仇富潮流全球化？ - FT速读测试

速读测试：仇富潮流全球化？

本文作者为英国《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：
backlash	后座；后冲
antagonism	对抗，敌对
eschew	避免；避开

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 backlash against the rich has gone global</b>

It is never a great sign when politicians start appealing to taxpayers’ patriotism. Defending the French government’s recent decision to raise the top rate of income tax to 75 per cent, Pierre Moscovici, the country’s finance minister, told Le Monde: “This is not a punitive measure, but a patriotic measure.” The rich, he explained, are being given an opportunity to make “an exceptional contribution” to solving France’s financial problems. I am sure they are very grateful.
France is clearly taking a big risk by raising its tax rates so much higher than those of its neighbours. But it is a mistake to portray the Hollande administration as Socialist dinosaurs. The truth is that the new French government is at the extreme end of a new global trend: an international backlash against the wealthy that is reshaping politics from Europe to the US to China.
David Cameron, the British prime minister, has offered to roll out the red carpet for French tax exiles. But even in Britain, where the top tax rate is 45 per cent, there is a new mood of antagonism towards the rich. Even conservative politicians dare not defend bankers’ pay.
In the US, meanwhile, Barack Obama is campaigning to increase taxes on “millionaires and billionaires”. It is true that the tax rises that the US president wants would be laughably small by French standards. Mr Obama merely wants to raise the top rate from 35 per cent to 39.6 per cent, as well as increasing taxes on capital gains and dividends.
But some of the president’s rhetoric has distinct echoes of the successful Hollande campaign in France. The French socialists made great play of Nicolas Sarkozy’s allegedly “bling” lifestyle and friendships with the super-rich. In similar vein, the Obama campaign has attacked Mitt Romney as a tax-dodging representative of “the 1 per cent” – and mocked his wife’s ownership of a dressage horse. These tactics sound risky because Americans are traditionally said to admire the wealthy, rather than to envy them. But the Obama camp can read polls. By a margin of 64 per cent to 33 per cent, Americans are in favour of higher taxes on those earning more than $250,000.
Political sensitivities about the gap between the wealthy and the rest are not confined to the west. The lifestyles of the rich and powerful is now the most sensitive and dangerous topic in Chinese politics. The website of Bloomberg News was recently shut down in China, apparently as punishment for the publication of an article on the family wealth of Xi Jinping, soon to be China’s new president.
In one incident a couple of weeks ago, riots over pollution in the city of Qindong took a nasty turn when demonstrators demanded to know what brand of clothing the local party secretary was wearing. The BBC reports: “On discovering it was an expensive Italian brand, they are said to have stripped him to the waist.”
Why is all this happening? As Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist writes in a recent essay, “a majority of the world’s citizens now live in countries where the gap between the rich and the rest is a lot bigger than it was a generation ago”. The trend has been most extreme in the west. As Ms Minton Beddoes points out, in the US “the portion of national income going to the richest 1 per cent tripled from 8 per cent in the 1970s to 24 per cent in 2007”.
Eventually that kind of shift is liable to spark a political backlash. The trigger for that reaction has been the Great Recession, which has increased the pressure on the living standards of ordinary people, while exposing misbehaviour at the top. Western politicians, from Barack Obama to François Hollande are seeking to capture and channel this new mood. In Asia, where the Great Recession has hit less hard, other factors may be at work. The internet and the rise of microblogging have made it easier to spread information and to whip up indignation about the gap between the hard-pressed worker and the super-rich.
If this new mood hardens, it could mark the end of an era of lower taxes, deregulation and rising inequality that began in the late 1970s, with the rise of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the west and of Deng Xiaoping in China When Lady Thatcher came to office in 1979, Britain’s top tax rate was 83 per cent. She cut it, first to 60 per cent and then to 40 per cent – where it stayed until the financial crisis. Reagan inherited a top income tax rate of 70 per cent and cut it to 50 per cent and finally to 28 per cent. In China, Deng Xiaoping captured the spirit of the times when he remarked: “To get rich is glorious.”
Now a new global mood has taken hold. In China, political leaders have eschewed the frank celebration of wealth. In the western world, cash-strapped politicians are eager to raise taxes on the newly unpopular rich. The big question is whether this is still possible in a globalised world. As Mr Cameron’s tactless remarks about red carpets have underlined, any government that raises taxes too far and fast is in danger of sparking a flight of capital and business. The super-rich are mobile and well-advised.
The merely well-off, however, are likely to find it harder to evade a new push for higher taxes across the west. James Callaghan, the prime minister Mrs Thatcher defeated in 1979, remarked perceptively: “There are times, perhaps once every 30 years, when there is a sea change in politics.” Roughly 30 years after the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan era, another sea change is upon us.

选择正确答案

What does the writer mean by “it is a mistake to portray the Hollande administration as Socialist dinosaurs”?

Good!
C项是正确的。ABD的说法都与事实相反。奥朗德是社会党人，法国也素以“大政府”著称，另外，原文第二段中说''France is···raising its tax rates so much higher than those of its neighbours.''

Hollande is not a socialist.
Hollande administration is not actually raising too much taxes.
Around the world, not just French socialists are proposing tax rise for the rich.
French government is not very big.

选择正确答案

''David Cameron has offered to roll out the red carpet for French tax exiles.'' What can we learn from this saying?

Good!
B项是正确的，尤其是奥朗德政府对富人进一步提高税收之后。A项是错误的，原文第三段说，''···in Britain···there is a new mood of antagonism towards the rich''。C、D选项在原文中并未提及。

There's little mood of antagonism towards the rich in Britain.
Britain's overall tax rates are lower than France's.
In the past there were a lot of British people fleeing to France.
France usually has a lot of tax exiles.

选择正确答案

Historically speaking, popular mood against the rich happens in differnt times.
According to the passage, which of the follwing is correct?

Good!
ABC三项都是正确的。在原文第八、第九段可以找到。

It could be because the gap between the rich and the rest is a lot bigger today.
It could be triggered in recession times.
It is not unusual that politicians seek to capture this mood.
All of the above is correct.

选择正确答案

The writer mentioned the rise of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Deng Xiaoping in the late 70s, what are their similarities according to him?

Good!
D项是正确的，作者认为这些领导人引领了一个降税收、去管制和收入差距加大的时代。AB两项与事实不符，计划经济体没有通常出现在市场经济国家的税收制度。C项与作者观点相反，作者认为在全文最后一句说：another sea change is upon us.

They were all from the conservative right wing.
They all reduced tax rates by significant standards.
The trend they represented is still ongoing.
They are more in favor of wealth pursuit compared to their predecessors.

放松与总结

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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...

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