西方在阿富汗已经失败 - FT速读测试

速读测试：西方在阿富汗已经失败

本文作者系英国《金融时报》专栏作家吉迪恩·拉赫曼（Gideon Rachman）。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
sardonically	讽刺地
nuke	核武器
intelligence	情报，情报部门

常见问题

阅读FT对你有什么好处？

对于全球的商业精英来说，阅读英国《金融时报》是每天必须进行的修炼。《金融时报》的文章以分析见长，逻辑严密，特别适合准备GRE和GMAT的考生。培生集团推出的PTE考试的阅读题，就是利用了FT的文章来做阅读理解。

阅读速度多快才够用？

在信息爆炸的今天，能够迅速地阅读和理解大量资料，已成为所有人必不可少的技能。对于准备参加各种英语测试的考生来讲，阅读速度可能是决定成绩的关键。要想在GRE和GMAT的考试中拿到高分，你的阅读速度至少要达到每分钟200字。

如何迫使自己提高阅读速度?

我们有一个自动滚屏的工具来帮助你提高速度。点击该按钮后，屏幕就开始滚动，迫使你改掉向回看的习惯，加快速度。默认为每分钟140字（朗读速度）。随着你的技能提升，你可以挑战更高的速度，直到达到1000。

小字速度：+ -

阅读以下文章

<b>The west has lost in Afghanistan</b>

Five years ago the Americans were refusing to speak to the Taliban. Now the Taliban are refusing to speak to the Americans. That is a measure of how the balance of power has shifted in Afghanistan. The western intervention there has failed. As Nato prepares to withdraw from the country in 2014, it is only the scale of the defeat that remains to be determined.

A senior Pakistani official comments sardonically: “I remember when the Americans used to say that the only good Taliban was a dead Taliban. Then they talked about separating the reconcilable from the irreconcilable. Now, they say, the Taliban are not our enemy.” In fact, Nato and Taliban forces are still enemies on the battlefield. But in a desperate effort to leave behind a stable Afghanistan, the US and its allies are also battling to include the Taliban in the political process. However, the Taliban are in no rush to negotiate – and recently broke off talks. With western troops on their way out, there is little pressure on them to compromise now.

Although it was the presence of al-Qaeda that led Nato into Afghanistan, the dreadful nature of the Taliban regime gave the fight an extra moral dimension. Visiting western politicians were always eager to visit a newly opened girls’ school – and to stress the progress for women’s rights.

The Americans insist that the Taliban’s participation in the political process is still dependent on them accepting the current Afghan constitution, which contains all sorts of protections for human rights, and commitments to gender equality. But Afghan reality never matched the words on the page. As one EU foreign minister says: “Three-quarters of the population can’t actually read the constitution, because they are illiterate.”

Even under the current government, the situation of Afghan women is pretty grim. Last week Human Rights Watch released a report highlighting the hundreds of women who are currently jailed in Afghanistan for “moral crimes”, such as resisting a forced marriage, or even complaining about rape. But there have been gains for women, too, particularly in schools and in the cities – and these are likely to be threatened as the Taliban regains influence. For Hillary Clinton, who has made the promotion of women’s rights a theme of her time at the US state department, this must be an especially bitter pill.

The reality, however, is that the killing of Osama bin Laden last year has given the US government all the “closure” it needs to justify a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Nato’s goals for the country are now minimal and focused entirely on security: Afghanistan must never again provide a haven for terrorists – and the country must not become a “failed state”.

Even these minimal goals may not be achieved. The focus of Nato’s efforts has been training and equipping the Afghan security forces, so that they can take over from western troops. But funding the Afghan military costs $8bn-$9bn a year. Will the west continue to be willing to plough that sort of money into Afghanistan – with so many competing claims on funds? If not, as Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister put it at this weekend’s Brussels forum: “We will have given 100,000 people training and a gun, and then made them unemployed.”

Even if the Afghan military hangs together, Afghanistan is quite likely to descend into civil war. That, in turn, is likely to continue to further radicalise the Pakistani Taliban – because of the tribal, military and religious links on either side of the border.

When President Barack Obama came to power, he privately labelled Pakistan “the most frightening country in the world” – and insisted that the Afghan problem could not be separated from the fate of its much larger neighbour: hence the insistence on the ugly term “AfPak”. In the rush to get western troops out of Afghanistan, however, the Pakistani problem is in danger of being neglected.

That too is a mistake, because the situation in Pakistan is just as frightening as when Mr Obama took power. Mr Bildt, a recent visitor to the country, describes it as being in the grip of “hysterical anti-Americanism”. That mood will only be intensified by the news over the weekend that no US servicemen will face charges over the Nato air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November.

The idea that the US is plotting to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has become an obsession, both for the Pakistani media and for much of the country’s ruling class. In response, Pakistan is cranking up the production of nuclear weapons and distributing them all over the country. Given the radicalisation of opinion in the country and the amount of fissile material it is producing, the American nightmare of “loose nukes” is looking uncomfortably realistic.

As a result, the US will remain deeply engaged in counter-terrorism in south Asia. But the drone strikes on jihadists in the tribal areas of Pakistan – which have been the source of America’s biggest successes – are a double-edged sword. They have devastated the leadership of al-Qaeda. But they have also fed the rampant anti-Americanism that can breed the next generation of terrorists.

As a top Pakistani official puts it: “The number three in al-Qaeda has been killed at least five times. But there is always a new number three. It is the mentality that gives rise to al-Qaeda that you need to defeat.” Unfortunately, that mentality is once again on the rise – in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

选择正确答案

About the Americans' attitude toward the Taliban, which of the following is correct?

正确！

The Americans used to say that that the only good Taliban was a dead Taliban.
The Americans had declared that they were irreconcilable with the Taliban.
The Americans is considering to include the Taliban into Afghanistan's political process.
All of the above.

选择正确答案

About the situation of Afghan women, which of the following descriptions is INCORRECT?

正确！
根据"But there have been gains for women, too, particularly in schools and in the cities..."D错误。

A girls' school was newly opened.
There were women being jailed for resisting a forced marriage.
There were women being jailed for complaining about rape.
The situation of Afghan women has been made no better.

选择正确答案

“Even these minimal goals may not be achieved.”
What do "these minimal goals" stand for?

正确！

Never again let Afghanistan become a haven for terrorists.
Hang the Afghan military together.
Prevent Afghanistan from descending into civil war.
Provide $8bn-$9bn to funding the Afghan military.

选择正确答案

"The number three in al-Qaeda has been killed at least five times."
What did the speaker suggest to the Americans with this words?

正确！
这句话的意思是美国每杀死一个基地组织三号人物，就有一个新的三号人物冒出来。因此，美国应该反思其反恐策略，为何其反恐行动总是激起反美情绪。

They should improve their intelligence system, which has given
wrong information on the number three in al-Qaeda for at least five times.
They should stop hunting for the number three in al-Qaeda.
They should reconsider their way of fighting terrorism, avoiding of inciting anti-Americanism.
They should be encouraged by the news that they have killed a person
as high as the number three in al-Qaeda for at least five times.

放松与总结

您答对题目数: 0/5 FT中文网用户平均WPM: 3
我们为金融英语速读的用户创建了论坛，大家可以在这里相互交流经验，帮我们把这个栏目办得更好。

下一测试：Libor丑闻继续上演

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<<后退

开始>>

您的正确率太低，在目前这个阶段，对你来说最重要的是提高英文水平和金融专业水平，而不是速度。请您点击后退仔细查看您答错的题目，并和原文对照。对原文中所有不懂的句子和知识点，也请一一查明。建议您：
1. 在进行下一次训练的时候，将滚屏速度保持在100以下。
2. 您可以找一些有声读物，如《经济学人》的audio edition，帮助你提高英文水平。

看得出你是非常认真来进行这次训练的，如果你坚持的话，你会获得非常大的提高。目前你的阅读速度偏低，可能是因为英文不是你的母语。不过，请不要放慢阅读速度。研究表明，阅读速度越快的人，其理解的正确率反而越高。因此，您可以同时提高您的阅读速度和理解能力。给你一点建议：
1. 一定要改掉默念的习惯
2. 不要一个词一个词的看，要学会把一个语义群当作一个整体来看。比如“an emergency $180bn injection of dollar”这个语义群，你要学会把他当作一个整体来看。
3. 看DVD的时候，切换到英文字幕。

用正常语速来朗读一篇文章，平均速度是每分钟140词。这说明你的阅读速度比朗读还要慢。建议您：1. 每一段的第一句话往往是最重要的。
2. “速读”最忌讳的就是“读”，不要一边看一边默念。
3. 在下一个训练中将滚屏速度设为140，迫使自己不能回头去看已经读过的部分。

您的阅读速度已经超过了正常语速，说明你已经开始有些速读的感觉了。美国大学生的最低阅读速度为每分钟250词，加把劲你就可以赶上了。建议您：
1. 养成习惯，读过的部分不要回头去看，这样会影响速读。
2. 加强“扫描”的训练，让自己的眼睛能“一目一行”。

您的阅读速度已经达到了美国大学生的水平，可喜可贺。不过作为金融从业人员，每天需要阅读数不清的中英文研究报告、公司年报、报刊杂志等，您还需要向每分钟350字进军。建议您：
1. 加强“扫描”的训练，让自己的眼睛能“一目两行”。
2. 对中英文的数字，尤其是大数字(million, billion)的转换进行总结和练习。

厉害，您的阅读速度已经超过了美国大学生的水平。不过，要成为巴菲特那样的金融专家，您需要锻炼出“一目十行”的火眼金睛。建议您在每次的训练中注意三个要点：
1. 您已经学会了将文章分成语义群，而非词来阅读，现在，你需要扩大每一个语义群中的词数。
2. 加快阅读每个语义群的速度。
3. 看过的内容尽量不要回看。

这就是传说中的“一目十行”吗？难以置信！

世界纪录才每分钟416,250字，居然被你破了！无语...

讨论和交流 请发表和本次测试相关的内容

讨论和交流请发表和本次测试相关的内容