2008年考研英语阅读理解冲刺重点预测25篇（第3篇） - 郑大考研网育博书店

Rich Immigrants in Asia's financial capitals generally have life pretty easy. But this summer, those in Hong Kong and Singapore are starting to sweat. The problem? Sizzling real-estate markets that make even bankers blink, and international schools packed like the Tokyo subway at rush hour. One-bedroom flats in Hong Kong's most fashionable buildings now go for $5,000 per month. Office rents in Singapore have shot up 105 percent in the past year—the fastest appreciation rate in the world. For workers with kids, the picture is particularly bleak. Incoming students at international schools now land not in classes but on long waiting lists—unless their parents jump the queue by purchasing debentures that have sold for as much as $120,000 in Hong Kong.
Asia's dueling financial hubs invest a lot of capital—real and emotional—in what's often cast as a zero-sum contest for the affection of foreign companies. Yet both cities have done so well wooing them of late that the major threat facing each isn't the other, but bottlenecks in the foreign infrastructure common to both. High-end housing costs are pushing past records set before the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, prompting Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, to lament, "We must check this hike in rents or we will lose our competitiveness."
Talent is getting tougher to find as both economies near full employment. Office rents are driving even the richest investment banks to seek cheaper alternatives to prime downtown addresses. And as both cities increase their populations by luring hundreds of thousands of additional outsiders over the coming decade, locals are getting squeezed. "There may be a political cost if Singaporeans feel priced out by foreigners," warns Charles Chong, head of a parliamentary committee on national development in Singapore.
Both cities are, in a sense, victims of their success. Each ranks among the most efficient spots on the planet to register new businesses. They boast world-class banking, accounting and legal services, undergirded by respect for contracts and commercial codes not found in the rest of Asia. In a region awash in cash from record trade surpluses, Chinese expansion and a flood of new stock listings, the cities have posted incredible GDP growth numbers of late—6.8 percent and 7.9 percent for Hong Kong and Singapore, respectively, last year.
Given that local fertility rates are falling, both hubs hope to continue to fuel that boom via immigration. Singapore's Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan expects the city-state's population to hit 6.5 million by 2027, up 2 million from today—which implies a yearly influx of 100,000 foreigners over the next two decades. Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang has said he envisions his city's population eventually surpassing 10 million—a 30 percent increase from today's total—thanks to "an injection of new blood from all nationalities." As the hubs grow more receptive to outsiders, new factors are ensuring that immigrants arrive in large numbers. Whereas globalization was once confined to big multinationals, today's expatriates work disproportionately for smaller-and medium-size companies. Nor are they predominantly European or North America anymore; China, India and South Korea are just three of the many countries now sending professionals abroad.
注（1）：本文选自Newsweek, 08/06/2007
注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象：第1题模仿1994年真题Text 4第3题，第2 题模仿2004年真题Text45第2题，第3、5 题分别模仿2002年真题Text 5第3题和Text 3第4题，第4题模仿1998年真题Text 2第4题。

1． Foreigners in Hong Kong begin to sweat because _______.
  [A] the real-estate market is cooling down.
they cannot afford children’s tuition fee at international schools.
[C] the city is over-populated.
[D] the hiking rents are making life tougher.

2． We learn from the second paragraph that _______.
  [A] Hong Kong and Singapore consider each other as competitors.
both the two cities should not import foreigners.
[C] the two cities share no common problem.
[D] Lee Kuan Yew’s comment shows that he’s optimistic.

3． According to the text, local people in the two cities _______.
  [A] do not welcome overseas talents.
are facing worse living conditions.
[C] are unsatisfied with the government.
[D] are in full employment.

4． Which of the following is NOT the reason of the region’s abundance of capital?
  [A] efficiency of business registration
China’s development
[C] booming stock market
[D] benefit from trade

5． We can draw a conclusion from the last paragraph that _______.
[A] the conflict between population and rent in the two cities might be more serious.
most of the foreigners work in big multinational companies.
[C] both cities will adopt measures to control population.
[D] the influx of foreigners can damage local economy.

篇章剖析
本文是一篇说明文，介绍了香港和新加坡这两个欣欣向荣的亚洲金融中心地价和房租飞涨的情况及其具体原因。文章第一段介绍了香港和新加坡令人乍舌的高房租给人们的工作生活带来的困难；第二、三段进一步地阐发问题所在及其严重性；第四、五段则分析了造成这种局面的根本原因在于两座城市的成功。

词汇注释
sizzle [sizl] vi.咝咝的响，烧灼    lure [ljuE] v. 引诱
blink [bliNk] v. 眨眼             squeeze [skwi:z] v. 压榨, 挤, 挤榨
pack [pAk] vi. 挤, 群集          boast [bEust] v.自夸, 以有...而自豪
bleak [bli:k] adj.荒凉的, 凄凉的    undergird [`Qnd`gE:d] v.加强, 巩固...的底部
debenture [di`bentFE] n. 债券       awash [E`wCF] adj. 被浪冲打的
duel [djuEl] v. 决斗，双方抗争    fertility [fE:`tiliti] n. 人口生产
hub [hQb] v. 中心                influx [`inflQks] n.流入；汇集
woo [wu:] v. 追求，争取…支持    envision [in`viVEn] vt. 想象; 预见; 展望
bottleneck [bCtl`nek] n. 瓶颈       injection [in`dVekFEn] n. 注射，注入
lament [lE`ment] vi.悔恨, 悲叹    expatriate [eks`pAtrieit] n. 移居国外者

难句突破
Asia's dueling financial hubs invest a lot of capital—real and emotional—in what's often cast as a zero-sum contest for the affection of foreign companies.

主体句式  Asia’s financial hubs invest in…
结构分析  该句结构并不复杂，但是其中修饰成分较多，容易引起混淆。两个破折号中间的“real and emotional”用来补充修饰前面提到的“capital”。此外，invest in这个短语后面通常跟的都是sth, 而句中的sth就是what引导的主语从句。
句子译文  这两个竞争激烈的亚洲金融枢纽为了赢得外国公司的偏好，都在所谓的零和竞争(零和竞争原意指一种技术的应用带来的市场份额上的增加,必然会导致另一种技术在市场份额上的减少,双方加起来的总变化量为零)上投下了大笔资金—不论是实际的还是情感上的。

题目分析
1．D. 细节题。文章第一段提到的香港那些富裕的移民们开始冒汗是一种比喻的说法，意指他们开始变得紧张，后面指出问题所在是由于房价现在高得离谱，使得他们现在的生活开始变得不像以前那么轻松舒适。可见，令他们紧张的上涨的房价。

2．A. 细节题。文章第二段第一句话中的“dueling”含有决斗、竞争的意思，说明了两座城市都视对方为竞争者。

3．B. 细节题。根据文章第三段，随着外来人口越来越多，两座城市的本地人口住得越来越拥挤，可见本地人的居住环境正在变差。

4．A. 细节题。第四段第三行指出“不断创纪录的贸易顺差、中国的不断扩张、以及来自无数新上市的股票，所有这些都是得这个地区充斥着各种资金”，答案显而易见。

5．A. 推理题。根据文章最后一段，两座城市的政治家们都希望进一步扩大本地的人口规模，以促进经济的发展。考虑到前文指出两地目前的人口和土地之间已经产生了尖锐的矛盾，可以推出未来随着人口的增长，这一冲突将会更加严重。

参考译文
居住在一些亚洲金融中心的那些富有移民们通常过着非常轻松的生活。但是今年夏天，连香港和新加坡的富人们也开始冒汗了。问题在哪里呢？过热的房地产市场让银行家们都惊讶地不停眨眼，许多国际学校更是拥挤得像高峰时段的东京地铁。香港那些豪华高楼中的一居室房租高达每月5000美元。新加坡的写字楼房租在过去的一年中更是上涨了105个百分点—这是世界上最快的升值率。对于那些有孩子的雇员来说，情况更加窘迫。香港的国际学校中那些新来的学生们无法直接被分到班级中，而必须要在长长的等待列表中排队—如果不想排队，那么他们的父母必须花费12万美元来购买相应的债券。
这两个竞争激烈的亚洲金融枢纽为了赢得外国公司的偏好，都在所谓的零和竞争上投下了大笔资金—不论是实际的还是情感上的。两座城市在吸引外国公司上都做得非常成功，但是现在对于他们来说，最大的威胁不是来自于对方，而是来自一个共同的问题，即为外国人进行基础设施建设的瓶颈。高档住房的花费在1997-98年的亚洲金融危机之前一直不断地在打破纪录，以至于新加坡国父李光耀感慨道：“我们必须要控制房租的高涨，否则我们会失去竞争力。”
这两个经济体几乎都已经实现了饱和就业，因此对于人才来说找工作也变得更加困难。写字楼的房租高到连最有钱的投资银行都开始在中心城市以外的地方寻找更加便宜的办公室。在过去的十年中，这两座城市都通过吸引了成千上万的移民来增加其人口规模，以至于本地人的居住环境越来越拥挤。新加坡议会的国家发展委员会主席查尔斯·宋警告道：“如果新加坡人觉得因为外国人的到来使得价格变得如此高昂，那么这就有一个政治的成本。”
从某种意义上来说，这两座城市都是自身成功的受害者。它们都是这个星球上注册新公司最高效的地方。它们以拥有世界级的金融、会计和法律服务为豪，并充分尊重合同和商业术语，这在亚洲的其他地方是见不到的。不断创纪录的贸易顺差、中国的不断扩张、以及无数新上市的股票，所有这些都是得这个地区充斥着各种资金，从而推动着两个城市以令人难以置信的速度发展，去年香港和新加坡的GDP分别增长了6.8和7.9个百分点。
由于当地的出生率不断降低，这两个金融枢纽都希望继续通过吸引移民来推动增长。新加坡的国家发展部长马宝山希望这个城市国家的人口到2027年能够达到650万，即比现在增加200万人—这意味着在接下来的20年中，新加坡每年要输入10万外国人。香港行政长官曾荫权曾经表示，他希望这座城市的人口能够最终突破1000万—即比现在的人口数增长百分之30—且人口增长将包括“来自各个国家的新鲜血液”。随着两座城市更加尊重外来人口，一些新的因素保证了将会有更大规模的移民迁入。过去，人们认为全球化仅限于那些大规模的跨国公司，但现在大部分移民却都是在为小型和中型的公司工作。这些移民也不再是主要来自于欧洲和北美；越来越多的国家都在向国外输出专业人才，其中包括中国、印度和韩国。