Passages 1+2 (explanations)阅读训练.ppt

The Asian Financial Crisis In a breath-taking turn of events, Asias economies have gone from miracle to meltdown in a matter of weeks. Many forecasters who recently predicted GDP growth of 6% in South Korea and Southeast Asia for 1998 are suddenly projecting zero or even negative growth. In the often short-sighted world of international finance, a new conventional wisdom is quickly forming: that inept policy-making is dragging down Asian economies, and that only the tough austerity medicine of the International Monetary Fund, plus a good stiff recession, will bring the regions economies back to track. 1. breath-taking A. very dangerous B. motionless C. very exciting D. horrible 2. meltdown A. the radioactive core of a nuclear power B. a controlled nuclear reaction C. nuclear energy slips out of control and ends up in a full-blown disaster D. the breakdown of the cooling system 3. projecting A. standing out B. designing C. wandering D. calculating 4. inept A. inappropriate B. indifferent C. unscrupulous (not careful) D. unfounded 5. austerity A. efficiency B. decontrolling C. effusiveness (the friendly open trait of a talkative person) D. tightening In recent years, foreign and domestic investors in East Asia got a touch of what U.S. Federal Re-serve Chairman Alan Greenspan has famously termed irrational exuberance. Spurred by years of high economic growth in Asia, these investors poured billions of dollars of loans into the region, financing many worthwhile investments but also an unsustainable real estate boom. 6. exuberance A. vigor B. impotence C. inactivity D. self-confidence 7. spurred A. discouraged B. propelled C. excited D. persuaded 8. boom A. rapid growth B. steady rise C. sudden explosion D. slow expansion This over-investment need not have caused a crisis. A healthy reaction would have involved a gradual cutback in foreign lending, a gradual weakening of Asias overvalued currencies and g