What is TRUE about the Irish Republic's economy?A．It was the most successful among the EU countries.B．It has increased 8% in the last five years.C．The unemployment rate has reached its lowest level for 5 years.D．The commodity prices have decreased greatly

Practice 9　　Youth unemployment across the world has climbed to a new high and is likely to climb further this year, a United Nations agency said Thursday, while warning of a “lost generation” as more young people give up the search for work.　　The agency, the International Labor Organization, said in a report that of some 620 million young people ages 15 to 24 in the work force, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009—the highest level in two decades of record-keeping by the organization, which is based in Geneva.　　“There’s never been an increase of this magnitude — both in terms of the rate and the level — since we’ve been tracking the data,” said Steven Kapsos, an economist with the organization. The agency forecast that the global youth unemployment rate would continue to increase through 2010, to 13.1 percent, as the effects of the economic downturn continue. It should then decline to 12.7 percent in 2011.　　In some especially strained European countries, including Spain and Britain, many young people have become discouraged and given up the job hunt, it said. The trend will have “significant consequences for young people,” as more and more join the ranks of the already unemployed, it said. That has the potential to create a “‘lost generation’ comprised of young people who have dropped out of the labor market, having lost all hope of being able to work for a decent living.”　　The report studied the German, British, Spanish and Estonian labor markets and found that Germany had been most successful in bringing down long-term youth unemployment. In Spain and Britain, increases in unemployment were particularly pronounced for those with lower education levels.　　Data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency, show Spain had a jobless rate of 40.5 percent in May for people under 25. That was the highest level among the 27 members of the European Union, far greater than the 9.4 percent in Germany in May and 19.7 percent in Britain in March.

Sine the 1960s,（）has become the mainstay of the Irish economy.

Britain has recently had a high level of unemployment but the same is true ______ many other countries.

Passage 1　　(1)______ There is a tendency to see Japan as a harbinger of all that is doomed in the economies of the euro zone and America--even though figures released on November 14th show its economy grew by an annualised 6% in the third quarter, rebounding quickly from the March tsunami and nuclear disaster.　　Look dispassionately at Japan's economic performance over the past ten years, though, and "the second lost decade", if not the first, is a misnomer. Much of what tarnishes Japan's image is the result of demography—more than half its population is over 45—as well as its poor policy in dealing with it. (2)______　　In aggregate, Japan's economy grew at half the pace of America's between 2001 and 2010. Yet if judged by growth in GDP per person over the same period, then Japan has outperformed America and the euro zone. In part this is because its population has shrunk whereas America's population has increased.　　Though growth in labour productivity fell slightly short of America's from 2000 to2008, total factor productivity, a measure of how a country uses capital and labour, grew faster, according to the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organisation. Japan's unemployment rate is higher than in 2000, yet it remains about half the level of America and Europe.　　Besides supposed stagnation, the two other curses of the Japanese economy are debt and deflation. Yet these also partly reflect demography and can be overstated. People often think of Japan as an indebted country. In fact, it is the world's biggest creditor nation, boasting 253 trillion ($3.3 trillion) in net foreign assets.　　To be sure, its government is a large debtor; its net debt as a share of GDP is one of the highest in the OECD. (3)______ Social security expenditure doubled as a share of GDP between 1990 and 2010 to pay rising pensions and health-care costs. Over the same period tax revenues have shrunk.　　(4)______ That gives it plenty of room to manoeuvre. Takatoshi Ito, an economist at the University of Tokyo, says increasing the consumption tax by 20 percentage points from its current 5%—putting it at the level of a high-tax European country—would raise 50 trillion and immediately wipe out Japan's fiscal deficit.　　That sounds draconian. But here again, demography plays a role. Officials say the elderly resist higher taxes or benefit cuts, and the young, who are in a minority, do not have the political power to push for what is in their long-term interest. David Weinstein, professor of Japanese economy at Columbia University in New York, says the elderly would rather give money to their children than pay it in taxes. Ultimately that may mean that benefits may shrink in the future. "If you want benefits to grow in line with income, as they are now, you need a massive increase in taxes of about10% of GDP," he says.　　(5)______ After all, falling prices give savers—most of whom are elderly—positive real yields even when nominal interest rates are close to zero. Up until now, holding government bonds has been a good bet. Domestic savers remain willing to roll them over, which enables the government to fund its deficits. Yet this comes at a cost to the rest of the economy. In short, Japan's economy works better for those middle-aged and older than it does for the young. But it is not yet in crisis, and economists say there is plenty it could do to raise its potential growth rate, as well as to lower its debt burden.[A] Falling tax revenues are a problem. The flip side, though, is that Japan has the lowest tax take of any country in the OECD, at just 17% of GDP.[B] Demography helps explain Japan's stubborn deflation, too, he says.[C] Even so, most Japanese have grown richer over the decade.[D] However, the public debt has been accrued not primarily through wasteful spending or "bridges to nowhere", but because of aging, says the IMF.[E] Young people also express their strong dissatisfaction towards economical injustice.[F] The Japanese say they suffer from an economic disease called “structural pessimism”. Overseas too,[G] In fact, the financial situation is not that bad during the last decade.

At the beginning of the day, the prices of stocks X and Y are the same. At the end of the day, the price of stock X has increased by 1/20 of its original price and the price of stock Y has decreased by 1/20 of its original price. The new price of stock X is what fraction of the new price of stock Y?

The vehicle sales were greatly cut down because

Which of the following statements is true about Japan?

The EU has raised concerns about its influence on consumer privacy.____

Practice 1That Old Greenspan Magic Seems to be Fading　　For the best part of 20 years, Alan Greenspan has been a symbol of the stupidity of ageism. He became chairman of the US Federal Reserve at 61, when plenty of workers have already been tossed on the scrapheap and many others are preparing to wind down for retirement. His golden years in charge of the US economy were when he was pushing 70 and he’s still there aged 78. Greenspan is the doyen of central bankers, still talked about in almost reverential terms by his peers. The fact that the Fed chairman rarely gives interviews and makes public pronouncements that are to economics what Finnegans Wake is to literature only adds to the mystique.　　It is, then, with some trepidation that the question has to be asked: has Big Alan finally lost the plot? At the start of last week, Greenspan presided over a meeting of the Fed which kept interest rates on hold at 1%, the level they have been pegged at for nearly a year. A statement accompanying the decision said the risks to inflation were balanced, which means the Fed thinks there is as much chance of the lost of living going up as going down. On Thursday, new joblessness claims in the US fell to their lowest level in getting on for four years, and the picture of a recovering labour market was underlined by Friday’s non-farm payrolls which showed an increase of 288,000, above what had been expected. The economy is expanding at an annual rate of 4.5%, surveys of both manufacturing and the service sector are strong, the housing market is booming, inflation has started to pick up.　　Hardly surprisingly, Greenspan’s call on inflation is now coming under the microscope, even by those on the Kenyesian left who tend to favor expansionary macroeconomic policies. “Show me something, other than computers, where the price is falling,” says Dean Baker of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Washington. Baker is right. Clearly, risks to inflation are on the upside, and massively so. The economy has been injected with a cocktail of three growth-inducing drugs-negative real interest rates, a rising budget deficit and a falling currency. Oil prices have touched $40 a barrel and the labour market is tightening. It is hard to believe that Greenspan, a junkie for economic data no matter how seemingly trivial, has not spotted all this. Rates in the US are far below a neutral level, which would probably be around 5%, yet Greenspan is in no hurry to act.

Britain has recently had a high level of unemployment but the same is true _____ many other countries.

Which statement about China is NOT true?