单选题Shadow chancellor George Osborne holds that ______.A London is not capable of hosting the summitB Lord Myners should not have signed off Sir Fred Goodwin’s pensionC there was no “common ground” on the G20D the UK government’s entire economic strategy h

Text 4 Will the European Union make it?The question would have sounded strange not long ago.Now even the project's greatest cheerleaders talk of a continent facing a“Bermuda triangle”of debt,population decline and lower growth.As well as those chronic problems,the EU faces an acute crisis in its economic core,the 16 countries that use the single currency.Markets have lost faith that the euro zone's economies,weaker or stronger,will one day converge thanks to the discipline of sharing a single currency,which denies uncompetitive members the quick fix of devaluation.Yet the debate about how to save Europe's single currency from disintegration is stuck.It is stuck because the euro zone's dominant powers,France and Germany,agree on the need for greater harmonization within the euro zone,but disagree about what to harmonies.Germany thinks the euro must be saved by stricter rules on borrow,spending and competitiveness,backed by quasiautomatic sanctions for governments that do not obey.These might include threats to freeze EU funds for poorer regions and EU megaprojects and even the suspension of a country's voting rights in EU ministerial councils.It insists that economic coordination should involve all 27 members of the EU club,among whom there is a small majority for freemarket liberalism and economic rigour;in the inner core alone,Germany fears,a small majority favour French interference.A“southern”camp headed by French wants something different:“European economic government”within an inner core of eurozone members.Translated,that means politicians intervening in monetary policy and a system of redistribution from richer to poorer members,via cheaper borrowing for governments through common Eurobonds or complete fiscal transfers.Finally,figures close to the France government have murmured,eurozone members should agree to some fiscal and social harmonization:e.g.,curbing competition in corporatetax rates or labour costs.It is too soon to write off the EU.It remains the world's largest trading block.At its best,the European project is remarkably liberal:built around a single market of 27 rich and poor countries,its internal borders are far more open to goods,capital and labour than any comparable trading area.It is an ambitious attempt to blunt the sharpest edges of globalization,and make capitalism benign.
Regarding the future of the EU,the author seems to feel____

A.pessimistic
B.desperate
C.conceited
D.hopeful

When George Osbome,Chancellor of the Exchequer,is spotted outside Westminster,he is very often making an appearance on a building site,wearing a fluorescent safety jacket.It was no surprise to hear him claim once again,in his budget speech on March 19th,that"We're getting Britain building".Sadly,given the huge exlenl of Britain's housing shortage,the chancellor's proposed interventions do not add up to much.The biggest announcement was that the government will extend Help to Buy,a scheme that guarantees mortgages for people purchasing newly built homes.Mr Osbome also hopes to build a new town at Ebbsfleet,a patch of post-industrial land in the Thames estuary,and promises to speed up the redevelopment of several rotting 1960s and 1970s social housing estates in London.By making it easier for house builders to shift their stock,Help to Buy has probably helped boost building slightly,especially in northern cities where construction had all but ceased.Extending the programme will boost Britain's housing stock by 120,000 by 2020,the Treasury cltums,though it will also expose taxpayers to any future house-price crash.Mr Osborne also announced a new fund to support lending io smaU house builders-who have sLruggled to get financing in recent years which ought to have a similar effect.The new town is more advencurous.Ebbsfleei.where a high-speed rail link to London opened in 2007,has had plans for new homes for almost 20 years.Few have been built,mosdy because the site is a partially flooded quarry with little in the way of shops.public transport or infrastructure.The government's new idea is to create a development corporation with control over planning and the ability to borrow to clean up and prepare the site.That was how post-war new towns such as Milton Keynes and Stevenage were built.A sinular interventionism is visible in the plan to rebuild 1960s estates.Many of these,such as the Aylesbury Estate in SouLhwark and Robin Hood Gardens in Tower Hamlets,are crummbling.By increasing the density on the sites,and using the proceeds of selling the extra houses built,it ought to be possible to cover the cost of reconstniclion.Bui counciLs have been short of money to do much themselves,and private developers extract high retums in exchange for putting up capital.With central-govemment money,those projects ought to move quicker and councils ought to get more for their land.
Ceorge Osbome's housing proposal seems to be ineffective because of_____

A.the lack of support from local govemment
B.the enormous gap of the real estate market
C.the financial difficulties of the government
D.the huge expansion of housing construction

Text 4 When the government talks about infrastructure contributing to the economy the focus is usually on roads,railways,broadband and energy.Housing is seldom mentioned.Why is that?To some extent the housing sector must shoulder the blame.We have not been good at communicating the real value that housing can contribute to economic growth.Then there is the scale of the typical housing project.It is hard to shove for attention among multibillionpound infrastructure project,so it is inevitable that the attention is focused elsewhere.But perhaps the most significant reason is that the issue has always been so politically charged.Nevertheless,the affordable housing situation is desperate.Waiting lists increase all the time and we are simply not building enough new homes.The comprehensive spending review offers an opportunity for the government to help rectify this.It needs to put historical prejudices to one side and take some steps to address our urgent housing need.There are some indications that it is preparing to do just that.The communities minister,Don Foster,has hinted that George Osborne,Chancellor of the Exchequer,may introduce more flexibility to the current cap on the amount that local authorities can borrow against their housing stock debt.Evidence shows that 60,000 extra new homes could be built over the next five years if the cap were lifted,increasing GDP by 0.6%.Ministers should also look at creating greater certainty in the rental environment,which would have a significant impact on the ability of registered providers to fund new developments from revenues.But it is not just down to the government.While these measures would be welcome in the short term,we must face up to the fact that the existing￡4.5bn programme of grants to fund new affordable housing,set to expire in 2015，is unlikely to be extended beyond then.The Labour party has recently announced that it will retain a large part of the coalition's spending plans if returns to power.The housing sector needs to accept that we are very unlikely to ever return to era of largescale public grants.We need to adjust to this changing climate.While the government’s commitment to long-term funding may have changed,the very pressing need for more affordable housing is real and is not going away.
According to Paragraph 5,George Osborne may____

A.allow greater government debt for housing
B.stop local authorities from building homes
C.prepare to reduce housing stock debt
D.release a lifted GDP growth forecast

Should UK depositors lose money, the government would have to decide whether to____for it directly.

A.notify
B.compensate
C.overlook
D.trigger

According to paragraph 3，which of the following describes the Whig Party’s view of the role of government？( )

A.To regulate the continuing conflict between farmers and business people.
B.To restrict the changes brought about by the market.
C.To maintain an economy that allowed all capable citizens to benefit.
D.To reduce the emphasis on economic development.

When George Osbome,Chancellor of the Exchequer,is spotted outside Westminster,he is very often making an appearance on a building site,wearing a fluorescent safety jacket.It was no surprise to hear him claim once again,in his budget speech on March 19th,that"We're getting Britain building".Sadly,given the huge exlenl of Britain's housing shortage,the chancellor's proposed interventions do not add up to much.The biggest announcement was that the government will extend Help to Buy,a scheme that guarantees mortgages for people purchasing newly built homes.Mr Osbome also hopes to build a new town at Ebbsfleet,a patch of post-industrial land in the Thames estuary,and promises to speed up the redevelopment of several rotting 1960s and 1970s social housing estates in London.By making it easier for house builders to shift their stock,Help to Buy has probably helped boost building slightly,especially in northern cities where construction had all but ceased.Extending the programme will boost Britain's housing stock by 120,000 by 2020,the Treasury cltums,though it will also expose taxpayers to any future house-price crash.Mr Osborne also announced a new fund to support lending io smaU house builders-who have sLruggled to get financing in recent years which ought to have a similar effect.The new town is more advencurous.Ebbsfleei.where a high-speed rail link to London opened in 2007,has had plans for new homes for almost 20 years.Few have been built,mosdy because the site is a partially flooded quarry with little in the way of shops.public transport or infrastructure.The government's new idea is to create a development corporation with control over planning and the ability to borrow to clean up and prepare the site.That was how post-war new towns such as Milton Keynes and Stevenage were built.A sinular interventionism is visible in the plan to rebuild 1960s estates.Many of these,such as the Aylesbury Estate in SouLhwark and Robin Hood Gardens in Tower Hamlets,are crummbling.By increasing the density on the sites,and using the proceeds of selling the extra houses built,it ought to be possible to cover the cost of reconstniclion.Bui counciLs have been short of money to do much themselves,and private developers extract high retums in exchange for putting up capital.With central-govemment money,those projects ought to move quicker and councils ought to get more for their land.
We can learn from Paragraph 3 that extending Help to Buy_____

A.will bring numerous benefits
B.may gready boost the stock market
C.will do more harm than good
D.may be both constructive and risky

Text 2 The UK government's decision to shutter plans to build the world's first tidal lagoon off Swansea Bay is a hard blow for Wales.The tidal lagoon project,had it gone ahead,was expected to create 2,200 jobs,plus more in the supply chain.These are the kinds of jobs that Wales,so damaged by steel and coal closures,needs.But the business secretary,Greg Clark,has decided the country can't have them because they would be too expensive.Welsh politicians have reacted with understandable fury to Mr Clark's announcement,which comes almost exactly 12 months after the government abandoned plans to electrify the railway from Cardiff to Swansea,and just a day after Member of Parliament（MPs）voted to press ahead with another expensive infrastructure project:a third runway at Heathrow.There are some rational reasons to approve of this week's decision,while regretting its consequences.No one,including the Tidal Lagoon Power company,denied that the electricity produced off the Welsh coast would have cost more than the cheapest renewables,The most recent government auctions saw offshore wind schemes win contracts at record lows of￡57.50 per megawatt hour,meaning they are within a few pounds of being subsidy-free.But cost is not the only consideration.Otherwise,the government would never have gone ahead with the hugely expensive,risky and uncertain Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.Nor would it have cut subsidies for solar power and onshore wind,as it did in 2015.Those decisions-particularly the promise to curb onshore wind,as the Conservatives did in their 2015 manifest0,despite poll after poll showing that a majority of the public prefers wind and solar to nuclear-were ideological.In a City speech this March,Mr Clark praised business for putting"evidence before ideology".It is welcome that the secretary of state says this is his own approach.Too many of his Conservative colleagues remain too strongly attached to fossil fuels,inclu'ding the prospect of a whole new shale gas industry.As the price of renewables continues to fall,they will surely lose the argument.With Mr Clark in charge,the hope is that onshore wind and solar subsidies may soon return-though too late for UK companies that could have developed and profited from the technology had we not given up on it long before the renewables boom.Yet the government is planning more nuclear power stations,including one in Wales.Different rules seem to apply for different technologies.It looks like a Tory government in Westminster snubbed Welsh Labour's pet project.Backers of the tidal project felt shut out by ministers.Wave energy lobbyists perhaps don't have the firepower in Whitehall that others can muster.Mr Clark might have relied on the evidence to make a tough call not to back a new,green technology.But it's hard to shake off the impression that the decision was one rooted in the partisan politics of self-interest.
The author holds that many UK companies missed the chance to develop partly due to_____.

A.shortage of fossil fuel reserve in UK
B.government's neglect of renewables
C.too idealistic thinking of investors
D.the falling price of renewables

资料：Economic performance is improving in most of the world's leading economies but is still short of a self-sustaining upswing, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Wednesday.
In an update to its economic forecasts, the Paris-based international organisation representing advanced economies said that more private sector investment was needed for the expansion to endure, for wages to rise sustainability and for inequalities to be tackled.
Although all leading economies are now recording positive growth, Catherine Mann, the OECD's chief economist, urged governments to “curb your enthusiasm [ because] strong and sustained medium-term global growth is not yet secured”.
The OECD's economic outlook shows upgrades to the 2017 growth forecasts in China, Russia and Europe excluding the UK with the world outlook also appearing stronger in 2018.
World growth should rise from a low of 3.1 per cent in 2016, to 3.5 per cent this year and 3.7 per cent in 2018, the OECD forecast, with the US, the Eurozone, Brazil and Russia contributing most to the improved global outlook.
China's predicted growth rate of 6.8 per cent in 2017 and 6.6 per cent in 2018 has been revised higher by 0.2 percentage points in both years and although India's growth rate has been revised down, reflecting adjustment to its new goods and services tax, it is likely to remain the fastest growing large economy in the world.
Only the UK, which remains embroiled in Brexit negotiations, has a deteriorating outlook. Responding to the OECD's forecast that the British economy will be the slowest growing in the Group of Seven in 2018 having been near the top of the league table in 2016, the British Treasury said it was not complacent.

According to the passage,which one of the following statement is true？

A.The Russia’s 2017 economic growth forecast has been revised higher.
B.The leading economies have achieved sustainable long-term growth.
C.The OECD is not optimistic about China's economic growth.
D.India's economic growth forecast have been upgraded.

According to paragraph 3，which of the following describes the Whig Party’s view of the role of government？( )

A.To regulate the continuing conflict between farmers and business people
B.To restrict the changes brought about by the market
C.To maintain an economy that allowed all capable citizens to benefit
D.To reduce the emphasis on economic development

This country is( )deflationary pressure and the country′s policy-makers should create a better policy mix to cope with the new economic environment.

A.confronted with
B.coping off
C.taking off
D.wearing off