Any rise in price will add to our cost and make your products less competitive.（英译中)

l indicator. Inflation is a period of increased 【C1】______ that causes rapid rises in prices. 【C2】______ . your money buys fewer goods so that you get 【C3】______ for the same amount of money as before, inflation is the problem. There is a general rise 【C4】______ the price of goods and services. Your money buys less. Sometimes people describe inflation as a 【C5】______ when "a dollar is not worth a dollar anymore." Inflation is a problem for all consumers.

People who live on a fixed income are hurt the 【C6】______ . Retired people, for instance, can not 【C7】______ on an increase in income as prices rise. Elderly people who do not work face serious problems in stretching their incomes to 【C8】______ their needs in time of inflation. Retirement income 【C9】______ any fixed income usually does not rise as fast as prices. Many retired people must cut their spending to 【C10】______ rising prices. In many cases they must stop 【C11】______ some necessary items, such as food and clothing. Even 【C12】______ working people whose incomes are going up, inflation can be a problem. The 【C13】______ of living goes up, too. People who work must have even more money to keep up their standard of living. Just buying the things they need costs more. When incomes do not keep 【C14】______ with rising prices, the standard of living goes down. People may be earning the same amount of money, but they are not living 【C15】______ because they are not able to buy as many goods and services. Government units gather information about prices in our economy and publish it as price indexes 【C16】______ the rate of change can be determined. A price index measures changes in prices using the price for a 【C17】______ year as the base. The base price is set 【C18】______ 100, and the other prices are reported as a 【C19】______ of the base price. A price index makes 【C20】______ possible to compare current prices of typical consumer goods, for example, with prices of the same goods in previous years.

【C1】

A．spending

B．demanding

C．consuming

D．saving

hey would turn up their noses at a bar or two. But they find the reverence in which many hold the metal almost irrational, That it was used as money for millennia is irrelevant: it isn't any more. Modern money takes the form. of paper or, more often, electronic data. To economists, gold is now just another commodity.

So why is its price soaring？ Over the pest week, this has topped $ 450 a troy ounce, up by 9% since the beginning of the year and 77% since April 2001. Ah, comes the reply, gold transactions are denominated in dollars, and the rise in the price simply reflects the dollar’s fall in terms of other currencies, especially the euro, against which it hit a new low this week. Expressed in euros, the gold price has moved much less. How- ever, there is no iron link, us it were, between the value of the dollar and the value of gold. A rising price of gold, like that of anything else, can reflect an increase in demand as well as a depreciation of its unit of account.

This is where gold bulls come in. The fall in the dollar is important, but mainly because as a store of value the dollar stinks. With a few longish rallies, the greenback has been on a downward trend since it came off the gold standard in 1971. Now it is suffering one of its sharper declines. At the margin, extra demand has come from those who think dollars--indeed any money backed by nothing more than promises to keep inflation low--a decidedly risky investment, mainly because America, with the world's reserve currency, has been able to create and borrow so many of them. The least painful way of repaying those dollars is to make them worth less.

The striking exception to this extra demand comes from central banks, which would like to sell some of the gold they already have. As a legacy of the days when their currencies were backed by the metal, central banks still hold one-fifth of the world's gold. Last month the Bank of France said it would sell 500 tonnes in coming years. But big sales by central banks can cause the price to plunge--as when the Bank of England sold 395 tonnes between 1999 and 2002. The result was an agreement between central banks to co-ordinate and limit future sales.

If the price of gold marches higher, this agreement will presumably be ripped up, although a dollar crisis might make central banks think twice about switching into paper money. Will the overhang of central-bank gold drag the price down again？ Not necessarily. As James Grant, gold bug and publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a newsletter, points out, in recent years the huge glut of government debt has not stopped a sharp rise in its price.

In economists' eyes, gold is something ______.

A．they look down upon

B．that can be exchanged in the market

C．worth people's reverence

D．that should be replaced by other forms of money

A．there is a surplus and the price will rise

B．there is a shortage and the price will fall．

C．there is a shortage and the price will rise

D．there is a surplus and the price will fall．

A.rise

B.arise

C.raise

D.decrease

ted because Senator Hart discovered that the boxes of cereals consumed by him, Mrs. Hart, and their children were becoming higher and narrower, with a decline of net weight from 12 to 10.5 ounces, without any reduction in price. There were still twelve biscuits, but they had been reduced in size. Later, the Senator rightly complained of a store-bought pie in a handsomely illustrated hex that pictured, in a single slice, almost as many cherries as there were in the whole pie.

The manufacturer who increases the unit price of his product by changing his package size to lower the quantity delivered can, without undue hardship, put his product into boxes, hags, and tins that will contain even 4-ounce, 8 ounce, one-pound, two-pound quantities of break fast foods, cake mixes, etc. A study of drugstore and supermarket shelves will convince any observer that all possible sizes and shapes of boxes, jars, bottles, and tins are in use at the same time, and, as the package journals show, week by week, there is never any hesitation in introducing a new size and shape of box or bottle when it aids in product differentiation. The producers of packaged products argue strongly against changing sizes of packages to contain even weights and volumes, but no one in the trade comments unfavorably on the huge costs incurred by end less changes of package sizes, materials, shape, art work, and net weights that are used for improving a product's market position.

When a packaging expert explained that he was able to multiply the price of hard sweets by 2.5, from $ 1 to $2.50 by changing to a fancy jar, or that he had made a 5-ounce bottle look as though it held 8 ounces, he was in effect telling the public that packaging can be a very ex pensive luxury, h evidently does come high, when an average family pays about $ 200 a year for bottles, cans, boxes, jars and other containers, most of which can't be used for anything but stuffing the garbage can.

What started the public and Congressional concern about deceptive packaging rumpus'？

A．Consumers' complaints about the changes in package size.

B．Expensive packaging for poor quality products.

C．A senator's discovery of the tricks in packaging.

D．The rise in the unit price for many products.

rise 30 bps and that the price will rise to 100.5 if yields fall 30 bps. Based on these estimates, the duration of the bond isclosest:

A.5.92.

B.1.78

C.2.96.

It is said that the public and Congressional concern about deceptive (欺骗性的) packaging rumpus (喧嚣)started because Senator Hart discovered that the boxes of cereals consumed by him, Mrs. Hart, and their children were becoming higher and narrower, with a decline of net weight from 12 to 10.5 ounces, without any reduction in price. There were still twelve biscuits, but they had been reduced in size. Later, the Senator rightly complained of a store-bought pie in a handsomely illustrated box that pictured, in a single slice, almost as many cherries as there were in the whole pie.

The manufacturer who increases the unit price of his product by changing his package size to lower the quantity delivered can, without undue hardship, put his product into boxes, bags, and tins that will contain even 4-ounce, 8-ounce, one-pound, two-pound quantities of breakfast foods, cake mixes, etc. A study of drugstore (杂货店) and supermarket shelves will convince any observer that all possible sizes and shapes of boxes, jars, bottles, and tins are in use at the same time, and, as the package journals show, week by week, there is never any hesitation in introducing a new size and shape of box or bottle when it aids in product differentiation. The producers of packaged products argue strongly again st changing sizes of packages to contain even weights and volumes, but no one in the trade comments unfavorably on the huge costs incurred by endless changes of package sizes, materials, shape, art work, and net weights that are used for improving a product's market position.

When a packaging expert explained that he was able to multiply the price of hard sweets by 2.5, from $1 to $ 2.50 by changing to a fancy jar, or that he had made a 5-ounce bottle look as though it held 8 ounces, he was in effect telling the public that packaging can be a very expensive luxury. It evidently does come high, when an average family pays about $ 200 a year for bottles, cans, boxes, jars and other containers, most of which can’t be used for anything but stuffing the garbage can.

What started the public and Congressional concern about deceptive packaging rumpus？

A．Consumers' complaints about the changes in package size.

B．Expensive packaging for poor quality products.

C．A senator’s discovery of the tricks in packaging.

D．The rise in the unit price for many products.

started because Senator Hart discovered that the boxes of cereals consumed by him, Mrs. Hart, and their children were becoming higher and narrower, with a decline of net weight from 12 to 10 1/2 ounces, without any reduction in price. There were still twelve biscuits, but they had been reduced in size. Later, the Senator rightly complained of a store-bought pie in a handsomely illustrated box that pictured, in a single slice, almost as many cherries as there were in the whole pie.The manufacturer who increases the unit price of his product by changing his package size to lower the quantity delivered can, without undue hardship, put his product into boxes, bags, and tins that will contain even 4-ounce, 8-ounce, one-pound, two-pound quantities of breakfast foods, cake mixes, et

C. A study of drugstore and supermarket shelves will convince any observers that all possible sizes and shapes of boxes, jars, bottles, and tins are in use at the same time, and, as the package journals show, week by week, there is never any hesitation in introducing a new size and shape of box or bottle when it aids in product differentiation. The producers of packaged products argue strongly against changing sizes of packages to contain even weights and volumes, but no one in the trade comments unfavorably on the huge costs incurred by endless changes of package sizes, materials, shape, art work, and net weights that are used for improving a product's market position.When a packaging expert explained that he was able to multiply the price of hard sweets by 2.5, from $1 to $ 2.5 by changing to a fancy jar, or that he had made a 5-ounce bottle look as though it held 8 ounces, he was in effect telling the public that packaging can be a very expensive luxury. It evidently does come high, when an average filmily pays about $ 200 a year from bottles, cans, boxes, jars and other containers, most of which can't be used for anything but stuffing the garbage can.

46 What started the public and Congressional concern about deceptive packaging rumpus？ A Consumers' complaints about the changes in package size. B Expensive packaging for poor quality products. C A Senator's discovery of the tricks in packaging. D The rise in the unit price for many products.

47. The word "undue" (Para. 2)means___________.

A improper

B adequate

C unexpected

D excessive

48. Consumers are concerned about the changes in package size mainly because___________.

A they hate to see any changes in things they are familiar with

B the unit price for a product often rises as a result

C they have to pay for the Cost of changing package sizes

D this entails an increase in the cost of packaging

49. According to this passage, various types of packaging come into existence to___________.

A meet the needs of consumers

B suit all kinds of products

C enhance the market position of products

D introduce new products

50. The author is critical mainly of___________.

A dishonest packaging

B inferior packaging

C tbe changes in package size

D exaggerated illustration on packages

A.rise

B.fall

C.not change

D.be hard to say

ly if______.

A) price of crude rises

B) commodity prices rise

C) consumption rises

D) oil taxes rise