TEXT C The most effective attacks against globalization are usually not those related to economies. Instead, they are social, ethical and, above all, cultural. These arguments surfaced amid the protests in Seattle in 1999 and more recently in Davos, Bangkok and Prague. They say this: the disappearance of national borders and the establishment of a world interconnected by markets will deal a death blow to regional and national cultures, and to the traditions, customs, myths and mores that determine each country’s or region’s cultural identity. Since most of the world is incapable of resisting the invasion of cultural products from developed countries that inevitably trails the great transnational corporations, North American culture will ultimately impose itself, standardizing the world and annihilating its richness of diverse cultures. In this manner, all other peoples, and not just the small and weak ones, will lose their identity, their soul, and will become no more than 21st-eentury colonies modeled after the cultural norms of a new imperialism that, in addition to ruling over the planet with its capital, military might and scientific knowledge, will impose on others its language and its ways of thinking, believing, enjoying and dreaming. Even though I believe this cultural argument against globalization is unacceptable, we should recognize that deep within it lies an unquestionable truth. This century, the world in which we will live will be less picturesque and filled with less local color than the one we left behind. The festivals, attire, customs, ceremonies, rites and beliefs that in the past gave humanity its culturally and racially variety are progressively disappearing or confining themselves to minority sectors, while the bulk of society abandons them and adopts others more suited to the reality of our time. All countries of the earth experience this process, some more quickly than others, but it is not due to globalization. Rather, it is due to modernization, of which the former is effect, not cause. It is possible to lament, certainly, that this process occurs, and to feel nostalgia for the past ways of life that, particularly from our comfortable vantage point of the present, seem full of amusement, originality and color. But this process is unavoidable. In theory, perhaps, a country could keep this identity, but only if — like certain remote tribes in Africa or the Amazon — it decides to live in total isolation, cutting off all exchange with other nations and practicing self sufficiency. A cultural identity preserved in this form would take that society back to prehistoric standards of living. It is true that modernization makes many forms of traditional life disappear. But at the same time, it opens opportunities and constitutes an important step forward for a society as a whole. That is why, when given the option to choose freely, peoples, sometimes counter to what their leaders or intellectual traditionalists would like, opt for modernization without the slightest ambiguity. According to the author, an unquestionable truth is ______.
A. we will live and dress in the exactly same way in the near future
B. we will be confined to a small region in the world
C. our world will become culturally less diversified
D. our world will become more practical and adaptable
Milton Friedman was wrong. Inflation is always and everywhere a social phenomenon, not a monetary one. At least, that is how Robert Samuelson sees it. The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath dwells little on the economics of inflation; the main text does not mention the Federal Reserve until page 31. Instead, it examines the intellectual and political currents that let inflation rise from 1% in the early 1960s to nearly 15% in 1980 and then brought it down again. This is a laudable(值得称赞的) enterprise. Historians have devoted lots of scholarship to the Vietnam War and the civil-rights movement but almost nothing to the parallel rise in inflation, whose impact on society has been arguably great. Mr. Samuelson, an economics columnist for the Washington Post and Newsweek, graphically recounts the futile efforts of various presidents to contain inflation, and the toll they exacted. Inflation began, Mr. Samuelson writes, because the followers of John Maynard Keynes who dominated economics after the Second World War convinced John Kennedy that reducing unemployment would cause only a small rise in inflation. But as inflation increased, it became politically impossible to bring it down. In 1968 Richard Nixon asked Herbert Stein, a nominee for Iris Council of Economic Advisers, what the president-elect’s biggest economic challenge would be. When Stein replied inflation, Nixon "immediately warned me that we must not raise unemployment," Stein later wrote. The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath is readable, but often frustrating. Rather than proceeding chronologically, it hopscotches (像玩“跳房子”游戏) back and forth between decades, repeatedly bringing home the points it wants to make. Despite the forward-looking subtitle, Mr. Samuelson does not demonstrate that the great inflation has much bearing on America’s future. He spends much of two chapters, 73 pages in all, choosing a list of contemporary economic problems, from excessive entitlement spending to global imbalances that have little to do with inflation. Meanwhile, he devotes just a few paragraphs to inflation’s most crucial impact at the present. The decline in interest rates that followed inflation’s defeat created bubbles in stocks and houses and fuelled a" reach for yield" whose undoing is at the heart of the current crisis. More puzzling is the fact that, in a year in which inflation and deflation have both repeatedly hit the headlines, Mr. Samuelson devotes little time to speculating on the future course of inflation and the political pressures that will affect it. That is a pity because it is a ripe subject. Why does the author say that The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath is often frustrating (Para. 4)
A. Because it hasn’t got any subtitle.
Because it spends too much on contemporary economic problems.
C. Because it devotes too much on the impact of inflation.
D. Because it shows that there will be bubbles in stocks and houses.
SECTION A CONVERSATIONS In this section you will hear several conversations. Listen to the conversations carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 4 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the conversation. Which of the following major is NOT popular in the job market
Accounting major.
B. Engineering major.
C. Science major.
D. Finance major.