专业八级分类模拟192及答案解析.doc

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1、专业八级分类模拟 192 及答案解析(总分：100.10，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：1，分数：100.00)Section A Multiple-Choice Questions In this section there are several passages by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice qutestion, there are four suggested answers marked A. B, C and D. Choose the o

2、ne that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. PASSAGE ONE The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough economy.

3、These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty investments that began earlier in the decade when oil prices rose, and of new technologies that allow explorers to drill at greater depths and break tougher rocks. “That“s the wonderful thing about price signals in a free marketit

4、puts people in a better position to take more exploration risk,“ said James T. Hackett, chairman and chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum. More than 200 discoveries have been reported so far this year in dozens of countries, including northern Iraq“s Kurdish region, Australia, Israel, Iran, Brazil,

5、 Norway, Ghana and Russia. They have been made by international giants, like Exxon Mobil, but also by industry minnows, like Tullow Oil. Just this month, BP said that it found a giant deepwater field that might turn out to be the biggest oil discovery ever in the Gulf of Mexico, while Anadarko annou

6、nced a large find in an “exciting and highly prospective“ region off Sierra Leone. It is normal for companies to discover billions of barrels of new oil every year, but this year“s pace is unusually brisk. New oil discoveries have totaled about 10 billion barrels in the first half of the year, accor

7、ding to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. If discoveries continue at that pace through year-end, they are likely to reach the highest level since 2000. While recent years have featured speculation about a coming peak and subsequent decline in oil production, people in the industry say there

8、is still plenty of oil in the ground, especially beneath the ocean floor, even if finding and extracting it is becoming harder. They say that prices and the pace of technological improvement remain the principal factors governing oil production capacity. While the industry is celebrating the recent

9、discoveries, many executives are anxious about the immediate future, fearing that lower prices might jeopardize their exploration drive. The world economy is weak, oil prices have tumbled from last year“s records, corporate profits have shrunk, and global demand for oil remains low. After falling to

10、 $34 in December, oil prices have doubled, stabilizing near $70 a barrel. But if the world economy does not pick up, some analysts believe the price could fall again. Oil companies contend that is not a prospect they can afford. Despite reaping record profits in recent years, many executives have wa

11、rned that they need prices above $60 a barrel to develop the world“s more challenging reserves. In fact, some exploration activity has already slowed this year, as producers seek better terms from service companies and contractors. It is not just oil that is benefiting from the exploration boom. Rep

12、sol, Spain“s biggest oil company, said this month that it had discovered what could turn out to be Venezuela“s biggest natural gas field. In recent years, companies have found substantial natural gas reserves in the United States, from shale rocks once believed to be impossible to drill. “The No. 1

13、question that exploration teams have right now is: Where do we go next?“ said Robert Fryklund, who ran the operations of ConocoPhillips in Libya and Brazil, and is a vice president in Houston at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Exploration spending swelled in recent years, partly to offset a do

14、ubling of costs throughout the industryfrom steel prices to the cost of renting deepwater drilling figs. A big issue confronting the industry now is how to drive down costs while maintaining a high level of exploration. On average, costs have fallen by 15 to 20 percent from their peak, according to

15、petroleum executives. Exploration remains a risky, and costly, business, where some deepwater wells can cost up to $100 million. From 30 to 50 percent of exploration wells find oil. Some executives are also worried the world might face a shortfall in supplies in coming years if another decline in oi

16、l prices causes exploration to falter. The chief executive of the French oil giant Total, Christophe de Margerie, has warned that such a supply crunch is possible by the middle of the next decade. “There could be a shortage of capacity,“ he said. His concerns echoed those of Abdullah al-Badri, the s

17、ecretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, who said that lower oil prices also threatened investments by OPEC nations. Saudi Arabia is also unlikely to expand its production in coming years because of the uncertainty clouding future oil demand, Ali al-Naimi, the kingd

18、om“s oil minister, signaled earlier this month. Saudi Arabia is just completing a $100 billion program to increase its capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day, from around 9 million barrels a day just a few years ago. Although they are substantial, the new finds do not match the giant fields discover

19、ed in the 1970s, like Alaska“s Prudhoe Bay, Ekofisk in the North Sea, or Cantarell in Mexico. They are also dwarfed by the last enormous discovery, the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea, discovered in 2000 and estimated to hold over 20 billion barrels of oil. “We have not seen another Kashagan, but

20、still these finds are very material,“ said Alan Murray, the exploration service manager at Wood Mackenzie, a consulting firm in Edinburgh. Since the early 1980s, discoveries have failed to keep up with the global rate of oil consumption, which last year reached 31 billion barrels of oil. Instead, co

21、mpanies have managed to expand production by finding new ways of getting more oil out of existing fields, or producing oil through unconventional sources, like Canada“s tar sands or heavy oil in Venezuela. Reserve estimates typically rise over the life of a field, which can often be productive for d

22、ecades, as companies find new ways of getting more oil out of the ground. The industry“s record has improved in recent years, thanks to high prices. According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, oil companies have found more oil than they produced for the last two years through a combination of

23、 exploration and field expansions. “The appetite for opening new frontiers when prices were low in the 1990s was very small,“ said Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of Italy“s oil giant Eni. “Today, the biggest discovery of all is technology.“ PASSAGE TWO On Wednesday, Sept. 23, President Barack Ob

24、ama used his first-ever address to the U.N. General Assembly to try and reverse the impression that his ambitious Middle East peace effort had suffered a reversal at the hand of Israel“s hawkish Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “I am not naive,“ Obama told the gathered world leaders. “I know this

25、 will be difficult. But all of us must decide whether we are serious about peace or whether we only lend it lip service.“ Many a jaded commentator saw Obama“s Tuesday meeting with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a symbol of surrender to Netanyahu“s refusal of the U.S.

26、demand that Israel halt all construction on land conquered in 1967. Instead, Netanyahu offered a partial and time-limited freeze and appeared to force the President of the United States to back down. For Abbas, the handshake with Netanyahu orchestrated by Obama was viewed as a humiliating climbdown

27、from his refusal to talk to the Israelis until they implemented that settlement freeze. Netanyahu, briefing the Israeli media after the talks, suggested that the Palestinians had also caved in to his demand for a reopening of talks without preconditions on an agenda the two sides would determine in

28、discussions. But Abbas insisted that any talks would be based on the full range of final-status issues established by previous agreementsNetanyahu has publicly ruled out negotiating on two of those issues, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their

29、capital. Abbas appeared to win Obama“s backing in the U.N. speech, which made clear that the President has not accepted Netanyahu“s position on the precursor issue of a settlement freeze even if he“s decided to move on to the final-status negotiations. “America does not accept the legitimacy of cont

30、inued Israeli settlements,“ the President insisted on Wednesday. That could be read as a response to the damage Obama“s credibility has suffered in the Arab world as a result of being forced by Netanyahu to retreat on the settlement issue, which had been widely viewed as a test of Israel“s peacemaki

31、ng bona tides and had been a centerpiece of Obama“s Cairo outreach speech in the spring. But there was an even stronger challenge to Netanyahu in Obama“s declared plan to relaunch negotiations “that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Je

32、rusalem.“ He also spoke of the goal of those negotiations as being the establishment of “a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967.“ While many analysts focused on Tuesday“s meeting as an Obama admission of defeat on settlements, so

33、me were more optimistic. Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy believes that the Administration“s pivot on the issue smartly boxed Netanyahu into a negotiating process the Israeli leader would have preferred to avoid, by turning his own argument against him: if, as Netanyahu insists, settlemen

34、ts should be an issue for negotiation rather than a precondition because their fate will depend on future borders, then why not move straight to final-status negotiations over those borders? Final-status talks were something Netanyahu had hoped to dodge. Not only does his right-wing coalition govern

35、ment refuse to countenance negotiations over refugees or Jerusalem, but also, the Prime Minister, much of whose political career has been built on resisting the Oslo peace process, has sought to promote incremental improvements in Palestinian life, particularly the economy, over the search for a fin

36、al two-state agreement. Obama isn“t buying it. According to Israeli accounts of Tuesday“s meeting, the U.S. President “scolded“ Netanyahu and Abbas, declaring “We“ve had enough talks. We need to end this conflict. There is a window of opportunity, but it might shut.“ And according to these reports,

37、Obama insisted that the negotiations will not be started from scratch but will instead be based on the previous agreements established through the Oslo process. In other words, Jerusalem and refugees are on the table, and Israel is expected to show up. Obama is still talking tough, then, but having

38、watched him climb down from his settlement-freeze demandand the rebuff from moderate Arab states to the President“s call for them to make tangible gestures toward normalization of ties with Israelmost analysts are waiting to see what actions back his words. Reports from the talks suggest the Adminis

39、tration will summon the two parties to Washington next month for talks under U.S. auspices on the full gamut of final-status issues. But Netanyahu may have his own ideas and may be buoyed by his success in resisting the settlement-freeze demand. Indeed, the Israeli Prime Minister“s domestic populari

40、ty has surged as a result of his defiance of Obama. Abbas, however, who had already been reduced to an increasingly marginal figure by the failure of his negotiating efforts over the past decade to win any significant gains for the Palestinians, suffered further political damage by even showing up f

41、or the handshake. But even the relatively hawkish Israeli commentator Shmuel Rosner warns that “Israel should restrain itself from declaring victory just yet. True, Obama had to draw down his overeager demands from Israel. But it is also true that Netanyahu, not long ago, had to reverse his oppositi

42、on to a two-state solution and publicly declare that his goal is similar to the one espoused today by Obama. True, Abbas was dragged to the summit only days after insisting that he will not come to any meeting unless settlement construction is frozen first. But it is also true that Netanyahu, the he

43、ad of the right-wing Likud Party, is one of the first Israeli Prime Ministers to agree to some form of settlement freeze.“ PASSAGE THREE Four reasons that rosy November jobs report was even better than it seemed. It“s important not to make too much out of a single economic data point. But Friday“s m

44、onthly jobs report may be even better news than it seems. The unemployment rate fell to 10 percent in November, and companies only shed 11,000 payroll jobs in the month. That was much better than economists expected, and the smallest such drop since late 2007, and perhaps early indication that, as I

45、“ve argued, we“ll be seeing jobs growth sooner rather than later. A look inside the report-and, again, with the caveat that it would be folly to draw too strong a conclusion from a single month“s data-suggests four other reasons to be optimistic. The payroll jobs number in November came in much bett

46、er than expected. In each monthly report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revises the previously reported job totals for the prior two months. And in the past few months, the trend has been that the government overstates the job market“s weakness in the just-completed month. In the original rele

47、ase for September, the government concluded the economy shed 263,000 jobs that month. A month later, however, in its October release, September“s loss was revised down to 219,000. According to last Friday“s release, the September job loss was actually only 139,000. The government originally said the

48、 economy lost 190,000 jobs in October, but Friday“s report cut that number to only 111,000 jobs. The upshot: for the past three months, the government“s first task at job loss figures has been understating the strength of the recovery. Should this trend continue, it“s quite likely that when the Nove

49、mber numbers are revised over the next two months, that 11,000 loss could turn into a gain. Analysts frequently point to the troubling losses in manufacturing, housing, and construction. It“s understandable, since those sectors are politically important (manufacturing) and accounted for so much of recent economic growth (housing/construction). But manufacturing jobs are likely to fall even as the economy recovers, thanks to long-term secular trends of globalization, outsourcing, and automation. As for housing, we shouldn“t expect the sector that got us into the mess to get us out of it. R