问答题Practice 7　　Average household debt in the United States is currently 130 percent of average household income. The U. S. household savings rate is close to zero. Consumer confidence has plummeted with the value of 401(k) plans and retirement nest eggs.

Practice 7　　Average household debt in the United States is currently 130 percent of average household income. The U. S. household savings rate is close to zero. Consumer confidence has plummeted with the value of 401(k) plans and retirement nest eggs. Car sales are at a fifteen-year low. And credit card defaults look like the next shoe to drop as cash-strapped Americans have run up credit card debt to postpone the day of reckoning.　　Too many Americans have been expressing the Dream through the acquisition of stuff. Americans need a refresher course on the American dream. The Constitution speaks of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not an automatic chicken in every pot. The American Dream embraced by immigrants over the past two centuries has been the opportunity to set one’s own goals and pursue them honestly to the limits of one’s ambition and ability. Too many Americans have been expressing the Dream through the acquisition of stuff. Others see the Dream as raising a family in a land that delivers Franklin Roosevelt’s four freedoms. Still others dream of their children accessing the highest possible level of education, living healthy lives, being good citizens in their communities.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the average American household was _____ by the introduction of a group of machines that profoundly altered the daily lives of housewives.

Passage 7U. S consumer prices climbed faster than expected in May, further fanning investor fears over inflation. Stock markets around the world have cracked sharply lower the past few weeks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing all the ground it had gained so far this year. Japan’s stock market is down 11% on the year; gold has had its biggest slide in a decade and a half; and many emerging markets are wobbling. After Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index report from the Labor Department, which showed a 0.4 percent increase in prices for May (core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3 percent), the stock market made a comeback. But with future interest rate hikes now starting to be priced into the market, investor fears that central bankers around the world will go overboard and continue to drive rates higher is set to further spook markets. This is no trading correction that investors have to absorb. The real risk of a jarring bear market has emerged.　　But while the trauma that inflation created for investors in the 1970s is still close to the surface, the sudden frenzy is misplaced. Powerful forces in the world economy continue to keep prices largely in check.　　Over the past decade, inflation has been a minor threat compared with brutal deflationary shocks. They started with the collapse of the Mexican peso in the mid-1990s. In 1997, much of eastern Asia’s flourishing economy was leveled. Next were Russia, Turkey and Argentina; Brazil teetered on the brink. By early 2001, Silicon Valley, the pride of the U. S. economy, was crashing, while entire sectors of the so-called New Economy disintegrated.　　The tech wreck may be over, but it has left a legacy of low prices. Tech companies had to dump on the market everything from fiberoptic networks to computer chips, as desperate investors struggled to raise cash. That slashed telecommunication costs at the very moment that emerging markets were producing a skilled and hungry generation of information workers. Result? The offshore outsourcing revolution and downward pressure on global production costs that keeps inflation under control. Equally powerful are the ultra-low-cost emerging-market manufacturing bases, led by China. With more than 1 billion people set to enter the urban labor markets of China, India, Brazil and Indonesia in the next 20 years, all those pressures on prices will only intensify.　　More immediate forces are also at work to keep prices from surging. Despite some wishful thinking, growth in Europe is slowing, not accelerating. A large part of U. S. growth has been driven by booming real estate prices. But in the past two years, the Fed has increased rates 16 times, so real estate-driven consumption is yesterday’s news. Tomorrow’s story will be the sharp fall in U. S. growth as consumers face higher mortgage costs. That dynamic could become particularly nasty, given the record level of U. S. household debt, government deficit and unequaled current-account shortfall.　　Investors are often caught flat-footed when markets slide. In 2001-02, deflation was the fear of the day, but few investors at the time saw the opportunity in commodities, which were going for a fraction of today’s prices. Today investors are obsessed with inflation, while government and top- tier corporate bonds are shunned.　　That should be telling us something. What is it? In the past few years, the central banks of Japan, the U. S. and Europe have cut interest rates so aggressively that the real cost of borrowing fell to, effectively, below zero. That spurred extraordinary amounts of debt financing by governments and corporations. But now, as the global credit cycle tightens, some of the marginal investments will quickly become unsustainable. If central bankers keep raising interest rates, deeper cracks would open in the world economy.　　What is really troubling markets is not inflation. It is the fear that central banks may have tightened too much, and will tighten further. If that happens, the recent market shock would be merely the precursor to a still more dramatic quake.　　1. What is the situation of the world financial markets recently? What is the situation expected to be in the near future?　　2. What does the author mean by “the tech wreck may be over, but it has left a legacy of low prices”? (Para.4)　　3. What is the relationship between real estate market and economic growth in US in the past and in the near future?　　4. According to the author, what are the “powerful forces” that can keep inflation “largely in check”?

Practice 3　　In-state tuition. For decades, it was the one advantage big state schools had that even the Ivy League couldn’t match, in terms of recruiting the best and the brightest to their campuses. But these days, that’s no longer necessarily the case. Starting this September, some students will find a Harvard degree cheaper than one from many public universities. Harvard officials sent shock waves through academia last December by detailing a new financial-aid policy that will charge families making up to $180,000 just 10 % of their household income per year, substantially subsidizing the annual cost of more than $ 45,600 for all but its wealthiest students. The move was just the latest in what has amounted to a financial-aid bidding war in recent years among the U. S.’s élite universities.　　Though Harvard’s is the most generous to date, Princeton, Yale and Stanford have all launched similar plans to cap tuition contributions for students from low-and middle-income families. Indeed, students on financial aid at nearly every Ivy stand a good chance of graduating debt-free, thanks to loan-elimination programs introduced over the past five years. And other exclusive schools have followed their lead by replacing loans with grants and work-study aid. And several more schools are joining the no-loan club this fall. Even more schools have taken steps to reduce debt among their neediest students.

The author intends to tell the readers that _____.

Practice 7　　Some people would say that the Englishman's home is no longer his castle; that it has become his workshop. This is partly because the average English is keen on working with his own hands and partly because he feels, for one reason or another, that he must do for himself many household jobs for which, some years ago, he would have hired professional help. The main reason for this is a financial one.. the high cost of labor has meant that the builders and decorators' costs have reached a level which makes them prohibitive for house-proud English people of modest means. So, if they wish to keep their houses looking bright and smart, they have to tackle some of the repairs and decorating themselves. As a result, there has grown up in the post-war years what is sometimes referred to as the “Do-it-yourself Movement”.　　The “Do-it-yourself Movement” began with home decorating but has since spread into a much wider field. Nowadays there seem to be very few things that cannot be made by the “do-it- yourself” method.

Which of the followings is true according to the text? _____

In the Chinese household, grandparents play indispensable roles in raising children.

For Cinderella, doing household work is ______.

It can be inferred from the passage that the minimal basis for a complaint to the international Trade Commission is which of the following?