剑桥雅思6：Test1雅思阅读 PASSAGE 2原文+真题+答案

　　READING PASSAGE 2

　　阅读第2节

　　You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14- -26, which are based on Reading Passage 2below.

　　你应该花大约20分钟在14-26的问题上，这些问题是基于下面的阅读通道2.

　　The vast expansion in international trade owes much to a revolution in the business

　　国际贸易的巨大扩张在很大程度上归功于商业上的一场革命。

　剑桥雅思6：Test1雅思阅读READING PASSAGE 2原文+真题+答案

　　A International trade is growing at a startling pace. While the global economy has been expandingat a bit over 3% a year, the volume of trade has been rising at a compound annual rate of abouttwice that. Foreign products, from meat to machinery, play a more important role in almost everyeconomy in the world, and foreign markets now tempt businesses that never much worried

　　国际贸易正在以惊人的速度增长。尽管全球经济以每年略高于3%的速度扩张，但贸易量却以每年约两倍的复合速度增长。外国产品，从肉类到机械，在世界上几乎所有的经济体中都扮演着更重要的角色，而外国市场现在吸引了那些从未担心过的企业。

　　about sales beyond their nation's borders.

　　关于他们境外的销售。

　　B What lies behind this explosion in international commerce? The general worldwide decline intrade barriers, such as customs duties and import quotas, is surely one explanation. The

　　B国际商业爆炸背后的原因是什么?关税和进口配额等全球贸易壁垒的普遍下降，无疑是一种解释。这个

　　economic opening of countries that have traditionally been minor players is another. But oneforce behind the import- export boom has passed all but unnoticed: the rapidly falling cost ofgetting goods to market. Theoretically, in the world of trade, shipping costs do not matter.Goods, once they have been made, are assumed to move instantly and at no cost from

　　传统上是次要角色的的经济开放也是另一种情况。但是，进出口繁荣背后的一股力量已经过去了，几乎没有人注意到：商品进入市场的成本迅速下降。从理论上讲，在贸易世界中，运输成本并不重要。货物一旦被制造出来，就被认为是立即转移的，而且是免费的。

　　place to place. The real world, however, is full of frictions. Cheap labour may make Chineseclothing competitive in America, but if delays in shipment tie up working capital and causewinter coats to arrive in spring, trade may lose its advantages.

　　从一个地方到另一个地方。然而，现实世界充满了摩擦。廉价的劳动力可能会使中国在美国有竞争力，但如果延迟发货会把营运资金和因果外衣拖到春季，贸易可能会失去优势。

　　C At the turn of the 20th century, agriculture and manufacturing were the two most importantsectors almost everywhere, accounting for about 70% of total output in Germany, ltaly andFrance, and 40- 50% in America, Britain and Japan. International commerce was thereforedominated by raw materials, such as wheat, wood and iron ore, or processed commodities, such as meat and steel. But these sorts of products are heavy and bulky and the cost oftransporting them relatively high.

　　C在20世纪初，农业和制造业几乎是世界上最重要的两个部门，在德国、意大利和法国约占总产量的70%，在美国、英国和日本占40-50%。因此，国际贸易主要是小麦、木材和铁矿石等原材料，或肉类和钢铁等加工商品。但这类产品笨重笨重，运输成本相对较高。

　　D Countries still trade disproportionately with their geogr aphic neighbours. Over time, however, world outpul has shifted into goods whose worth is unrelated to their size and weight. Today, it is finished manufactured products that dominate the flow of trade, and, thanks to

　　D各国仍不成比例地与其地缘邻国进行贸易。然而，随着时间的推移，世界产量已经转移到与其大小和重量无关的商品上。今天，它是主导贸易流动的制成品，而且，多亏了

　　technological advances such as lightweight components, manufactured goods themselveshave tended to become lighter and less bulky. As a result, less transportation is required forevery dollar's worth of imports or exports.

　　技术进步，如轻量化部件、制成品本身，往往变得更轻、更不笨重。因此，进口或出口的美元价值所需的运输量就会减少。

　　E To see how this influences trade, consider the business of making disk drives for computers.Most of the world's disk-drive manufacturing is concentrated in South-east Asia. This is

　　为了了解这对贸易的影响，请考虑为计算机生产磁盘驱动器的业务，世界上大部分的磁盘驱动器制造业都集中在东南亚。这是

　　possible only because disk drives, while valuable, are small and light and so cost litle toship. Computer manufacturers in Japan or Texas will not face hugely bigger freight bills ifthey import drives from Singapore rather than purchasing them on the domestic market.Distance therefore poses no obstacle to the globalisation of the disk drive industry.

　　可能只是因为磁盘驱动器，虽然很有价值，但体积小，重量轻，所以成本很低。日本或德克萨斯州的电脑制造商如果从新加坡进口驱动器，而不是在国内市场上购买，就不会面临更大的运费，因此，距离不会对磁盘驱动器行业的全球化构成障碍。

　　F This is even more true of the fast-growing information industries. Fims and compact discscost itte to transport, even by aeroplane. Computer software can be 'exported' without everloading it onto a ship, simply by transmitting it over telephone lines trom one country to

　　F增长的信息产业更是如此.FIMS和紧凑型飞机甚至可以通过飞机进行运输。计算机软件可以“输出”，而不需要将其装载到船上，只需通过电话线将其传送到一个。

　　another, so freight rates and cargo-handling schedules become insigniticant factors in

　　另一个原因是运费和货物装卸时间表成为了重要的因素。

　　deciding where to make the product. Businesses can locale based on other considerations, such as the availablity of labour, while worrying less about the cost of delivering their output.G In many countries deregulation has helped to drive the process along But, behind the

　　决定在哪里生产产品。企业可以基于其他方面的考虑，例如劳动力的可得性，同时减少对交付产出成本的担忧。g在许多，放松管制有助于推动这一进程，但在这一进程的背后

　　scenes, a series of technological innovations known broadly as containerisation and inter-modal transportation has led to swift productivity improvements in cargo-handling. Fortlyyears ago. the process of exporting or importing involved a great many stages of handing.which risked portions of the shipment being damaged or slolen along the way. The inventionof the container crane made it possible to load and unload containers without capsizing theship and the adoption of standard container sizes llowed almost any box to be transportedon any ship. By 1967, dual-purpose ships, carrying loose cargo in the hold* and containerson the deck, were giving way to al-container vessels that moved thousands of boxes at atime.

　　一系列被广泛称为集装箱化和多式联运的技术创新导致了货物装卸生产率的迅速。四年前。出口或进口的过程涉及到许多阶段的操作，这可能会使部分货物在运输过程中受到损坏或倾斜。集装箱起重机的发明使得在不倾覆集装箱的情况下装卸集装箱成为可能，采用标准的集装箱尺寸几乎可以使任何一艘船上的任何箱子都变小。到了1967年，在货舱中载运松散货物的双重用途船只，以及集装箱甲板，正在让位给装运数千箱集装箱的铝集装箱船。

　　H The shipping container transtformed ocean shipping into a hignly eficient, intensely

　　集装箱将远洋运输转变为高度、密集的海运。

　　competitive business. But getting the cargo to and from the dock was a diterent story.National governments, by and large. kept a much firmer hand on truck and railroad tarifsthan on charges for ocean freight. This starled changing, nowever. in the mid- 1970s, whenAmerica began to deregulate is transportation industry. First airlines, then road hauliers andrailways, were freed from restrictions on what they could carry. where they could haul it andwhat price they could charge. Big productivity gains resulted. Between 1985 and 1996, torexample, America's freight railways dramatically reduced their employment, trackage, andtheir fleels of locomotives - while increasing the amount of cargo they hauled Europe'srailways have also shown marked, albeit smaller, productivity improvements.

　　有竞争力的生意。但是，把货物进出码头是一个双重的故事。政府，总的来说。在卡车和铁路收费方面比海运收费要强硬得多。这是变幻莫测的现在。20世纪70年代中期，美国开始放松对交通运输业的管制。首先，航空公司，然后是公路和铁路公司，从他们可以携带的东西的限制中解脱出来。他们可以把它拖到哪里，他们能收取多少钱。大大了生产率。从1985年到1996年，美国的货运铁路大大减少了他们的就业，跟踪，以及他们的机车车队--同时，他们运输欧洲铁路的货物数量也有了显著的，尽管了生产力。

　　1 In America the period of huge productivity gains in transportation may be almost over, but inmost countries the process still has far to go. State ownership of railways and airlines,

　　1在美国，运输生产率的大幅时期可能已经过去，但在大多数，这一过程仍有很长的路要走。铁路和航空公司的所有权，

　　regulation of freight rates and toleration of anti-competitive practices, such as

　　对运费率的管制和对反竞争做法的容忍，例如

　　cargo-handling monopoles, all keep the cost of shipping unnecessaily high and deterinternational trade. Bringing these barriers down would help the world's economies groweven closer.

　　货物装卸垄断，都保持了不必要的航运成本，阻碍了国际贸易的发展.降低这些壁垒将有助于世界经济更加接近增长。

　　Questions 14-17

　　问题14-17

　　Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-I.

　　阅读通道2有九段，A-I。

　　Which paragraph contains the following information?

　　哪一段包含以下信息?

　　Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 14- -17 on your answer sheet.

　　把正确的字母A-I写在答题纸上的方框14-17中.

　　14 、a suggestion for improving trade in the future

　　14、关于今后改善贸易的建议

　　15 、the effects of the introduction of electronic delivery

　　15、采用电子交付的效果

　　16 、the similar cost involved in transporting a product from abroad or from a local supplier17 the weakening relationship between the value of goods and the cost of their delivery

　　16、从国外或从当地供应商运输产品所涉及的类似费用17货物价值与交货成本之间的关系减弱。

　　Questions 18-22

　　问题18-22

　　Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

　　以下陈述是否与“阅读通道2”中提供的信息一致?

　　In boxes 18- -22 on your answer sheet, write

　　在答题纸上的框18--22中，写上正确答案

　　TRUE if the statemen agrees with the information 　　如果州议员同意这一信息假的

　　FALSE 　if the statement contradicts the information 　　　如果陈述与信息相矛盾

　　NOT GIVEN　if there is no information on this 　如果没有这方面的信息

　　18 、International trade is increasing at a greater rate than the world economy.

　　18、国际贸易的增长速度超过世界经济。

　　19、 Cheap labour guarantees elective trade conditions.

　　19、廉价劳动力保证了选择性贸易条件。

　　20、 Japan imports more meat and steel than France.

　　20、日本进口的肉类和钢材比法国多。

　　21、 Most countries continue to prefer to trade with nearby nations.

　　21、大多数仍然倾向于与邻近进行贸易。

　　22、 Small computer components are manufactured in Germany.

　　22、个小型计算机部件是在德国制造的。

　　Questions 23- -26

　　问题23-26

　　Complete the summary using the list of words, A-K, below.

　　使用下面的单词列表A-K来完成总结。

　　Write the correct letter, A- -K, in boxes 23- -26 on your answer sheet.

　　把正确的字母A-K写在答题纸上的方框23--26中。

　　THE TRANSPORT REVOLUTION

　　运输革命

　　Modern cargo· handling methods have had a significant effect on 23....... as thebusiness of moving freight around the world becomes increasingly streamlined.

　　现代货物·装卸方式对23.....例有显著影响就像世界各地的货运业务日益精简。

　　Manufacturers of computers, for instance, are able to import 24.......　from overseas, rather than having to rely on a local supplier. The introduction of25....... has meant that bulk cargo can be safely and efficiently moved over long ....distances. While international shipping is now efficient, there is still a need for governments loreduce 26...　in order to free up the domestic cargo sector

　　例如，计算机制造商可以进口24.....。而不是依赖当地的供应商。引进25...意味着散装货物可以安全有效地运输很长一段时间距离。虽然国际航运现在是有效率的，但仍然需要各国政府减少26......为了解放国内货运业

    Reading Passage 2, Questions 14-26

       14 I

　　15 F

　　16 E

　　17 D

　　18 TRUE

　　19 FALSE

　　20 NOT GIVEN

　　21 YES

　　22 YES

　　23 NO

　　24 NOT GIVEN

　　25&26 IN EITHER ORDER

　　C

　　E