Questions 11 to 18 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
A. Their favorite movie.
B. Their hobbies.
C. The latest film.
D. Their favorite DVD.
This Christmas the world economy offers few reasons for good cheer. As credit contracts and asset prices declined, demand across the globe is declining. Rich countries collectively face the severest recession since the Second World War: this week’s cut in the target for the federal funds rate to between zero and 0.25% shows how fearful America’s policymakers are. And conditions are deteriorating fast too in emerging economies, which have been exhausted by declining exports and the drying-up of foreign finance. This news is bad enough in itself; but it also poses the biggest threat to open markets in the modem era of globalization. For the first time in more than a generation, two of the engines of global integration -- trade and capital flows -- are shifting into reverse at the same time. The World Bank says that net private capital flows to emerging economies in 2009 are likely to be only half the record $ 1 trillion of 2007, while global trade volumes will shrink for the first time since 1982. This twin shift will force adjustments. Countries that have relied on exports to drive growth, from China to Germany, will slump unless they can boost domestic demand quickly. There is a risk that in their discomfort governments turn to an old, but false, friend: protectionism. Integration has less appeal when pain rather than prosperity is hanging across borders. It will be tempting to support domestic jobs and incomes by diverting demand from abroad with export subsidies, tariffs and cheaper currencies. The lessons of history, though, are clear. The economic isolationism of the 1930s cruelly intensified the Depression. To be sure, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its multilateral trading rules are a bulwark(壁垒) against protection on that scale. But today’s globalised economy, with far-stretched supply chains and just-in-time delivery, could be disrupted by policies much less dramatic than the Smoot-Hawley act. A modest shift away from openness -- well within the WTO’s rules -- would be enough to turn the recession of 2009 much nastier. Increased protection of that sort is, alas, all too plausible. What is the author’s attitude towards the shifting away from openness trend ongoing now
Underdeveloped People The Indians living on the high plains of the Andes Mountains, in South America, have a background rich in history but rich in little else. These seven million people from the great old Indian nations live in a land of few trees, poor soil, cutting winds and biting cold. Their farms do not give enough food to support them. Their children from the age of three or four must work in the fields. The death rate of their babies is among the highest in the world, their standards of education among the lowest. They live at heights of ten or fifteen thousand feet, where even the air lacks the things necessary for life. The needs of these Indians, scattered across three countries — Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia—are great. Their problems are difficult and their diseases are deeply rooted in an old-fashioned way of life. Probably no single program of help can greatly better their condition. Health programs are no good without farm programs, and farm programs fail where there have been no programs of education. Five international organizations have combined efforts to seek the answers to the problems of the unfortunate descendants of the Inca Indians. They are working with the governments of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador on what they call the Andean Mission. Six areas have been formed, one each in Ecuador and Peru, four in Bolivia. Here methods are tested to attack poor education, poor food, poor living conditions and disease all at once. We passed fields of low com and thin wheat. Whole villages were at work planting potatoes. The men formed a line and walked slowly backward, beating the soil with sticks. The women, on hands and knees, followed the men, breaking the hard earth with their hands. Their red and orange skirts flashed brightly in the sun. The scene was beautiful, but the land, seeds and crops were all poor. Upon arriving at a village, we went to visit the school for carpenters. It was in an old building where thirty boys were attending classes. There were two classrooms containing complete sets of tools. I saw more tools there than in any carpenter’’s shop in Latin America. Most of the boys were cutting boards for practice. They worked steadily and didn’’t even look up when we entered. The teacher remarked that the greatest problem at the moment was finding wood, as almost no trees grow on a high plain. Someone remarked that it would not take long for the school to produce too many carpenters in an area without trees, where most of the buildings were of stone or mud. The wood brought from the jungle was too costly for most of the people. The answer was that the original purpose of the school was to train carpenters and mechanics to go to other parts of the country. They would work where the government is developing new villages at the edge of the jungle. Across from the carpentry-room there was a machine for producing electric power. With it the boys would be taught their first lessons in electricity. Other boys studied car repairing. In the yard a group of boys surrounded a large tractor. The teacher was showing them how to operate it. No one was sure how many other tractors there were in the area. Guesses ranged from two to ten. If the school turned out more boys to handle them than the farms could use, the rest, it was hoped, would seek a living in the lower villages where more people lived. The next day, against the cutting winds of the Bolivian mountains, we were going to a village that is the oldest of the four Bolivian projects of the Andean mission. Behind us, across the valley, rain fell from the black clouds beyond the snowy mountain-tops. The wind and rain beat against the car as we traveled across the open fields to come to the yard of an old farm. My trip had been panned at the last minute. Since the village has no telegraph to telephone services, no one was expecting me. All the driver knew was that I was a visiting "doctor" simply because I was wearing a tie. He showed me into a large room of the farmhouse where some twenty men were watching film. It concerned the problems of a man who could neither read nor write. But in the face of difficulties he managed to start an adult education class in his village. He did this so that he could learn to read and win his girl friend’’s respect. From time to time during the film the lights would go on and during these breaks everyone introduced himself. They had been brought together for a three-week course in how to teach, and to add to their own education, which in several cases had not gone beyond the third grade. Though they had not had much training they had the help of great interest and, most important, they knew the native language. When the picture show was over the Bolivian teachers pulled on their wool caps, wrapped their blankets around them, and went off to their beds. Some of the international teachers went with me to the kitchen, where the cook had heated some food. We talked of the troubles and the progress of the school, until the lights were put out several times. This was a warning that the electric power was about to be shut off for the night. During the first two years the village project had a difficult time. The mission had accepted the use of a farm from a large landowner, and the natives believed that the lands would be returned to the owner after ten years. The Mission began at a time when the Bolivian Government was introducing land-improvement laws. Most of the people believed that the officers of the Mission were working for the owner, who was against the dividing up of the land. They had as little to do with the owner as possible. Not until the government took possession of the farm and divided the land did the feeling of the Indians toward the Mission change for the better. When the writer visited the village of the oldest project the weather there was cold.
A. Y
B. N
C. NG