invest substantial resources in r

11、einventing the wheel for themselves. It may also bring products that would otherwise be unavailable to the countries where the investment occurs, which presumably increases the quality, and therefore the value, of world output. And international capital flows can transfer savings from countries wher

12、e the marginal product of capital is low to those where it is high, which again increases world output.Globalization must be expected to influence the distribution of income as well as its level. So far as the distribution of income between countries is concerned, standard theory would lead one to e

13、xpect that all countries will benefit. Economists have long preached that trade is mutually beneficial, and most of us believe that the experience of widespread growth alongside rapidly growing trade in the postwar period serves to substantiate that. Similarly most FDI goes where a multinational has

14、 intellectual capital that can contribute something to the local economy, and is therefore likely to be mutually beneficial to investor and recipient. And a flow of capital that finances a real investment is again likely to benefit both parties, since the yield on the investment is expected to be hi

15、gher than the rate of interest the borrower has to pay, while that rate of interest is also likely to be higher than the lender could expect at home since otherwise there would have been no incentive to send it abroad. Loose talk about free trade making the rich countries richer and poor countries p

16、oorer finds no support in economic analysis. Nor is there any reason for supposing that the North benefits itself at the expense of the South by imposing import restrictions like non-tariff barriers or agricultural subsidies: standard theory says that, while this does indeed impoverish the South, th

17、e public in the North also suffers, and it loses more than the producers gain. This suggests that a promising strategy for eliminating such barriers is to seek a coalition with Northern consumers, rather than to engage in North-bashing which will simply alienate potential Northern allies.The effects

18、 on domestic income distribution are less clear. Standard theory says that trade will tend to hurt unskilled labor in rich countries and to help it in poor ones, since the poor countries will be able to export-labor-intensive goods like garments to rich countries, thus increasing the demand for unsk

19、illed labor in the poor countries and decreasing it in the rich ones. That is, within rich countries, there is a good analytical reason for arguing that trade will tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. There has in recent years been a lively debate among economists in the developed count

20、ries as to whether the increase in imports of labor-intensive goods has been a major factor in causing the fall in the relative (and sometimes absolute) wages of the unskilled in these countries: the majority of economists seem to have concluded that it is a contributory factor, but that the major p

21、art of the explanation lies instead in the skill-intensive form of technological progress (Cline, 1997).It seems more difficult to doubt that exports of labor-intensive goods have been a factor that has done something to increase the demand for unskilled labor, and therefore to equalize the income d

22、istribution, in the exporting countries like Sri Lanka. Hence I find it betrays a sad lack of concern with the prospects of the poor to hear, as I have during this conference, garment exports being denigrated as likely in some unexplained way to bring negative impacts. On the other hand, some of the

23、 effects of the communications revolution must surely have had a disequalizing effect on income distribution in these countries: think of the Indian doctors who are acting as secretaries to American doctors rather than treating Indian patients, thereby earning more for themselves and also tending to

24、 pull up the pay of other doctors in India, who are relatively affluent by Indian standards. Similarly, differential mobility of skilled versus unskilled labor tends to pull up the salaries of the skilled in developing countries toward world levels, thereby leaving less for the immobile poor. The sa

25、me result will occur if the owners of highly- mobile capital are able to evade taxes by investing abroad, and also if governments are induced to avoid imposing high tax rates on internationally mobile capital, or on those who might be prompted to emigrate, in the hope of keeping these factors at hom

26、e. Thus the net effect of globalization on income distribution within developing countries seems to me distinctly ambiguous.What impact is globalization likely to have on the long-term possibilities of economic growth in developing countries? My vision of the growth process is that it takes off when

27、 the elite in a developing country comes to understand the opportunities of applying world-class technologies within their country, and introduces institutional arrangements that permit individual pursuit of self-interest to serve, in general, the social good. Once that happens the country is able t

28、o grow at a rapid rate, unless some political accident obstructs the process, until it catches up with best-practice technology, and therefore attains the living standards of the developed countries. Globalization is tending to make the technologies and the knowledge for this process to occur more r

29、eadily available, and therefore to enable the process to be telescoped in time. (Singapore may be a small country, but there is no previous case in history of any country that did not enjoy massive resource discoveries going from stark poverty to affluence in under 30 years.)But it is surely also tr

30、ue that globalization is bringing new dangers. The virulence of the East Asian crisis was primarily a result of countries exposing themselves to the full force of the international capital market before they had built up an unquestioned reputation for being able as well as willing to service their d

31、ebts come what may, which meant that when investors became concerned about their potential vulnerability as a result of the Thai crisis there were no other investors willing to step in and provide stabilizing speculation even after exchange rates and interest rates had clearly overshot. Of course, o

32、ne can argue that this increased vulnerability to external shocks has to be weighed against a decreased vulnerability to internal shocks: think how much more Bangladesh would have suffered this year (1998) if the international community had not provided aid to partially offset the cost of the floods

33、, let alone how much more hunger, or even starvation, there would have been bad Bangladesh been unable to import additional rice. But this does not justify dismissing the increased dangers from external shocks. Moreover, I might note that Professor Indraratna offered you a much longer and more imagi

34、native list of dangers than I have here identified, which looks beyond narrow economic questions and considers the role of globalization in spreading such unsavoury phenomena as drugs, crime, and terrorism.（分数：100.00）(1).Answer the following question.Do you agree that the rise of multinational corpo

35、rations is leading to global homogeneity?（分数：50.00）_(2).Discuss the following questions with your partner.a. What are the benefits to customers of a global marketplace?b. What is important when a foreign company wants to enter business in China and what is important when setting up a production plan

36、t in another country?（分数：50.00）_剑桥商务英语中级口语-10 答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、SPEAKING(总题数：1，分数：100.00)(1) Causes of GlobalizationWhat explains this globalization? It is certainly not attributable to conquest, the source of most previous historical episodes where a single economic system has held sway o

37、ver a vast geographical terrain. The source lies instead in the development of technology. The costs of transport, of travel, and above all the costs of communicating information have fallen dramatically in the postwar period, almost entirely because of the progress of technology. A 3-minute telepho

38、ne call from the USA to Britain cost 12 in 1946, whereas today it can cost as little as 48 cents, despite the fact that consumer prices have multiplied by over eight times in the intervening period. The first computers were lumbering away with piles of punched cards in the early postwar years, and t

39、elegrams provided the only rapid means of written communication. There was no fax or internet or e-mail or world-wide web, no PCs or satellites or cell-phones. Today we witness phenomena that no futurist dreamed of half a century ago, such as Indians with medical degrees residing in Bangalore who ea

40、rn a living by acting as secretaries to American doctors by transcribing their tapes overnight.It is clearly the availability of cheap, rapid and reliable communications that permits such phenomena, just as this is the key to the integration of the international capital market. I presume the same fa

41、ctor is important in nurturing the growth of multinational corporations, since it is this which enables them to exploit their intellectual property efficiently in a variety of locations without losing the ability to maintain control from head office. But I would surmise that other factors are also a

42、t work, such as the spread of consumer knowledge about what is available that comes from travel and from advertising, itself encouraged by the communications revolution and its children like CNN. The reduction in transport costs is also a key factor underlying the growth in trade.Of course, it neede

43、d a reasonably peaceful world to induce economic agents to exploit the opportunities for globalization presented by technological progress. But the technological basis for the phenomenon of globalization implies that, barfing an end to the “Pax Americana“ or else extremely vigorous conscious actions

44、 to reverse the process, globalization is here to stay.(2) Consequences of GlobalizationGlobalization certainly permits an increase in the level of global output. Whether as a result of the old Heckscher-Ohlin theory of the basis of comparative advantage as lying in different factor abundance in dif

45、ferent countries, or as a result of the new trade theories that explain trade by increasing returns to scale, trade will increase world output. 2 Likewise FDI brings the best technology, and other forms of intellectual capital, to countries that would otherwise have to make do without it, or else in

46、vest substantial resources in reinventing the wheel for themselves. It may also bring products that would otherwise be unavailable to the countries where the investment occurs, which presumably increases the quality, and therefore the value, of world output. And international capital flows can trans

47、fer savings from countries where the marginal product of capital is low to those where it is high, which again increases world output.Globalization must be expected to influence the distribution of income as well as its level. So far as the distribution of income between countries is concerned, stan

48、dard theory would lead one to expect that all countries will benefit. Economists have long preached that trade is mutually beneficial, and most of us believe that the experience of widespread growth alongside rapidly growing trade in the postwar period serves to substantiate that. Similarly most FDI

49、 goes where a multinational has intellectual capital that can contribute something to the local economy, and is therefore likely to be mutually beneficial to investor and recipient. And a flow of capital that finances a real investment is again likely to benefit both parties, since the yield on the investment is expected to be higher than the rate of interest the borrower has to pay, while that rate of interest is al