考研英語閱讀理解精讀100篇：Unit 8

Unit 8

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）：本文選自Newsweek；

注（2）：本文習題命題模仿對象：第1題模仿2014年真題Text 2第4題，第2題模仿2015年真題Text 3第1題，第3題模仿2008年真題Text 2第3題，第4題模仿2010年真題Text 2第2題，第5題模仿2006年真題Text 3第5題。

1. Foreigners in Hong Kong begin to sweat because _______.

A) the real-estate market is cooling down

B) 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 can learn from the second paragraph that ______.

A) Hong Kong and Singapore consider each other as competitors

B) both two cities should not attract any more foreigners because there will not be enough land to hold them

C) the “bottlenecks” refer to the fact that the infrastructures of the two cities are not pleasant enough to woo foreign companies

D) Lee Kuan Yew’s comment shows that he’s pessimistic about Singapore’s future development

3. According to the text, local people in the two cities _______.

A) do not welcome overseas talents

B) 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.

B) 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 since both cities plan to enlarge their citizen number

B) the population increase plan of the two cities can hardly be fulfilled as the higher living expense damages their attractiveness

C) the definition of globalization has been changed mainly because most local people refuse to work in multinational companies

D) the influx of foreigners can damage local economy because they will compete for the limited resources with locals

篇章剖析

本文是一篇說明文，介紹了中國香港和新加坡這兩個欣欣向榮的亞洲金融中心地價和房租飛漲的情況及其具體原因。文章第一段介紹了中國香港和新加坡令人咋舌的高房租給人們的工作和生活帶來的困難；第二、三段進一步闡發(fā)問題的所在及其嚴重性；第四、五段則分析了造成這種局面的根本原因在于兩座城市的成功。

詞匯注釋

sizzle /?s?zl/ vi. 咝咝地響，燒灼

blink /bl??k/ v. 眨眼

pack /p?k/ vi. 擠，群集

bleak /bli?k/ adj. 荒涼的，凄涼的

debenture /d??bent??(r)/ n. 債券

duel /dj??l/ v. 決斗，雙方抗爭

hub /h?b/ n. 中心

woo /wu?/ v. 追求，爭取…支持

bottleneck /?b?tlnek/ n. 瓶頸

lament /l??ment/ vi. 悔恨，悲嘆

lure /lj??/ v. 引誘

squeeze /skwi?z/ v. 壓榨，擠，擠榨

boast /b??st/ v. 自夸，以有…而自豪

undergird /??nd??ɡ??d/ v. 加強，鞏固…的底部

awash /??w??/ adj. 被浪沖打的

fertility /f??t?l?ti/ n. 人口出生

influx /??nfl?ks/ n. 流入；匯集

envision /?n?v??n/ vt. 想象；預見；展望

injection /?n?d?ek?n/ n. 注射，注入

expatriate /?eks?p?tri?t/ n. 移居國外者

難句突破

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.

主體句式：Asia’s financial hubs invest in...

結構分析：該句結構并不復雜，但是其中修飾成分較多，容易引起混淆。兩個破折號中間的“real and emotional”用來補充修飾前面提到的“capital”。此外，invest in這個短語后面通常跟的都是sth.，而句中的sth. 就是what引導的主語從句。

句子譯文：這兩個競爭激烈的亞洲金融樞紐為了贏得外國公司的青睞，都在所謂的零和競爭（零和競爭原意指一種技術的應用帶來的市場份額上的增加，必然會導致另一種技術在市場份額上的減少，雙方加起來的總變化量為零）上投入了大量資金——不論是實際的還是情感上的。

題目分析

1. D 細節(jié)題。文章第一段提到的香港那些富裕的移民們開始冒汗是一種比喻的說法，意指他們開始變得緊張，后面指出問題所在是由于房價現(xiàn)在高得離譜，使得他們現(xiàn)在的生活開始變得不像以前那么輕松舒適?？梢姡钏麄兙o張的是上漲的房價。

2. A 推理題。文章第二段第一句話中的“dueling”含有“決斗、競爭”的意思，說明了兩座城市都視對方為競爭者。B選項的錯誤原因在于文章并沒有指出因為土地的限制，兩座城市應該限制外國人的進入。C選項的錯誤在于所謂的“瓶頸”并不在于其城市基礎設施建設沒能贏得外國公司的偏愛，而是兩座城市已經(jīng)贏得了外國公司的偏愛，但是由于租金過高迫使他們不得不離開。D錯誤的原因是這里的態(tài)度既不是悲觀，也不是樂觀，只是客觀地指出了問題所在。

3. B 細節(jié)題。根據(jù)文章第三段，隨著外來人口的增多，兩座城市的本地人口住得越來越擁擠，可見本地人的居住環(huán)境正在變差。A和C選項的錯誤原因在于文章并沒有指出本地人不歡迎外地人或者對政府不滿意。D選項錯誤是因為文章第三段第一句話指出就業(yè)幾乎已經(jīng)飽和，但并不是完全飽和。

4. A 細節(jié)題。第四段第四句指出“不斷刷新紀錄的貿(mào)易順差、中國的不斷擴張，以及無數(shù)新上市的股票，所有這些都使得這個地區(qū)充斥著各種資金”，答案顯而易見。而A選項中的“注冊新公司效率高”的直接效果應該是促進本地商業(yè)與貿(mào)易的繁榮，資金的增加只是一個間接的效果。

5. A 推理題。根據(jù)文章最后一段，兩座城市的政治家們都希望進一步擴大本地的人口規(guī)模，以促進經(jīng)濟的發(fā)展。考慮到前文指出兩地目前的人口和土地之間已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生了尖銳的矛盾，可以推出未來隨著人口的增長，這一沖突將會更加嚴重。B選項的錯誤在于文章的結論并沒有指出兩座城市的人口增長計劃無法實現(xiàn)，相反，其領導人對于人口增加顯得相當有信心。C選項與文中意思相左，不是本地人拒絕進入跨國公司，而是現(xiàn)在大部分外國人都傾向于到中小型公司工作。D選項陳述也與文意不符，因為文章并不認為外國人會破壞當?shù)亟?jīng)濟。

參考譯文

那些居住在亞洲金融中心的富有移民們普遍過著非常輕松的生活。但是今年夏天，連中國香港和新加坡的富人們也開始焦慮了。問題在哪里呢？過熱的房地產(chǎn)市場甚至令銀行家們都感到驚訝，許多國際學校更是擁擠得像高峰時段的東京地鐵。香港大部分豪華高樓中的一居室房租現(xiàn)高達每月5000美元。新加坡的寫字樓房租在過去的一年中更是上漲了105個百分點——這是世界上最快的升值率。對于那些有孩子的雇員來說，情況尤為窘迫。香港的國際學校中那些新來的學生們現(xiàn)在無法直接被分到班級中，而必須要在長長的等待列表中排隊——除非他們的父母插隊來購買售價高達12萬美元的債券。

這兩個競爭激烈的亞洲金融樞紐為了贏得外國公司的青睞，都在所謂的“零和競爭”上投入了大量資金——不論是實際的還是情感上的。兩座城市在吸引外國公司上都做得非常成功，但是現(xiàn)在對于他們來說，最大的威脅不是來自于對方，而是來自一個共同的問題，即為外國人進行基礎設施建設的瓶頸。高檔住房的花費正在突破1997~1998年亞洲金融危機前的紀錄，以至于新加坡國父李光耀感慨道：“我們必須要控制房租的高漲，否則我們會失去競爭力?！?

這兩個經(jīng)濟體幾乎都已經(jīng)實現(xiàn)了充分就業(yè)，因此尋找人才也變得更加困難。寫字樓的房租高到連最有錢的投資銀行都開始在市中心以外的地方尋找更加便宜的辦公室。在接下來的10年中，這兩座城市都通過吸引成千上萬的移民來增加其人口規(guī)模，以至于本地人的居住環(huán)境越來越擁擠。新加坡議會的國家發(fā)展委員會主席查爾斯·宋警告道：“如果新加坡人覺得因為外國人的到來使得價格變得如此高昂，那么這就有了一個政治成本?！?

從某種意義上來說，這兩座城市都是自身成功的受害者。它們都是這個星球上注冊新公司最高效的地方。它們以擁有世界級的金融、會計和法律服務為豪，并充分尊重合同和商業(yè)法規(guī)，這在亞洲的其他地方是見不到的。不斷刷新紀錄的貿(mào)易順差、中國的不斷擴張，以及無數(shù)新上市的股票，所有這些都使得這兩座城市充斥著各種資金，從而推動著它們以令人難以置信的速度發(fā)展，去年香港和新加坡的GDP分別增長了6.8個和7.9個百分點。

由于當?shù)氐某錾什粩嘟档?，這兩個金融樞紐都希望繼續(xù)通過吸引移民來推動增長。新加坡的國家發(fā)展部長馬寶山希望這個城市國家的人口到2027年能夠達到650萬，即比現(xiàn)在增加200萬人——這意味著在接下來的20年中，新加坡每年要輸入10萬外國人。香港行政長官曾蔭權曾經(jīng)表示，他希望這座城市的人口能夠最終突破1000萬——即比現(xiàn)在的人口總數(shù)增長30%——且人口增長將包括“來自各個國家的新鮮血液”。隨著兩座城市更加接受外來人口，一些新的因素保證了將會有更大規(guī)模的移民遷入。過去，人們認為全球化僅限于那些大規(guī)模的跨國公司，但現(xiàn)在大部分移民卻都是在為小型和中型的公司工作。這些移民也不再是主要來自于歐洲和北美；很多的國家都在向國外輸出專業(yè)人才，其中包括中國、印度和韓國。