“欧元寓言”之夫妻理财 - FT速读测试

速读测试：“欧元寓言”之夫妻理财

本文作者为肯尼斯·罗格夫（Kenneth Rogoff），美国哈佛大学经济学教授，与卡门·莱因哈特合著《这次与众不同》。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
threshold	入口，临界值
exorbitant	过分的，过高的
contributions	出资
quartet	四重奏
jumbo	巨大的，特大的
mortgage	抵押

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>A euro parable: the young couple with a joint account</b>

Perhaps the following parable is not entirely fair to the euro, but nevertheless the parallels seem striking.

Consider a young couple who is contemplating marriage, but unsure whether to take the big step. So instead they decide to test things out by opening a joint bank account. At first things go remarkably smoothly. Heady with success, they get the inspiration of extending the arrangement to her brother and his sister. Not only do they hope to show their siblings how well they can cooperate, but with four people, the total size of the account reaches the critical threshold needed to receive exorbitant privileges normally accorded to the bank’s larger customers.

Thanks to a cleverly designed constraint to limit imbalances between each sibling’s contributions and withdrawals, the innovative experiment continues to flourish. There is no real enforcement mechanism, but the two sets of siblings are determined to make the arrangement succeed. Forced to interact routinely, the couple and their siblings start becoming closer. They even start having dinners together on a routine basis.

Eventually, the quartet decides that dinners will be even more fun, and the bank will give them an even better deal, if they expand the arrangement. So the siblings persuade a few cousins to join. Pretty soon, their phones are ringing off the hook with family members they have not seen in years. Cousin Kendra, a marginally employed chef with precarious finances, is nevertheless welcomed in hopes she will employ her culinary skills to enrich group meals.

Life is not without its problems. Everyone is irritated at first cousin Nigel, who lives just across the river yet insists on managing his own finances. He is still invited to meals, though his cooking skills are hardly up to Cousin Kendra’s. She, in turn, exhibits little enthusiasm for balancing her chequebook, and the bank sends ever more frequent warnings that her overdrafts would have to be covered by the others. Shortly after joining, a couple other cousins have taken advantage of their new prime customer bank status to buy extravagant apartments with jumbo loans at far lower interest rates than they were ever afforded in the past.

The whole complex scheme seems to survive against all odds until one day things suddenly start to collapse. Despite informal personal imbalance limits, several cousins significantly overdraw their accounts. Others fall behind on mortgage repayments. Panicked, the founding siblings ask themselves whether it might be best simply to kick out the group’s worst behaving members. Unfortunately, the bank informs them this will be very difficult to do without first closing the entire account, wreaking havoc with everone’s finances.

Desperate, the family brings in a well-regarded outside financial advisor. She comes up with the seemingly brilliant idea of a joint credit card, with payments guaranteed unconditionally by all, including the wealthiest cousins. This would allow the impecunious members to pay off bad cheques and mortgages, effectively borrowing against the resources of the others. And it wouldn’t be a gift, the advisor promised. Borrowers would pledge to skip meals. Any savings on ingredients would be used to make loan repayments. This works for a while until cousin Kendra starts to look pale from her diet. She begins missing work and the imbalance between her occasional deposits and frequent withdrawals gets worse. The richest cousins soon find they have to mortgage their houses in order to pledge enough cash to the bank to prevent an immediate collapse.

Of course, this grand experiment ends catastrophically. I will have to leave the reader in suspense as to whether the couple gets married. No doubt, in the film version of this parable, the studio would tape alternate endings and test which one sample audiences liked best.

Perhaps the parable overstates the risks fully independent countries face when sharing the same currency, but then again, maybe not by so much.

Economists have long understood that significant labour mobility is not nearly enough, A sustainable currency union requires other country-like features including a centralised fiscal authority that has as at least as much power to collect taxes as the constituent states. A central financial regulator is also essential, at least absent an adequate global regulator. And the centre cannot be endowed with so much power without the legitimacy that can only come from political union. Currency union without political union is an unstable halfway house.

This is not to say that a future United States of Europe, or part of Europe, needs to take any particular narrowly defined form. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for marriages or currency unions, although a loose bond that is easily broken is obviously not enough.

The real lesson of the euro’s grand experiment is that, given the weak state of global governance, the optimal single currency area is probably still a country, at least when two or more large countries are involved. A pre-nuptial joint bank account is a very unstable route to marriage.

选择正确答案

According to the passage, why does the young couple ,who
is contemplating marriege, open a joint bank account?

Good!
问题答案在正文第二段，文章中说一对正在考虑结婚的夫妇不太确定是否要真的作出这样一个事关后半生的重大决定，所以他们决定通过开通一个联合账户来验证此事。据此，可知答案A与原文意思相反，答案B与答案C都说了原因，但答案C的原因更具体，更准确，故选C。

Because they confirm to take the big step.
Because they decide to test things out by opening a joint bank
account.
Because they are uncertain whether to get married and decide
to test things out.
All of the above.

选择正确答案

In paragraph three, what is the reason of the innovative experiment continues to flourish?

正确！
正确答案在第三段第一句话，因为在兄弟姐妹的出资与入股之间存在着一个早已计划好的局限去限制这种不平衡，所以才会有这样一个创造性的试验继续存在并升级。

The couple needs to receive exobitant privileges normally
accorded to the bank's larger customers.
The two sets of siblings are determined to make the arrangement succeed.
A cleverly designed constraint limits imbalances between each sibling's contributions and withdrawals.
The couple and their siblings start becoming closer.

选择正确答案

Which one is incorrect according to the passage?

Good!
选项A在文章第四段第一句话。
选项B在文章第五段第二句，由此判断B也是正确的。
选项C在文章第八段“In the film version of this parable, the studio would tape alternate endings and test which one sample audiences liked best.”故C正确。
选项D在文章第十段有相关内容”A central financial regulator is also essential, at least absent an adequate global regulator.”而答案的意思是否定的，与原文之意相反，故不正确，选D。

The bank will give the quartet an even better deal if they expand the arrangement.
Cousin Nigel's cooking skills are hardly up to Cousin Kendra's.
In the film version of this parable, the studio would tape alternate endings and test which one sample audiences liked best.
A central financial regulator is essential neither, at least absent
an adequate global regulator.

选择正确答案

According to the author's view, what is the real lesson of the euro's grand experiment?

正确！
根据文章最后一段第一句话可以得出结论，选项A是正确的。

Given the weak state of global governance,the optimal single
currency area is probably still a country.
A pre-nuptial joint bank account is a very unstable route to marriage.
Both A and B.
None is correct.

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

讨论和交流请发表和本次测试相关的内容

<<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