Economist - Voc Buildup

Question 1

1. Explicit or vulgar (explicit vulgarity is a selling point)
2. That does not stop Americans from lapping them up.
3. A show called “Never Divorce a Secret Billionaire Heiress” dives head first into a seedy melee of passion and betrayal.
4. The first ten minutes depict coerced marriages, inheritance battles and sundry infidelities. The storyline is choppy and nearly impossible to follow. To say the acting is hammy would be generous.
5. soapy microseries
6. Viewers, most of whom are blue-collar workers, often end up forking over the equivalent of a cinema ticket to complete the series, says Malik Naibi of Duke 65, a social-media marketing agency.

Answer 1

1. 显而易见的或低俗的（明显的低俗是一个卖点）
2. 但这并没有阻止美国人照单全收。
3. Their audience will lap up whatever they throw at them.
   不管是什么节目，他们的观众都照单全收。
4. 一个名为“绝不与亿万富翁千金离婚”的节目，深入探讨了激情与背叛的龌龊纠葛。
   seedy乌烟瘴气的
   melee 混战
   
   4. 前十分钟描绘了被迫婚姻、继承权之争和各种不忠行为。剧情支离破碎，几乎难以跟进。说演技浮夸还算是客气的。
      sundry 杂项的
      choppy 颠簸
      hammy做作的 过火的
5. 肥皂小短剧
6. 观众们，他们中大多数是蓝领工人，经常最终掏钱相当于一张电影票的价格来看完整个系列，社交媒体营销机构Duke 65的马利克·奈比这样说。

掏钱 I had to fork over fifty dollars for the repair, 不情愿支付 (cough up money) or 付了很多钱（amount is substantial)

Question 2

1. Both companies and their corporate compatriots can now find a home away from home at Hofusan, a Chinese-Mexican industrial park in Nuevo León.
2. The pandemic and the snarl-ups in supply chains it caused also pushed manufacturers to move closer to the American market.
3. Chinese investors are also less particular about environmental and human rights.
4. “mixed-ownership reform”, as it is known, has encouraged private investments in some state firms and vice versa. The philosophy behind the policy was to introduce private capital into clunky state firms
   chunky
   cumbersome
5. Tencent has shed tens of billions of dollars in assets. New Oriental, China’s most promising private-education group before the state snuffed outits entire industry almost overnight, has become an online marketplace for agricultural and other products.

Neighbourhood committees, which are run by the party, occasionally manage disputes. Their job is to snuff out trouble before it reaches higher levels of the bureaucracy.

6. It is not just investors who find the system tiresomely muddled. The view from within is getting hazier, too.

Answer 2

1. 现在，这些公司及其企业同胞可以在新莱昂州的Hofusan中找到一个远离家乡的家，这是一个中墨工业园区。
2. 大流行及其引起的供应链混乱也促使制造商更靠近美国市场转移。
3. 中国投资者对环境和人权问题也不太挑剔。
4. 所谓的“混合所有制改革”鼓励私人投资于一些国有企业，反之亦然。这一政策背后的理念是将私人资本引入笨重的国有企业。
5. 腾讯已经剥离了数百亿美元的资产。在国家几乎一夜之间扼杀了整个行业之前，中国最有前途的私人教育集团新东方，已经变成了农产品和其他产品的在线市场。

snuff out 扼杀 destroy completely；eradicate

居委会由党运行，偶尔会处理纠纷。他们的工作是在问题上升到更高级别的官僚体系之前将其提早解决/扼杀在摇篮中。

6. 不仅仅是投资者发现这个系统令人烦恼地混乱。从内部看，情况也越来越模糊。

Question 3

1. Study after study rams home the potential of large language models (llms), which power ais like Chatgpt, to improve all manner of things.
2. However, disclosing that the feedback came from a machine had the opposite effect: it undermined trust, stoked fears of job insecurity and hurt performance.

That includes seeking opportunities to stoke the outrage of G.O.P. base voters — especially when it comes to what they characterize as “woke” elitism in academia.

3. The Cambridge Dictionary has named “hallucinate” as its word of the year, in tribute to the tendency of llms to spew out false information.
4. The vignettes in the book feature men with names like Tom and Harry. But his ideas remain useful.

Answer 3

1. 一项又一项的研究强调了大型语言模型（如ChatGPT等AI所使用的）改善各种事物的潜力。
   英式英语中把道理讲到家（press a point home）
   
   2. 然而，透露反馈来自机器却产生了相反的效果：它削弱了信任，引发了对工作安全的恐惧，并损害了表现。

引发愤怒
3. 剑桥词典已将“幻觉”命名为年度词汇，以此致敬大型语言模型倾向于输出错误信息的现象。
4. 书中的小插图展示了像汤姆和哈里这样的名字的男性。但他的观点仍然有用。

Question 4

1. In this dark and transfixing comedy-drama, a road-rage incident brings her into the orbit of Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), a second-rate contractor. Mutually assured destruction ensues.
2. Viewers already know the dismal ending to the romance between Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), but the drama is tightly drawn and mesmerising on screen.
3. A gender-swapped remake of the film of 1988. By turns funny and unsettling, the mini-series revolves around twin sisters and gynaecologists
4. This is noir that is uncompromisingly dark.
5. Set in a Yorkshire town, this blistering drama tackles themes of injustice, poverty and organised crime.
6. A casino waitress has an uncanny ability to tell when someone is fibbing
7. Another rollicking murder mystery from Rian Johnson, the writer and director of the “Knives Out” films.
8. Witty and propulsive, it tells a hopeful story of one person standing up for another—and has inspired real women in the country to speak out about sexual harassment.

Answer 4

1. 在这部黑暗而吸引人的喜剧剧情片中，一起路怒事件使她与丹尼·赵（史蒂文·连饰演的二流承包商）的生活产生交集。随后，双方陷入了相互毁灭的漩涡。
   stood transfixed 呆若木鸡
   
   2. 观众已经知道戴安娜王妃（伊丽莎白·德比基饰）和多迪·法耶德（哈利德·阿卜达拉饰）之间的浪漫关系将会走向悲惨结局，但这部剧情紧凑且迷人。
      dismal/abysmal
   3. 这是1988年电影的性别对换翻拍版。轮番幽默和不安，这部迷你剧围绕着一对双胞胎姐妹和妇科医生展开。
   4. 这是一部毫不妥协的黑暗风格的黑色电影。
   5. 这部带劲儿的剧集设定在约克郡的一个小镇，探讨了不公正、贫困和有组织犯罪的主题。

With great speed or force 带劲儿的

6.	一位赌场女服务员拥有判断他人是否在说谎的不寻常能力。 无关紧要的小谎言a lie that is not very important 
7.	来自莱恩·约翰逊的又一部热闹的谋杀悬疑片，他是《利刃出鞘》电影的编剧和导演。 Rollicking, very enjoyable, cheerful not very serious (a rollicking read) 
8.	机智而推动情节发展，讲述了一个人为他人发声的充满希望的故事，并激励了该国的真实女性公开谈论性骚扰。

Question 5

1. Orwell lamented how “Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.”
2. keyboard warriors cannot resist the temptation to reach for the most inflammatory words available. What used to be called chauvinism, then sexism, is now “misogyny”, a word once reserved for actual hatred of women. Those who do not ascribe to left-wing views on race are accused not of bias, prejudice or even racism, but of “white supremacy”, a phrase that just a decade ago was reserved for neo-Nazis.
3. Call it the “dysphemism treadmill”. In its opposite, the “euphemism treadmill” (a term coined by Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard), people run from one polite banality to another. They referred to people as “idiotic” until that became pejorative; then they opted for “retarded”, which became unsayable; and then they devised “special”, which is now a taunt too.
4. You cannot outshout the crowds. So distinguish yourselves by choosing accurate, vivid words between the evasions of euphemism and the temptations of exaggeration.
5. As is true of many modern trends, the most extreme words have radiated from America, where “communist” and “fascist” have nothing to do with sickles or swastikas and are sometimes applied to anyone you disagree with. Social media, the “great awokening” on the left and the magafication of the right have contributed to a verbal crescendo
6. the same word has been used recently to describe an iffy deal to stay in power
7. The worst crime imaginable—“genocide”—is also being bandied about more often.

Answer 5

1. 奥威尔悲叹：“数百万农民被抢走农场，只能带着能背负的东西在道路上艰难行走：这被称为人口迁移或边界矫正。人们在没有审判的情况下被囚禁多年，或被枪击在脖子后面，或被送去因坏血病在北极伐木营死去：这被称为清除不可靠分子。”
2. 键盘战士无法抵抗使用最煽动性词汇的诱惑。曾被称为沙文主义，然后是性别歧视，现在变成了“厌女症”，这个词曾专门用于指真正的对女性的憎恨。那些不持左翼种族观点的人不是被指控有偏见、成见或种族主义，而是被指控为“白人至上主义”，这个词汇在十年前还专指新纳粹。
3. 把它称为“贬义词汇跑步机”。在其对立面，“委婉语跑步机”（由哈佛大学教授史蒂文·平克提出的术语），人们从一个礼貌的陈词滥调跳到另一个。他们曾用“白痴”来形容人，直到它变得贬义；然后他们选择了“迟钝”，这也变得不可说；接着他们创造了“特殊”，现在这也成了嘲讽。
4. 你无法压倒人群的声音。因此，通过在委婉语的回避和夸张的诱惑之间选择准确、生动的词汇来区分自己。
5. 在许多现代趋势中，最极端的词汇来自美国，那里的“共产主义者”和“法西斯分子”与镰刀或卐号无关，有时被用来指任何与你意见不合的人。社交媒体、左翼的“大觉醒”和右翼的“玛加化”都促成了一场语言高潮。
6. 最难以想象的犯罪——“种族灭绝”——也越来越频繁地被滥用。

最近这个词也被用来描述一个为了保住权力的不靠谱的交易。

iffy 不太好

Question 6

1. When Mr Obama first won the presidency in 2008, the two men were hailed as seers. When Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, they were castigated as false prophets.
2. climate eschatology
3. Mr Judis and Mr Teixeira are old-school organised-labour Democrats, with little patience for the newfangled progressives who speak in the language of the faculty lounge.

Star-spangled

3. Ten years ago, as the Republican Party smarted from its second defeat by Barack Obama, a committee of grandees released an “autopsy” analysing what went wrong. One particular worry was the party’s inability to attract non-white voters who were—and still are—in a demographic upswing. The report’s assessment was unsparing and self-flagellating: the voters who described the party as “scary, narrow-minded and out of touch” and labelled it as full of “stuffy old men” had a point.

Answer 6

1. 当奥巴马先生在2008年首次赢得总统大选时，这两位先生被誉为预言家。当希拉里·克林顿在2016年失利时，他们被指责为假先知。
   Seer 预言家
2. 气候末日论
3. 贾迪斯先生和特谢拉先生是传统的组织性劳工党民主党人，对那些使用教师休息室语言的新式进步主义者没什么耐心。
   newfangled 新奇的 新花样的
   星条旗风格
4. 十年前，当共和党因第二次输给奥巴马而感到痛苦时，一个由权威人士组成的委员会发布了一份“尸检报告”，分析了出了什么问题。一个特别的担忧是该党无法吸引非白人选民，这些选民当时——而且现在仍然——处于人口上升趋势。报告的评估是无情而自我鞭挞的：将该党描述为“可怕、狭隘和脱节”的选民，以及将其标签化为“古板的老男人”的说法是有道理的。

out-of-touch 跟时代脱节、不接地气

smart from/over - feel upset over a failure or criticism

Question 7

1. In California he came close to conceding, for the first time, that China is engaged in an economic, technological and geopolitical contest with America, and has an obligation to agree on a set of rules and guardrails that might prevent that competition from veering into disaster
2. An official Chinese readout talks of the two powers “co-operating in areas of shared interest, and responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship”.
3. That may seem arcane, but it is quite a concession. After all, Chinese envoys have spent the past few years declaring it illegitimate and intolerable for America to cast bilateral relations as a competition.
4. Our number-crunching suggests that, in fact, being obese hurts the earnings of both women and men.
5. Alas, it is unlikely to accomplish much. When we restricted our analysis to workers in Michigan, where a similar ban has been in place for nearly 50 years, we found the obesity wage penalty to be no lower than for America as a whole. Outlawing prejudice is one thing. Ironing it out of society is quite another.

Answer 7

1. 在加利福尼亚，他首次接近承认，中国正在与美国进行经济、技术和地缘政治竞争，并有义务同意一套可能防止这种竞争偏离灾难的规则和保障措施。
2. 中国官方的会谈纪要谈到了两个大国在共同利益领域的“合作”，以及负责任地管理关系中的竞争方面。
3. 这可能看起来晦涩难懂，但实际上是相当大的让步。毕竟，过去几年中，中国外交官一直宣称，美国将双边关系视为竞争是不合法且无法接受的。
4. 我们的数据分析显示，实际上，肥胖对女性和男性的收入都有不利影响。
5. 遗憾的是这可能不会取得太多成果。当我们将分析限制在密歇根州的工人身上，那里类似的禁令已实施了近50年，我们发现肥胖的工资惩罚并不低于整个美国的平均水平。禁止偏见是一回事，但将其从社会中消除又是另一回事。

Question 8

1. Houze Song of MacroPolo, a think-tank, worries that the “stimulus is not big enough to reflate the economy”.
2. What explains the government’s fiscal reticence? It may be ideology. But it may also be recent history.
3. The lending spree has been accused of privileging state-owned enterprises, crowding out manufacturing investment, and impeding spending on industrial r&d.

on a winning streak
On a losing streak
The lending spree
The spending spree

Answer 8

1. 宏观智库的侯泽松担心，“刺激措施不足以重新为经济注入活力”。
   
   2. 是什么解释了政府的财政谨慎？这可能是意识形态。但它也可能是近期历史。
   3. 这场借贷热潮被指控偏袒国有企业，挤压制造业投资，并阻碍了工业研发的支出。

Question 9

1. This gripping, moving travelogue recounts the author’s hike across the Caucasus mountains from Russia’s Black Sea coast to the Caspian.
2. Religion produced the critical thinking that welcomed scientific knowledge, and science was often inspired by appreciatingforces beyond our ken
3. A binge-worthy book about television arguing that the risky, rule-breaking shows that defined the golden era for tv in the early 21st century are giving way to less original fare.
4. A journalistic and sobering take on a divisive and timely subject.
5. Facing an ever-growing demand for energy, China isn’t letting up.
6. The growth of nuclear power has stalled in Western countries for a number of reasons.
7. Wind and solar are less suited to this, as they depend on the co-operation of nature. But nuclear fits the bill.

Answer 9

1. 这部扣人心弦、感人的旅行记讲述了作者穿越高加索山脉的徒步旅行，从俄罗斯的黑海海岸到里海。
2. 宗教孕育了欢迎科学知识的批判性思维，而科学往往受到对超出我们认知之力量的欣赏所激发。
3. 一本关于电视的值得一读的书，论证了在21世纪初电视的黄金时代，那些冒险、打破规则的节目正在让位于不那么原创的内容。
4. 对一个分裂且时效性的话题的新闻性和发人深省的看法。
5. 面对日益增长的能源需求，中国并未放缓脚步。
6. 出于多种原因，西方国家的核能发展已经停滞。
7. 风能和太阳能在这方面不太适合，因为它们依赖于自然的合作。但核能正适合这一需求。

Question 10

1. Meanwhile, there is scant evidence that short-selling depresses prices.
2. Had shorts managed to puncture the dotcom bubble earlier, or the more recent ones in spacs and meme stocks, fewer investors would have bought in at the top and lost their shirts.
3. The difference is that the longs are backed by investment banks, public-relations advisers and the companies themselves, all with a clear interest in selling optimism and hype. Markets work better, and capital is allocated more efficiently, when there are also killjoys willing to take the opposing side.
4. Every five years or so its researchers sally out into the field interviewing, at last count, almost 130,000 people in 90 countries.
5. Neighbouring populations loosely cluster together: Europeans in one area, Latin Americans in another, African and Islamic countries in a third, etc. And values tend not to change quickly
6. That does not necessarily invalidate the idea that global values will one day converge. But it does suggest that day may be some way off.
7. Dr Welzel has trawled through the wvs data by age cohort. He finds that in every region each generation becomes more individualistic and secular than the one before.
8. Putin had many reasons for his decision, paranoid as well as calculated.
9. As a rule of thumb, as prosperity spreads, life expectancy rises, fertility rates fall, and education expands, people tend to move towards the secular/rational end of the spectrum. Mr Welzel describes this as a shift in mindset from “prevention focus” (in which people’s main concern is preventing harm and loss to themselves and their family) to what he calls “promotion focus” (under which people seek self-expression and freedom of choice about how to live their lives).
10. But as wealth spreads, basic insecurity recedes. In a more stable environment, people may think more for themselves.

Answer 10

1. 与此同时，几乎没有证据表明卖空会压低股价。
   
   2. 如果做空者能更早地戳破互联网泡沫，或者最近的特殊目的收购公司和迷因股泡沫，就会有更少的投资者在高点买入并赔光积蓄(赔得精光）。
   3. 不同的是，做多的一方得到了投资银行、公关顾问以及公司本身的支持，他们都有明确的兴趣在推销乐观情绪和炒作。当有扫兴者愿意持相反意见时，市场运作得更好，资本分配更有效率。
   4. 每隔大约五年，他们的研究人员会走出去进行田野调查，最近一次调查了大约13万人，遍及90个国家。
   5. 邻近的人群大致聚集在一起：欧洲人在一个区域，拉丁美洲人在另一个区域，非洲和伊斯兰国家在第三个区域等。而且价值观通常不会迅速改变。
   6. 这并不一定意味着全球价值观终将融合的想法是错误的。但这确实表明那一天可能还有一段时间。
   7. 韦尔泽博士已经仔细研究了世界价值观调查（WVS）的按年龄组数据。他发现，在每个地区，每一代人比前一代更加个人主义和世俗化。
   8. 普京做出这个决定有很多原因，有偏执的也有经过计算的。
   9. 一般来说，随着繁荣的传播，预期寿命提高，生育率下降，教育扩展，人们倾向于向世俗/理性的一端移动。韦尔泽先生将这描述为从“预防心态（人们主要关心的是防止对自己及其家人的伤害和损失）到他所谓的“发展心态”（在此人们寻求自我表达和生活方式选择的自由）的心态转变。
   10. 但随着财富的传播，基本的不安全感退却。在更稳定的环境中，人们可能会更加独立思考。

Question 11

1. A brutal battle for southern Garza, beckons after the truce ends.
2. The logic was simple: beating inflation was bound to be painful.
3. Instead, America powered ahead at an annualised pace of roughly 2% growth, even as inflation receded.
4. In 2023 consumers and companies had savings that limited their need for financing; in 2024 they will have thinner buffers, thus increasing their exposure to higher rates.
5. Unemployment, though still low, is ticking up. Once an economic slowdown gets under way, it risks feeding off itself.
6. It has already tumbled from a year-on-year pace of 7% in mid-2022 to about 3%. Some worry that the “last mile” of wrestling it down to the Fed’s target of 2% will be especially challenging, perhaps prompting the central bank to raise its inflation target.
7. It will have an opportunity to do so at the end of 2024, when it launches a quinquennial review of its monetary-policy framework. But it is unlikely to be necessary
8. Indeed, the twin facts of slower growth and quiescent inflation will pave the way for the Fed to start cutting rates again, possibly as soon as mid-2024.
9. President Joe Biden and the Democrats have been frustrated by the low marks that American voters have given him on economic policy.
10. Bradley Cooper was chastised for sporting a prosthetic nose in his biopic of Leonard Bernstein, but “Maestro”, which he also co-wrote and directed, is rich, sensitive and sympathetic, and Mr Cooper brings irresistible verve and pathos to the lead role.
11. Twenty-four years later, they meet again in New York. Celine Song’s bittersweet tale muses on fate, ambition, and everything that is gained and lost by moving to a new country.
12. He and his family bustle around with their servants, ignoring the industrialised mass murder being committed just over their garden wall.

Answer 11

1. 停战结束后，南加尔萨将迎来一场残酷的战斗。
2. 逻辑很简单：击败通货膨胀注定是痛苦的。
3. 相反，尽管通货膨胀有所回落，美国的年化增长率仍然达到了大约2%，继续强劲前行。
4. 2023年，消费者和公司拥有的储蓄减少了他们的融资需求；到2024年，他们将拥有更薄的缓冲层，因此面临更高利率的风险增加。
5. 尽管失业率仍然较低，但正在逐渐上升。一旦经济放缓开始，它可能会自我加剧。
6. 通货膨胀率已从2022年中期的年比7%急剧下降至大约3%。一些人担心，将其降至联邦储备的2%目标的“最后一哩路”将特别具有挑战性，可能促使中央银行提高其通货膨胀目标。
7. 在2024年底，当它启动其货币政策框架的五年一次审查时，将有机会这样做。但这似乎不太可能。
8. 乔·拜登总统和民主党对于美国选民在经济政策上给予的低评价感到沮丧。
9. 布莱德利·库珀因在他关于伦纳德·伯恩斯坦的传记片中佩戴假鼻子而受到批评，但他也是《大师》的合著者和导演，这部影片丰富、敏感且充满同情心，库珀先生在主角中带来了不可抗拒的活力和感染力。
10. 二十四年后，他们在纽约再次相遇。Celine Song的苦乐交织的故事沉思着命运、抱负，以及移居到一个新国家所得到和失去的一切。
11. 他和他的家人与仆人们忙碌地穿梭，忽视了就在他们花园墙外正在进行的工业化大规模屠杀。

Question 12

1. Mr Scholz could declare this another “emergency” year—and face a rumpus in parliament and possibly another court case.
2. The irony of this made-in-Germany snafu is that the country is in perfectly sound financial shape, with a sovereign gross-debt-to-gdp ratio that is half America’s and 25 percentage points below the rest of the eu’s.
3. The blow to spending plans, not only for next year but into the future, is particularly hard for Robert Habeck, the Green deputy chancellor and economic tsar.
4. Teetering in polls on the 5% threshold for gaining seats in parliament, it cannot afford to lose any of its parsimonious core constituents.
5. Even if Purdue’s deal goes through, payouts to individual victims are paltry.

Answer 12

1. 朔尔茨先生可能会宣布今年又是一个“紧急”年份——这将在议会引起一场骚动，甚至可能面临另一起法庭案件。
2. 这种由德国制造的混乱局面的讽刺之处在于，该国的财政状况非常稳健，主权债务占GDP的比例是美国的一半，比欧盟其他国家低25个百分点。
3. 对于明年乃至未来的支出计划的打击，对于绿党副总理兼经济沙皇罗伯特·哈贝克来说尤其艰难。
4. 在民意调查中摇摇欲坠，处于获得议会席位的5%门槛上，它不能负担失去任何一位节俭的核心支持者。
5. 即使普渡的协议通过，对个别受害者的赔偿也是微不足道的。

Question 13

1. The festive season is upon us, and with it some enduring European traditions: twinkly Christmas markets have sprung up across Germany; the Dutch will soon inexplicably parade themselves daubed in blackface; and in Hungary Viktor Orban, the prime minister, is once more plotting to spoil the mood at an end-of-year summit of eu leaders.
2. Getting through December is never easy in Brussels, a place where thorny decisions are ritually pushed back to the last possible moment (the endless rain does not help). Alas, 2023 looks unlikely to end on a high. Not only is the Hungarian euro-Grinch at his most cantankerous, he may soon have a new ally on the hard right after Geert Wilders came top in the Dutch election on November 22nd.
3. To make matters worse, a budget mess-up in Germany is threatening havoc with the eu’s already-strained finances. A summit on December 14th and 15th was meant to succour Ukraine with money and the prospect of accession to the club. Now the prospects for both look wobbly.
4. Europe did at least go into this geopolitical funk with a clear plan to fulfil its duty when it came to Ukraine
5. Europe’s main contribution has been to underwrite Ukraine’s future. For that to be credible there was to be money; some €50bn ($55bn) of eu cash was pledged in June, to help keep the government in Kyiv solvent until the end of 2027. Most importantly, Ukraine would one day get to become a member of the club, a sure way for it to prosper after the war and thus stay out of a revanchist Russia’s clutches.
6. The summit in December was to consecrate progress on both.
7. For months the eu has assumed it could unlock the situation in a time-tested way, ie, by giving in to Mr Orban’s blackmail, at least in part.
8. A hasty rejig of its domestic finances is on the cards. That in turn puts into jeopardy a planned overall increase in the eu budget of which the funding to Ukraine had been a part
9. Inflation-adjusted/inflation-linked/inflation-busting salaries of Brussels staff
10. Scrooge-minded governments such as the Dutch or Swedish ones have lobbied against the extra money; Germany was also sceptical, now it says its hands are tied.
11. The unity that allowed Europe to stand tall in the early days of the conflict is not quite as assured as it once was.

Answer 13

1. 节日季节来临，欧洲一些持久的传统也随之而来：德国遍地开花的闪亮圣诞市场；荷兰人不知为何要涂抹黑脸游行；匈牙利总理维克托·奥尔班正再次在欧盟领导人年终峰会上破坏气氛。
2. 在布鲁塞尔度过十二月从未易事，这是一个习惯于将棘手的决策推迟到最后一刻的地方（没完没了的雨也无济于事）。可惜，2023年看来不太可能以高潮结束。匈牙利的欧元格林奇不仅变得更加脾气暴躁，在11月22日的荷兰选举中名列第一的吉尔特·维尔德斯或许很快就会成为他在极右翼的新盟友。
3. 更糟的是，德国的预算混乱威胁着已经紧张的欧盟财政。12月14日和15日的峰会原本旨在向乌克兰提供经济援助，并展望加入欧盟的前景。现在这两者的前景看起来摇摇欲坠。
4. 至少在涉及乌克兰的责任问题上，欧洲在进入这一地缘政治困境时有一个明确的计划。
5. 欧洲的主要贡献是为乌克兰的未来提供资金支持。为了使这一点可信，欧盟在六月承诺了大约500亿欧元（550亿美元）的资金，以帮助基辅政府维持至2027年底的财政稳定。最重要的是，乌克兰将来能成为俱乐部的一员，这是其战后繁荣并摆脱复仇心态的俄罗斯控制的确定方式。
6. 12月的峰会旨在确认这两方面的进展。
7. 数月来，欧盟一直认为它可以以历经考验的方式解锁局势，即至少部分屈服于奥尔班的勒索。
8. 快速调整国内财政已在考虑之中。这反过来又使得计划中的欧盟预算整体增加处于危险之中，而对乌克兰的资助也是其中的一部分。
9. 布鲁塞尔员工的通货膨胀调整/与通货膨胀挂钩/抗击通货膨胀的薪资。
10. 如荷兰或瑞典这样的吝啬政府一直在游说反对额外的资金；德国也持怀疑态度，现在它说自己手被绑住了。
11. 在冲突初期，欧洲能够昂首挺立的团结现在看来不如以往那么稳固了。

Question 14

1. Many places in the West are also studded with surveillance cameras, while private firms track the virtual movements of app users. (Ubiquitous)
2. The government censors news, such as the story from Zhengzhou, that might cast its surveillance efforts in a negative light.
3. The pandemic and the state’s draconian covid controls may have also soured the public’s mood towards monitoring.
4. A year ago, when a group of young people gathered by a river in Beijing to protest against the government’s harsh “zero-covid” controls, hundreds of officers, including the chief of police, came out to shoo them away.

Answer 14

1. 许多西方地区也布满了监控摄像头，而私营公司则追踪应用用户的虚拟活动。（无处不在）
2. 政府审查新闻，例如郑州的报道，可能会使其监控行动显得负面。
3. 大流行和国家的严厉新冠控制措施可能也让公众对监控的情绪变得愤怒。
4. 一年前，当一群年轻人在北京的河边聚集，抗议政府的严格“清零”控制措施时，包括警察局长在内的数百名警官出动，将他们驱赶走。

Question 15

1. Overton applied his aperture to politicians, not to courts.
2. Nowhere is Mr Trump’s thumbprint on the judiciary deeper than in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the tribunal based in New Orleans that handles appeals from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
3. The Supreme Court, more often than not, is clipping the Fifth Circuit’s wings. According to Adam Feldman, who compiles statistics on the courts, Fifth Circuit rulings were reversed 15 times (and affirmed only seven times) between 2019 and 2022. Of the nine decisions the Supreme Court reviewed in its previous term, it reached the same conclusion as the Fifth Circuit only twice and rebuffed its reasoning in cases involving immigration, student-loan forgiveness and Native American rights, among others.
4. from the Fifth Circuit, Ms Murray reckons. The Supreme Court may be “hailed as heroes” for slapping down some radical positions. But by sometimes endorsing those theories, or only narrowly reversing them (as the court did in an abortion case in 2020), the justices can “move the law subtly to the right” thanks to the Fifth Circuit’s boldness. The outside-the-box rulings and rhetoric of Mr Trump’s most maga judges, she says, are the “muscle” that facilitates the more genteel Supreme Court’s steady rightward march.

Answer 15

1. 奥弗顿把他的视野对准了政治家，而不是法院。
   appertunement to (belonging to/ pertaining to) 有关
   apertune 小孔
2. 在司法体系中，特朗普先生的深刻影响最为明显的是第五巡回上诉法院，这个位于新奥尔良的法院负责处理来自路易斯安那州、密西西比州和德克萨斯州的上诉案件。
3. 根据统计法院数据的亚当·费尔德曼，最高法院通常都在削弱第五巡回上诉法院的权威。从2019年到2022年，第五巡回上诉法院的裁决被推翻了15次（仅被确认7次）。在最高法院上一审期间审理的九项决定中，只有两次与第五巡回上诉法院的结论一致，而在涉及移民、学生贷款宽恕和原住民权利等案件中，最高法院驳回了其推理。
4. 来自第五巡回上诉法院的穆雷女士认为，最高法院可能因为打击一些激进立场而被誉为英雄。但有时通过认可这些理论，或仅以微弱优势推翻它们（如2020年的一起堕胎案件），法官们可以因为第五巡回上诉法院的大胆行为而“悄悄地将法律向右转移”。她说，特朗普的最MAGA法官们的非常规裁决和言论是推动更为温和的最高法院稳步向右转移的“打手”。

Question 16

1. Only recently did it support his family’s plea for clemency.
2. The lawmakers’ reports suggest Britain fares badly in comparison with other democracies when it comes to protecting its own.
3. freed. Even small European countries with little diplomatic clout sometimes leave the British looking flat-footed.
4. The reports urge a much more robust, joined-up approach. Britain needs an American-style point person with a mandate to champion citizens wrongly held abroad.
5. This is, then, not a problem Britain can wish away. It is high time that, as one of its former diplomats puts it, the Foreign Office learned to overcome its “institutional pusillanimity”.
   (Wish away; hand waves)

Answer 16

1. 直到最近，它才支持他的家人对宽恕的恳求。
2. 立法者的报告显示，与其他民主国家相比，英国在保护自己的公民方面表现很差。
3. 即使是那些外交影响力很小的欧洲小国，有时也让英国显得措手不及。
4. 报告呼吁采取更加强有力、协调一致的方法。英国需要一个类似美国风格的负责人，有权利为在国外被错误拘留的公民奋斗。
5. 因此，这不是英国可以轻易忽视的问题。正如一位前外交官所说，现在是时候了，外交部需要学会克服其“机构性怯懦”。

Question 17

1. He suggested a still larger pot might be available if the Supreme Court scuttled this deal and sent the parties back to the drawing board.
2. In 2019 a denuded Purdue worth an estimated $1.8bn declared bankruptcy.
3. Their lawyer argued that without the release for the Sacklers, Purdue is likely to be liquidated, potentially leaving victims bereft of any compensation at all.
4. Purdue, for its part, is banking on a catch-all line in the bankruptcy code that it reckons authorises the deal: a settlement may include any “appropriate provision not inconsistent with the applicable provisions of this title”. As statutes go, these 11 words are a rather thin reed for the justices to grasp as they decide whether to rip up the deal or let it go into effect. Determining what counts as “appropriate” is not a matter of precision. It might come down to a question Justice Amy Coney Barrett identified as the justices’ main worry: “is this the best that we can do for the victims?”
5. Other hostile nations hold dozens of Americans hostage, though exact numbers are hard to come by.
6. Oh, yeah, you know, the us-China relationship is complex.’ I think that’s a cop-out,” says Harrison Li, whose father Kai has been held since 2016.
7. “I am cried out and I’m prayed out,” she says. “Now I’m pissed.”

Answer 17

1. 他建议如果最高法院破坏这项协议，让各方重新回到起点，可能会有更大的资金可供使用。
2. 2019年，估值仅18亿美元的财力大减的普渡制药宣布破产。
3. 他们的律师辩称，如果没有对萨克勒家族的豁免，普渡很可能被清算，这可能导致受害者完全得不到任何补偿。
4. 普渡制药方面则寄希望于破产法中的一个包罗万象的条款，他们认为这条款授权实施该交易：“和解可能包括任何“与本标题的适用条款不一致的适当规定”。就法规而言，这11个字是相当脆弱的支点，供法官在决定是撕毁协议还是让其生效时把握。确定什么算作“适当”并不是一件精确的事情。这可能归结为艾米·科尼·巴雷特大法官提出的一个问题，正是法官们主要担忧的：“这是我们对受害者所能做的最好的事情吗？”
5. 其他敌对国家扣押了几十名美国人质，尽管确切数字难以确定。
6. “哦，是的，你知道，美中关系很复杂。我认为这是一个借口，”自2016年以来一直被拘留的李凯的儿子哈里森·李说。
   Cop-out - a way of avoiding doing something you should do. 理由、借口、推卸责任 he used his grandfather’s death as a cop-out for apology.
7. “我哭够了，祈祷够了，”她说。“现在我很生气。”

Question 18

1. Clean energy became competitive with dirty alternatives, and was snapped up by big corporate power-users directly from developers
2. To stem the bleeding, equipment-makers have been raising their own prices
3. The European Commission is also mulling a probe into China’s subsidies for its turbine manufacturers, which sell their gear for 70% less at home than what Western rivals charge elsewhere in the world (see chart 4).
4. Western turbine manufacturers may be turning a corner, too, helped by a fall in commodity prices and greater technological and financial discipline.

Answer 18

1. 清洁能源开始与传统污染能源竞争，很快就被大型企业用户从开发商那里迅速购入。
2. 为了遏制损失，设备制造商开始提升自己的产品价格。
3. 欧洲委员会也在考虑调查中国对其涡轮机制造商的补贴情况，这些制造商在国内的售价比西方竞争者在全球其他地区的售价低70%（详见图表4）。
4. 西方涡轮机制造商也可能正在迎来转机，得益于原材料价格下跌和技术及财务管理水平的提升。

Question 19

1. His showmanship has a Willy Wonka quality to it; it is hard to know where the magic ends and the madness begins, but you can hardly tear your eyes away.

gamesmanship

2. The answer is a combination of all three. Mr Musk’s provocative humour, from boyish fart jokes to pranks like smoking pot in public, have helped burnish his reputation as a business maverick. Often he goes too far, riling regulators and raising concerns about the state of his mental health. But his rule-breaking also thrills his fans and, though his main marketing technique has been to sell great products, helps his brands get noticed; until this year, Teslas sold themselves by word of mouth, rather than by advertising.
3. Mr Musk’s hubris, too, may end badly. For all the futuristic twaddle about the Cybertruck, drivers struggled to find its door handles.
4. a cringeworthy trip to Israel that he said was to promote peace but looked more like an apology tour; a barrage of “Go fuck yourself”s to advertisers such as Disney at a New York Times summit, after they pulled their ads from X; and crass self-mythologising like his comment that he has “done more for the environment than any single human on Earth”.

Answer 19

1. 他的表演艺术有着威利·旺卡般的魅力；很难界定奇迹的边界和疯狂的开始，但你几乎无法把目光从他身上移开。
2. 这是三者结合的结果。马斯克先生的挑衅式幽默，从幼稚的放屁笑话到公开吸食大麻的恶作剧，都帮助他树立了商业怪杰的形象。他常常做得过分，惹恼监管机构，甚至引发对他心理健康的担忧。但他打破常规的行为也吸引了他的粉丝，尽管他的主要营销策略是靠出色的产品，这也让他的品牌受到关注；直到今年，特斯拉的销售主要依靠口碑，而非广告。
3. 马斯克的傲慢同样可能导致糟糕的结局。尽管赛博卡车有着未来派的夸张宣传，但司机们却难以找到它的车门把手。
4. 包括一次引起尴尬的以色列之行，虽然他称是为了促进和平，但看起来更像是道歉之旅；在纽约时报峰会上对如迪士尼这样的广告商连连说“去你的”，因为他们已从X撤下广告；还有他像“我为环境所做的贡献超过任何一个人”这样的粗鲁自我吹嘘。

Question 20

1. His subjects, including Xi Jinping and Prince Muhammad bin Salman, are a threat not only to the well-being of their own countries, he says, but to a world order in which liberal ideas are increasingly embattled.
2. It reads like an enthralling legal-procedural whodunnit, as evidence is slowly unearthed from telephone records, lost documents are retrieved from deleted computer files and intriguing new witnesses emerge.
3. Julian Huxley and Thomas Henry Huxley, his grandfather, were both acolytes of Darwinism.
4. Don’t be put off by the doorstopper length: this history of the world, told through the stories of eminent families, is a riveting page-turner. The author brings his cast of dynastic titans, rogues and psychopaths to life with pithy, witty pen portraits, ladling on the sex and violence. An epic that both entertains and informs.
5. At first the victims are connected to the lynching of Emmett Till in the neighbourhood in 1955; but then the circle of comeuppance widens. Two wisecracking detectives head down to investigate. A bitingly funny, boldly satirical, deadly serious tale of racism and the legacy of injustice.

Answer 20

1. 他说，包括习近平和穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼王子在内的这些领导人不仅对自己国家的福祉构成威胁，还对一个自由理念日益受挑战的世界秩序构成威胁。
2. 这本书读起来像是一部扣人心弦的法律程序悬疑小说，随着电话记录的逐渐揭露，丢失的文件从删除的电脑文件中恢复，以及新证人的出现。
3. 朱利安·赫胥黎和他的祖父托马斯·亨利·赫胥黎都是达尔文主义的门徒。
4. 不要被这本书的厚重长度吓到：这本通过讲述杰出家族故事来叙述世界历史的书是一部引人入胜的佳作。作者用简洁、机智的笔触将其动态的泰坦、恶棍和精神病患者描绘得栩栩如生，大量描绘性和暴力场面。这是一部既娱乐又有教育意义的史诗作品。
5. 最初，受害者与1955年在附近发生的埃米特·蒂尔被绞死案有关；但随后，因果报应的范围扩大了。两名机智幽默的侦探前去调查。这是一个尖锐幽默、大胆讽刺，关于种族主义和不公正遗产的严肃故事。

Question 21

1. “It was written in a fugue of concentration over eighteen months, starting in the summer of 2020, as the world fell apart around me.”
2. “To study the discipline is to become an artisan of arguments, learning to dissect and reason through intractable problems.”
3. “What would a philosophy look like that was tested in the crucible of direct moral experience? It’s an intimidating question.”
4. “There’s an affinity here with the “power of positive thinking” that implores us not to dwell on trials and tribulations but to dream of the life we want.”
5. “The second guiding light is that, in living well, we cannot extricate justice from self-interest or divide ourselves from others”
6. “Reflecting honestly on affliction in our own lives leads toward concern for others, not into narcissistic self-regard.”
7. “The narrative makes perfect sense: over two centuries, the ideology of “possessive individualism”—which portrays us as social atoms accumulating private goods—has frayed the fabric of Western society, leaving it threadbare or worse.”
8. “Before the pandemic, then, the evidence for an upsurge of loneliness was inconclusive. Now it’s beyond doubt.”
9. “WHILE THERE HAVE BEEN lonely philosophers, few have written extensively on the topic. Instead, it shows obliquely in their work. ”
10. “ We need others, Kant concedes, but we recoil from being ruled or overwhelmed by them, wanting space of our own. This dual propensity “lies in human nature.” Kant himself led a notoriously rigid bachelor lifestyle—but was also famous for dinner parties rich with conversation.”
11. “His wisdom was preserved by Hellenistic thinkers such as Cicero, who wrote a book about friendship in 44 BCE, largely recapitulating Aristotle; and it remains the touchstone for philosophical treatments of what it means to be a friend

Answer 21

1. “这本书是在18个月的时间里，在一种迷离的专注中写成的，始于2020年夏天，当时世界在我周围分崩离析。”
2. “学习这个学科就像成为一个争论的工匠，学会分析和推理难以解决的问题。”

Artisanal cheese 手工芝士

3. “一种在直接道德经验的严酷熔炉中经受考验的哲学会是什么样子？这是一个令人生畏的问题。”
4. “这里与‘积极思考的力量’有某种共鸣，它恳求我们不要沉浸在考验和磨难中，而是要梦想我们想要的生活。”
5. “第二个指导原则是，在过上美好生活的过程中，我们不能将正义与自利分割开，或将自己与他人隔绝。”
6. “诚实地反思我们自己生活中的苦难，会引导我们关心他人，而不是沉溺于自我关注。”
7. “这个叙述非常合理：在两个世纪中，‘占有式个人主义’的意识形态——将我们描绘为积累私人财物的社会原子——已经削弱了西方社会的结构，使其变得破旧甚至更糟。”
8. “因此，在大流行之前，孤独感激增的证据并不确凿。现在这一点毋庸置疑。”
9. “虽然有一些孤独的哲学家，但很少有人广泛地写作这个主题。相反，它在他们的作品中间接地显现。”
10. “我们需要他人，康德承认，但我们也反感被他人统治或压倒，渴望拥有自己的空间。这种双重倾向‘存在于人性中’。康德本人以严格的单身生活方式而闻名——但他也因丰富对话的晚宴派对而出名。”
11. “他的智慧被如西塞罗这样的希腊化思想家所保存，西塞罗在公元前44年写了一本主要复述亚里士多德的友谊之书；它仍然是哲学对友谊含义处理的基石。”

Question 22

1. Few public universities in Spain and Italy place high in global rankings, and most have only spotty connections to the job market.
2. The sort of vocational education that might provide more useful skills is under-developed and sniffed at
3. Mr Isaacson describes a man with a lofty vision for humankind, but who is impulsive, pugnacious and self-destructive.
4. In Mr Isaacson’s view, Mr Musk is propelled by a conviction that humanity is hurtling towards calamity.
5. Lauded as Jobs’s successor, Mr Musk now draws comparisons with a different mercurial billionaire who inspires cult-like loyalty while acting like an aggrieved toddler.
6. In recent years his tweets have lambasted left-wing positions on issues such as gender identity, and flirted with right-wing conspiracy theories.
7. But it is hard to escape the feeling that the story of Elon Musk is still only half told.

Answer 22

1. 在西班牙和意大利，少数公立大学在全球排名中表现突出，但大部分大学与就业市场的联系相对薄弱。
2. 那些可能提供更实用技能的职业教育在这些国家不够发达，并且经常被轻视。
3. 艾萨克森先生描述了一个对人类有着崇高愿景的人，但他冲动、好斗，且自毁前程。
4. 在艾萨克森先生看来，马斯克先生是由一种认为人类正在迅速走向灾难的信念所驱动的。
5. 被誉为乔布斯的继任者，马斯克先生现在更多地被拿来与另一位善变的亿万富翁相比较，他激发了类似崇拜的忠诚，同时表现得像个被冒犯了的幼儿。
6. 近年来，他在推特上猛烈抨击左翼在性别认同等问题上的立场，并与右翼阴谋论有所接触。
7. 但很难不产生这样的感觉：关于埃隆·马斯克的故事仍然只讲述了一半。

Question 23

1. By asserting that America has no global responsibility to help deal with climate change, Mr Trump would crush efforts to slow it. And he is surrounded by China hawks who believe confrontation is the only way to preserve American dominance. Caught between a dealmaking president and his warmongering officials, China could easily miscalculate over Taiwan, with catastrophic consequences.
2. In Constellation’s universe, such a “moat” is enjoyed by software firms that specialise in building digital wares for unsexy industries from car dealerships and builders to spas. Tech giants shun these relatively piddling markets and smaller rivals lack the requisite know-how. The result is rich profits for the incumbent
3. The original, inaugurated in 1939 just weeks before Germany and Russia invaded Poland, papered over the famine and terror of the preceding years. Instead, displays extolled the wonders of Soviet science and the virtues of collectivisation; a special ice-cream hall doled out treats to the masses and a 25-metre statue of Stalin gazed down munificently. Millions died in the dictator’s “great break” with the past, and Russia’s economy and society were completely reshaped, but it was all depicted as unadulterated progress.
4. The only hint of the continuing bloodshed is a flower composed of bits of shrapnel.
5. It is an especially far cry from the shock and confusion of the early days of the war, when the rouble plunged, hundreds of thousands fled the country and protests rocked Russia’s cities.
6. Mr Putin has since succeeded in stabilising the economy, thanks to the high price of oil, and in squelching dissent, thanks to fierce repression.
7. On the face of things, most Russians have meekly accepted the war in Ukraine, which will soon be two years old. Two-thirds tell Russian Field, a pollster, that the country is moving in the right direction and over half say the war in Ukraine is going well.
8. It is not just peaceniks who are persecuted: at least one ultra-nationalist dissenter, Igor Girkin, a retired soldier and blogger, has been jailed for complaining that Mr Putin is not fighting forcefully enough.
9. But just because the majority of Russians have accepted the war does not mean that they are enthusiastic about it. A hastily concocted propaganda film about dastardly Ukrainian “fascists”, which cost $2m to make, was a spectacular flop, collecting just $150,000 at the box office.
10. But civil servants and businessmen also have long experience of suppressing scruples and working the system.
11. Russian technocrats
12. It helps, of course, that vast quantities of petrodollars have been sloshing around the economy.
13. Such lavish outlays will not be sustainable indefinitely. The central bank is struggling to restrain rising inflation, which reached 12% year on year in the third quarter of this year. It has raised interest rates to 15%. The authorities, meanwhile, are forcing exporters to convert their revenues to roubles to stave off further devaluation, which would exacerbate inflation.
14. Russia’s vast and poor hinterland has also benefited from the cash the authorities are dangling in order to secure more recruits to the army
15. To justify his reconstruction of the Russian economy and to explain away his lack of military successes, Mr Putin is reframing the war as one not with Ukraine, but with the West, in which Ukraine is simply “a battering ram” used to pummel Russia.

Answer 23

1. 特朗普先生声称美国没有全球责任帮助应对气候变化，这将阻碍减缓气候变化的努力。他身边的中国鹰派认为，对抗是维护美国霸权的唯一方式。夹在一个擅长交易的总统和他的好战官员之间，中国在台湾问题上很容易误判，造成灾难性的后果。
2. 在康斯泰拉公司的宇宙中，这样的“护城河”存在于专门为汽车经销商、建筑商到水疗中心等不太引人注目的行业开发数字产品的软件公司手中。科技巨头忽视这些相对微不足道的市场，小竞争对手缺乏必要的专业知识。结果就是这些现有公司获得丰厚的利润。
3. 1939年首次开幕的原版展览在德国和俄罗斯入侵波兰前几周掩盖了前几年的饥荒和恐怖。相反，展览颂扬苏联科学的奇迹和集体化的美德；一个特别的冰淇淋馆为大众提供甜点，一个25米高的斯大林雕像慷慨地俯瞰着下方。数百万人在这位独裁者的“伟大突破”中丧生，俄罗斯的经济和社会被彻底改造，但这一切都被描绘为纯粹的进步。
4. 持续流血冲突的唯一暗示是由弹片组成的花朵。
5. 这与战争初期的震惊和混乱相去甚远，当时卢布暴跌，数十万人逃离国家，抗议活动震撼了俄罗斯的城市。
6. 普京先生此后成功稳定了经济，得益于油价的高涨，并通过严厉的压制手段扼杀了异议。
7. 从表面上看，大多数俄罗斯人似乎温顺地接受了在乌克兰的战争，该战争即将满两年。三分之二的人告诉俄罗斯田野调查机构民意调查公司，认为国家正朝着正确的方向发展，超过一半的人认为在乌克兰的战争进展顺利。
8. 不仅是和平主义者受到迫害：至少有一名极端民族主义异见人士、退役士兵和博主伊戈尔·吉尔金因抱怨普京没有足够有力地战斗而被监禁。
9. 但仅仅因为大多数俄罗斯人接受了战争，并不意味着他们对此充满热情。一部关于邪恶乌克兰“法西斯分子”的匆忙制作的宣传片耗资200万美元制作，却只在票房上收获了15万美元，成为一次惨败。
10. 但公务员和商人也有长期压抑良知和操纵体系的经验。
11. 俄罗斯技术官僚
12. 当然，大量的石油美元一直在经济中涌动。
13. 这种奢侈的支出不可能无限期持续。中央银行正在努力遏制不断上升的通胀，今年第三季度年通胀率达到了12%。它已经将利率提高到了15%。与此同时，当局正迫使出口商将其收入兑换成卢布，以避免进一步贬值，这将加剧通胀。
14. 俄罗斯广阔而贫穷的腹地也从当局为了招募更多军队新兵而悬挂的现金中受益。
15. 为了证明他重建俄罗斯经济的合理性，并解释他在军事上缺乏成功，普京先生正在将战争重新定义为不是与乌克兰的战争，而是与西方的战争，在这场战争中，乌克兰仅仅是用来重创俄罗斯的“撞锤”。

Question 24

1. The cop, as it is known, is a 12-day jamboree that draws diplomats, businessfolk and activists. Should they have time to escape the crush at Expo City and travel towards the glitzy skyscrapers dotting the coast, they will find a city, and a country, in the middle of an astonishing boom.
2. One giveaway is the crowds of golden-visa-toting Russian billionaires, Indian businessmen and Western financiers. Another is a property frenzy. In September buyers queued in the wee hours to snap up villas in Dubai’s latest ritzy land-reclamation scheme, Palm Jebel Ali, that start at $5m.

They have, for example, snapped up Huawei’s new Mate 60 smartphone, with its surprisingly fast Chinese chips.

3. The uae’s standing in the world seems to be growing rapidly, too.
4. Its economic openness and its apolitical approach to business give it broad appeal: it is one of the few places where Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Israelis and Russians all rub shoulders.
5. The government does not simply rake in petrodollars and distribute them to citizens in the form of cushy jobs and subsidised goods; it has begun levying taxes and prodding locals to seek more demanding work in the private sector.
6. Start with the Emirates’ role as an entrepot.
7. Many of the investments are in logistics. dp World runs ports everywhere from London to Sydney. All told, no less than a tenth of the world’s container-shipping passes through the firm’s hands.
8. The uae is one of the largest investors in capital-starved Africa, albeit mainly in North Africa.
9. It is still too soon to say whether Falcon will take flight, but unlike most governments that blather on about their ai strategy, the uae actually seems to have one
10. Negotiations move much faster than the equivalent efforts of the Gulf Co-operation Council, a grouping of all the oil-rich Gulf states, allowing the uae to steal a march on its neighbours.
11. It has made prescient economic bets, but reckless ones, too.
12. But it is preparing for a time when the bonanza may dwindle.
13. So far the unpicking of the social contract has led to grumbling but no unrest.
14. The past 50 years suggest it would be foolish to bet against the uae, but the hardest tests still lie ahead.

Answer 24

Sure, here are the translations with emphasis on the specified terms:

1. 这位警察，众所周知，是一场为期12天的狂欢节，吸引了外交官、商业人士和活动家。如果他们有时间逃离博览城的拥挤，并前往沿海点缀的炫目摩天大楼，他们会发现一个城市，一个国家，正处于惊人的繁荣中。
2. 一个迹象是拥有黄金签证的俄罗斯亿万富翁、印度商人和西方金融家的人群。另一个迹象是一场房地产狂潮。九月份，买家在凌晨排队抢购迪拜最新的豪华填海计划帕姆·杰贝尔·阿里的别墅，起价500万美元。

抢购华为新手机

3. 阿联酋在世界上的地位似乎也在迅速提升。
4. 它的经济开放性和对商业的非政治化态度赋予其广泛的吸引力：这是少数几个美国人、中国人、伊朗人、以色列人和俄罗斯人都能相互交流的地方之一。
5. 政府不仅仅是收入石油美元，然后以舒适的工作和补贴商品的形式分配给公民；它已经开始征税，并促使当地人寻求私营部门中更具挑战性的工作。
6. 从阿联酋作为一个转口港的角色开始。
7. 许多投资都在物流领域。DP World在从伦敦到悉尼的各地经营港口。总的来说，世界上至少十分之一的集装箱航运通过该公司的手中。
8. 阿联酋是对资本匮乏的非洲最大的投资者之一，尽管主要是在北非。
9. 现在还为时过早说法尔孔会不会起飞，但与大多数政府滔滔不绝地谈论他们的人工智能战略不同，阿联酋似乎真的有一个战略。
10. 与海湾合作委员会的相应努力相比，谈判进展得更快，海湾合作委员会是所有石油富裕的海湾国家的一个组织，这使得阿联酋能够在邻国中占先机。
11. 它做出了明智的经济赌注，但也有鲁莽的赌注。
12. 但它正在为当繁荣可能减少时做准备。
13. 到目前为止，社会契约的解体只导致了抱怨，但没有动乱。
14. 过去50年表明押注阿联酋失败是愚蠢的，但最艰难的考验仍然在前方。

Question 25

1. Federal committee sparks arguments about maybe yanking the potato’s status as a veggie; industry group says spuds are a gateway vegetable
2. Spooky

Answer 25

1. 1m联邦委员会引发了关于可能撤销土豆作为蔬菜地位的争论；行业团体称土豆是一种入门级蔬菜。
2. 阴森森的

Question 26

1. This technology is a many-splendoured thing. But the problem I have with encryption is not a generalised one. It is the role it plays in enabling crimes against children, both online and offline.
2. It is not either/or: it’s possible to keep the contents of messages hidden from prying eyes and protect kids at the same time.
3. This would scupper any chance that shareholders can be paid much out of profits, perhaps for years.
4. Indeed, the kbw index of large American bank stocks has shed 15% this year,
5. As China’s economy slows, more businesses are likely to go bust—and their bosses to go missing.

Answer 26

1. 这项技术是多姿多彩的。但我对加密的问题不是普遍性的。它在帮助针对儿童的犯罪，无论是在线上还是线下，都发挥了作用。
2. 这并非非此即彼：完全有可能在保护消息内容免受窥探的同时，同时保护孩子们。
3. 这将彻底破坏股东从利润中获得可观回报的任何可能性，或许要持续好几年。
4. 的确，美国大型银行股票的KBW指数今年已经下跌了15%。
5. 随着中国经济放缓，更多企业可能会破产——他们的老板也可能失踪。

Question 27

1. “can be loved, but only what is good.” For Aristotle, friends ought to be flaky, in a way. They should drop you, and stop loving you, the moment you lose the qualities that make you friends. ”
2. Hours after the fire broke out in 2019, he vowed to rebuild in five years. That was an ambitious timescale.
3. The French president will observe the rebuilding of the 70m-long oak spire (based on the 19th-century flèche which was destroyed).

Answer 27

Here are the translations:

1. “可以被爱，但只有好的东西。” 对亚里士多德来说，朋友应该是不稳定的，在某种程度上。他们应该在你失去了成为朋友的品质时放弃你，不再爱你。
2. 火灾发生后几小时，他誓言在五年内重建。那是一个雄心勃勃的时间表。
3. 法国总统将观察基于19世纪被毁的尖顶的70米长橡木尖塔的重建情况。

Question 28

1. Earlier this year the government shelved an ambitious plan to look at the underlying context for mental disorders, from poverty to isolation; that plan should be revived.
2. Whatever happens, property seems destined to shrink in the medium term.
3. Many commentators believe that the experience has left lasting scars.
4. For Dr Goldin, the factors which contribute to a mental-health problem are typically predisposing (ie, genetic), precipitating (ie, the pandemic) and perpetuating (ie, financial hardship). Factors that protect mental health include supportive relationships and a sense of meaning; British teenagers are more likely to say these are absent than peers in other rich countries.
5. When the mental-health net expands in this way, more and more people are likely to get scooped up in it.
6. It can also be easier—and cheaper—for institutions to pass structural problems off as medical ones. Stress and erratic behaviour may be symptoms of mental-health problems but they may also indicate toxic workplaces or wider deprivation. Poverty, family trauma and isolation are by far the biggest risk factors for mental illness; among children, kids from the poorest households are the biggest users of nhs mental-health services.
7. The segments are cast in Germany, polished in France, and then mated with supports produced in the Netherlands before being transported to Chile.
8. Each is checked to ensure it has survived the trip unscathed
9. A consortium of scientists from Amer­ica, Canada, India and Japan, meanwhile, has been trying to build a mega-telescope on Hawaii.

A consortium led by Jeff Zucker, a former cnn editor, and backed by Gulf royalty, paid off the whole Barclay debt, with a view to taking control via a debt-for-equity swap.

10. The leak of radioactive liquid from one of the “highest nuclear hazards in the UK” – a decaying building at the vast Cumbrian site known as the Magnox swarf storage Silo (MSSS) – is likely to continue to 2050. That could have “potentially significant consequences” if it gathers pace, risking contaminating groundwater, according to an official document.
11. A document sent to members of the Sellafield board in November 2022 and seen by the Guardian raised widespread concerns about a degradation of safety across the site, warning of the “cumulative risk” from failings ranging from nuclear safety to asbestos and fire standards.
12. Such is the concern about its safety standards that US officials have warned of its creaking infrastructure in diplomatic cables seen by the Guardian.
13. A senior Norwegian diplomat told the Guardian that they believed Oslo should offer to help fund the site so that it can be run more safely, rather than “run something so dangerous on a shoestring budget and without transparency”
14. scientists are increasingly concerned that the full scale of the leak
15. Norwegian officials fear that an accident at the site could lead to a plume of radioactive particles being carried across the North Sea.

Answer 28

Certainly, here’s the translation with emphasis included:

1. 今年早些时候，政府暂停了一个深入探讨心理障碍背后因素的雄心计划，涉及从贫困到孤立的诸多因素；这个计划应当重新启动。
2. 不管怎样，房产市场似乎在中期内必将面临缩水的命运。
3. 许多评论家认为这次经历留下了深刻的伤痕。
4. 对于Goldin博士而言，导致心理健康问题的因素通常包括：先天易感因素（例如遗传）、触发因素（例如疫情）和持续因素（例如经济困难）。维护心理健康的因素包括支持性的人际关系和生活的意义感；相比其他富裕国家的同龄人，英国青少年更可能感到这些因素的缺失。
5. 当心理健康的保护网络如此扩张时，将会有更多的人被纳入其中。
6. 对于机构来说，将结构性问题归咎为医疗问题可能更加简单和经济。压力和行为不稳可能是心理健康问题的症状，但也可能是有毒工作环境或更广泛的剥夺的迹象。贫困、家庭创伤和孤立是心理疾病的最大风险因素；在儿童中，来自最贫困家庭的孩子是英国国家医疗服务体系心理健康服务的最大使用群体。
7. 这些部件在德国铸造，在法国打磨，然后与荷兰制造的支架组合，最后运往智利。
8. 每个部件都会被仔细检查，以确保其完好无损地完成旅程。
9. 与此同时，一个由来自美国、加拿大、印度和日本的科学家组成的联盟正在努力在夏威夷建造一台巨型望远镜。

由前CNN编辑杰夫·祖克（Jeff Zucker）领导，得到海湾王室支持的财团偿清了巴克莱银行所有债务，以期通过债转股方式获得控制权。

10. 在英国坎布里亚一个巨大的场地上，一个名为Magnox碎片存储硅库（MSSS）的衰老建筑泄漏了放射性液体，这种状况可能持续到2050年。据一份官方文件显示，如果泄漏加剧，可能会造成“重大后果”，包括污染地下水的风险。
11. 2022年11月发给塞拉菲尔德董事会成员的一份文件（《卫报》已获得）提出了对该场地安全性下降的广泛担忧，警告从核安全到石棉和消防标准的“累积风险”。
12. 对该场地安全标准的担忧程度之高，以至于美国官员在《卫报》看到的外交电报中警告其老化的基础设施。
13. 一位挪威高级外交官告诉《卫报》，他们认为奥斯陆应该提供资金帮助该场地更安全地运行，而不是在严重预算不足和缺乏透明度的情况下“运行如此危险的设施”。
14. 科学家们越来越担心泄漏的真正规模。
15. 挪威官员担心，该场地的一次事故可能导致一股放射性颗粒的云层跨越北海。

Question 29

1. “The most difficult conceptual hurdle for people in the throes of loneliness is that, although they are going through something that feels like a hole in the center of their being—a hunger that needs to be fed—this “hunger” can never be satisfied by a focus on “eating.” What’s required is to step outside the pain of our own situation long enough to “feed” others.
2. “It was a sense of wonder, and an undertow of worry. ”
3. “I remember staring at the corrugated trunks of trees in the playground at recess, stunned by the fact that there was anything at all.”
4. “Reality is astoundingly, disturbingly gratuitous.”
5. “It is here that philosophers tend to throw in the towel. Remember Wittgenstein on “the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” Perhaps we’ve been bewitched by words and the problem of absurdity will vanish when we see that the question of life’s meaning is not meaningful.”.
6. “The answer is often complex and multivalent.”
7. “When one inhabits a religion, one’s total reaction is positive, or if not positive, then reconciled or redeemed. Religions offer saving visions of the whole residual cosmos. If they do not proclaim the meaning of life, they offer the conviction that there is one, however inscrutable it may be. There is a truth that tells us how to feel.”
8. “THE FIRST THING TO SAY is that not all religions appeal to God. Beside the monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—there are polytheistic religions like Hinduism, and religions that are nontheistic, like Buddhism.
9. “It’s not easy to say what these religions have in common, what makes them religions, binding together a “total reaction upon life” with creeds and doctrines, rituals and practices. ”
10. “Futureless, society shudders toward collapse. ”
11. “Even the transient pleasures of reading or listening to music, of eating and drinking, may pall, as they do for Theo Faron, to whom “pleasure now comes so rarely and, when it does, is indistinguishable from pain.”
12. “Should one despair in the face of human extinction, as Faron does? Should one respond instead with equanimity? Or is it all a matter of temperament, depressing to some, perhaps, but anodyne to others?”

Answer 29

1. “对孤独中煎熬的人来说，最难跨越的概念障碍是，尽管他们感觉自己内心空虚，像是饥饿需要填补，但这种‘饥饿’不是靠‘吃’就能解决的。真正需要做的是，暂时跳出自身的痛苦，去关注并‘滋养’他人。”
2. “那是一种奇妙感受，下面却隐藏着隐隐的担忧。”
3. “我记得在课间看着操场上波浪形的树干，对于这个世界上竟然有如此事物存在感到惊奇。”
4. “现实是惊人地、令人困扰地无缘无故的。”
5. “在这一点上，哲学家们往往放弃了努力。想想维特根斯坦说的‘我们的智力被语言迷惑’。或许我们被词语迷惑，当我们认识到关于生命意义的问题其实没有意义时，荒诞就会消失。”
6. “答案通常复杂且具有多重价值。”
7. “当一个人深入宗教，他的整体反应要么是积极的，要么至少是和解或得到救赎的。宗教提供了对整个世界的救赎之视。它们或许不直接宣称生命的意义，但提供了一种信念：生命是有意义的，尽管这个意义可能难以捉摸。”
8. “首先要明确的是，并非所有宗教都崇拜上帝。除了一神论的宗教——如犹太教、基督教、伊斯兰教——还有多神论的宗教如印度教，以及像佛教这样的无神论宗教。”
9. “这些宗教有什么共同点，什么使它们成为宗教，将对生活的‘全面反应’与教义和信仰，仪式和习俗结合起来，这不容易说清。”
10. “无未来的社会颤栗着走向崩溃。”
11. “即使是阅读或听音乐、吃喝的短暂快乐，也可能变得索然无味，就像西奥·法隆一样，对他来说，“快乐变得如此罕见，一旦出现，也和痛苦无异。”
12. “面对人类灭绝，一个人应该像法隆那样绝望吗？还是应该保持平和？或者这完全取决于个人性格，对某些人来说可能令人沮丧，但对其他人则可能是缓解痛苦的？”

Question 30

1. It is the first time district elections have been held since 2019, when, following six months of protests, pro-democracy candidates won a landslide victory—and delivered a powerful snub to China.
2. Saki—the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, an acerbic and brilliant social satirist who died in 1916—loved Christmas. No other occasion offered such rich opportunity to skewer “haute monde buffoonery”. Saki found the holiday to be filled with schmaltz, insincerity and the drudgery of ritual. In this collection of short stories he takes a scalpel to each. The result is a darkly glittering dissection of England’s middle and upper classes: their world of drawing rooms and parlour games is revealed as one of self-satisfaction and shallowness. The stories, which are shot through with a biting wit, will offer respite to any reader who has suffered through tedious family reunions. As one character puts it, “they say that there’s nothing sadder than victory except defeat. If you’ve ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to be the festive season, you can probably revise that saying.” Another resorts to locking his family and guests in a cowshed.
3. This compendium of cheerful and dyspeptic writing, loosely arranged by theme rather than in the order in which its pieces were written, is a cut above most festive fare.
4. That won’t stop Americans from squabbling about Christmas; they have been doing that for centuries,
5. Our Bartleby columnist offered companies advice on how to throw an office bash.
6. Universities and their students, they’ve argued, have been increasingly clenched by suffocating ideologies — political correctness in one decade, overweening “social justice” in another, “woke-ism” most recently — that shouldn’t be dismissed as academic fads or harmless zeal.
7. The validation they have sought seemed to finally arrive this fall, as campuses convulsed with protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and hostile, sometimes violent, rhetoric toward Jews.
8. It came to a head last week on Capitol Hill, as the presidents of three elite universities struggled to answer a question about whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate school rules
9. The same administrators now cloaking themselves in the mantle of free speech have been all too willing to censor all kinds of unpopular stuff on their campuses
10. There will be tectonic consequences of this hearing, and it will be an earthquake in higher education
11. At the hearing, Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, said that students had chanted support for intifada, an Arabic word that means uprising and that many Jews hear as a call for violence against them
12. Ms. Magill’s critics, who broadly welcomed her resignation, gave her no such respite. They also sought to use Ms. Magill’s resignation to pressure Harvard and M.I.T. to act, after Dr. Gay and Dr. Kornbluth offered similar testimony.
13. And last week, she exacted a measure of revenge.

Answer 30

1. “自2019年以来首次举行区域选举，那是在经历了六个月的抗议之后，亲民主候选人取得压倒性胜利，并向中国传递了一个强烈的不满。”
2. “Saki —— 即赫克托·休·门罗的笔名，他是1916年去世的一位尖酸而才华横溢的社会讽刺家 —— 非常热爱圣诞节。没有其他节日能像圣诞节这样提供如此丰富的机会来讽刺上层社会的愚蠢。Saki认为这个节日充满了矫情、虚伪和例行公事的苦差事。在他的短篇小说集中，他对这些进行了一一剖析。其结果是对英国中上层社会的一次阴暗而闪亮的解剖：他们的客厅和客厅游戏背后的自我满足和浅薄被揭露出来。这些故事充满了尖锐的智慧，对于那些经历过乏味的家庭聚会的读者来说，将会是一种慰藉。正如其中一个角色所说，“他们说没有什么比胜利更悲哀的，除了失败。如果你曾在所谓的欢庆季节与无聊的人在一起，你可能会对这句话有所修正。”另一个人则选择将他的家人和客人锁在一个牛棚里。”
3. “这本书是欢乐与脾气暴躁文字的合集，它按主题而非写作顺序松散排列，是大多数节日读物中的佼佼者。”
4. “但这不会阻止美国人对圣诞节的争吵；他们几个世纪以来一直在这么做。”
5. “我们的巴特尔比专栏作家为公司提供了如何举办办公室派对的建议。”
6. “他们争论说，大学及其学生日益被令人窒息的意识形态所束缚——一个十年是政治正确，另一个十年是过分的‘社会正义’，最近则是‘觉醒主义’——这些不应被视为学术时尚或无害的热情。”
7. “他们寻求的认可似乎终于在今年秋天到来，当时校园因反对以色列在加沙的军事行动的抗议活动而陷入动荡，对犹太人的敌对，有时是暴力的言辞。”
8. “事情在上周达到了高潮，当国会山上三所精英大学的校长们努力回答一个问题：‘呼吁对犹太人实施种族灭绝’是否违反了学校规定。”
9. “现在把自己包装在言论自由的外衣下的同一批行政人员，曾经非常乐意在他们的校园内审查各种不受欢迎的事物。”
10. “这次听证会将会带来重大的后果，它将是高等教育领域的一场地震。”
11. “在听证会上，纽约共和党众议员埃莉斯·斯特凡尼克表示，学生们高呼支持起义，一个阿拉伯词，很多犹太人将其视为对他们的暴力呼吁。”
12. “马吉尔女士的批评者们，他们普遍欢迎她的辞职，没有给她任何喘息的机会。他们还试图利用马吉尔女士的辞职对哈佛大学和麻省理工学院施压，要求他们采取行动，此前盖伊博士和科恩布鲁思博士提供了类似的证词。”
13. “而上周，她成功实施了一定程度的报复。”

Question 31

1. resign in disgrace
2. The moment on Tuesday afternoon went viral, racking up tens of millions of views on social media (the Israeli government even reposted a clip of the hearing) and forcing the presidents to issue statements attempting to clarify their responses amid calls for their resignations.
3. When asked if calling for the genocide of Jews would be punished at their schools, the presidents of Harvard, mit and the University of Pennsylvania prevaricated.
4. The hearing came amid a spate of antisemitic incidents at universities in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas that began on October 7th.
5. Hillel International, a Jewish non-profit organisation, has tallied 38 antisemitic physical assaults on campuses, and 227 cases of vandalism, since the war broke out.
6. Somehow they forgot that congressional hearings are political theatre made of soundbites, not legal depositions. “Over-prepared and over-lawyered,” said Scott Bok, chair of the University of Pennsylvania board, who also resigned
7. Odious talk is allowed so long as it does not turn into discriminatory harassment or incite violence.
8. Holding a placard with a vile slogan at a protest is different from sending someone threatening texts. Context does indeed matter.
9. Too often universities reflexively try to mollify students rather than have them grapple with ideas they find unsettling, says Edward Hall, a philosophy professor at Harvard.
10. In 2021 it cancelled a course on police tactics after students petitioned to nix it.

Answer 31

Here are the translations:

1. “忍辱辞职”
2. “周二下午的那一刻在社交媒体上迅速走红，累计数千万次观看（以色列政府甚至转发了听证会的片段），迫使这些大学校长发表声明，试图澄清他们的回应，同时面临着要求他们辞职的呼声。”
3. 当被问及是否会因呼吁对犹太人进行种族灭绝而在他们的学校受到惩罚时，哈佛大学、麻省理工学院和宾夕法尼亚大学的校长们含糊其辞。
4. 这次听证会是在10月7日以色列和哈马斯之间的战争爆发后，大学校园发生一连串反犹太主义事件的背景下举行的。
5. 希莱尔国际，一个犹太非营利组织，自战争爆发以来已记录了38起校园内的反犹太肢体攻击，以及227起破坏行为。
6. 他们似乎忘记了国会听证会是由简短言论组成的政治剧场，而不是法律证词。”准备过度且法律顾问过多，” 宾夕法尼亚大学董事会主席斯科特·博克如是说，他也辞职了。
7. 只要令人憎恶的言论不转化为歧视性骚扰或煽动暴力，就是允许的。
8. 在抗议活动中举着写有恶劣口号的标语牌与发送威胁性短信是不同的。语境的确很重要。
9. 哈佛大学哲学教授爱德华·霍尔说，大学太过常常本能地试图安抚学生，而不是让他们面对那些令他们感到不安的想法。
10. 2021年，一门关于警察策略的课程在学生请愿要求取消后被撤销。

Question 32

1. the war in Ukraine nears its second anniversary, and Russian prices are once again accelerating—even as inflation eases elsewhere
2. their next one on December 15th a similar increase is on the cards
3. Many economists blame government outlays, which are soaring as Mr Putin tries to defeat Ukraine.
4. Russian economic collapse—made almost uniformly by Western economists and politicians at the start of the war in Ukraine—have proven thumpingly wrong.
5. Unemployment, at less than 3%, is at its lowest on record, which is emboldening workers to ask for much higher wages.

Answer 32

1. 随着乌克兰战争接近两周年，俄罗斯的物价再次加速上涨，即使其他地方的通货膨胀正在缓解。
2. 他们预计12月15日的下一个决策将有类似的增加，这是有可能的。
3. 许多经济学家将此归咎于政府支出，这在普京试图击败乌克兰的过程中激增。
4. 对俄罗斯经济崩溃的预测——在乌克兰战争开始时几乎是西方经济学家和政治家的一致看法——已被证明是完全错误的。
5. 失业率不到3%，是有记录以来的最低水平，这使得工人更加大胆地要求更高的工资。

Question 33

1. And it’s all the more convenient that the allegations have emerged in the context of a mass arbitration, since these campaigns are a new bugaboo for the business lobby.
2. Things went awry, Bucher alleged, when Zaiger and Black Diamond attempted to negotiate a formal funding agreement in late October.
3. Valve said Zaiger’s slide presentation laid bare the firm’s vision of mass arbitration as a pure money play.
4. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce – a stalwart foe of both mass arbitration and litigation finance – could not have dreamed up a more vivid illustration of the purported perils of both than a lawsuit by gaming company Valve.
5. Faculty are rallying around Ms Gay, who has apologised for her waffling.

Answer 33

1. 这些指控恰好在大规模仲裁的背景下出现，对于商业游说团体来说，这些运动是一个新的恐惧源。
2. 布彻声称，事情出了差错，是在扎格和黑钻石公司试图在十月下旬谈判一项正式的资金协议时。
3. 瓦尔夫公司表示，扎格的幻灯片展示直截了当地揭示了该公司视大规模仲裁为纯粹的金钱游戏的愿景。
4. 美国商会——大规模仲裁和诉讼融资的坚定敌人——可能无法想象出比游戏公司瓦尔夫的诉讼更生动地说明这两者的潜在危险。
5. 面对她的犹豫不决，教职员工正在围绕盖伊女士展开支持。

Question 34

1. “Why can’t you find the clit?” a Stanford law student inexplicably asked Kyle Duncan, a judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, on March 9th. Judge Duncan, a Trump appointee, faced a chorus of jeers as he tried to deliver his prepared remarks.
2. But Ms Nossel was alone in opposing federal legislation to police campus expression, and to caution against state efforts to meddle in university curriculums.
3. Other conservative commentators have argued that the student hecklers should face punishment, not a seminar.
4. Ms Waggoner’s reprise visit to Yale in January was a success, according to Ms Strossen, who spoke at the event.
5. An open letter signed by dozens of academics and writers in 2020 argued that the ihra definition risked turning the fight against antisemitism into a purely political “stratagem to delegitimise the fight against the oppression of the Palestinians”.

Answer 34

1. “你为什么找不到阴蒂？”一名斯坦福大学法学院的学生在3月9日莫名其妙地问道，对象是第五巡回上诉法院的法官凯尔·邓肯。作为特朗普任命的法官，邓肯在试图发表他的准备讲话时面临了一阵嘲笑声。
2. 但是诺塞尔女士是唯一一个反对联邦立法来管控校园表达，并对州政府试图干涉大学课程表达谨慎态度的人。
3. 其他保守派评论员认为，应该惩罚学生质问者，而不是举办研讨会。
4. 根据斯特罗森女士的说法，瓦格纳女士今年一月再次访问耶鲁大学是一次成功，她在活动中发言。
5. 2020年，数十名学者和作家签署的一封公开信认为，国际大屠杀纪念联盟（IHRA）对反犹太主义的定义有可能将打击反犹太主义变成一种纯粹的政治“策略”，以此来非法化打击对巴勒斯坦人的压迫。

Question 35

1. Once again, a weak leader, radicalised backbenchers and a fundamentally madcap policy have resulted in political misery.
2. Having chained itself to Brexit via the referendum in 2016, Britain entered talks with the European Commission from a position of weakness.
3. Mr Sunak has balked at that, arguing that doing so “would collapse the entire scheme” since the Rwandans would pull out.
4. Once an idea moves *^from fringe to centre**, however, it can be hard to ignore.
5. It was a frenzied time in America, assaulted by covid-19, scalded by police barbarism.
6. As the clamour grew, he asked me to call Baquet, the paper’s most senior editor.
7. Trump’s manipulation and every one of his political lies became more powerful because journalists had forfeited what had always been most valuable about their work: their credibility as arbiters of truth and brokers of ideas, which for more than a century, despite all of journalism’s flaws and failures, had been a bulwark of how Americans govern themselves.
8. In describing the essential qualities of independent journalism in his essay, he unspooled a list of admirable traits – empathy, humility, curiosity and so forth.
9. Local newspapers were the proving ground between college campuses and national newsrooms.
10. As Sulzberger told me in the past, returning to the old standards will require agonising change.
11. The reality is that the Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist.
12. It is hard to imagine a path back to saner American politics that does not traverse a common ground of shared fact.

Answer 35

1. 再一次，一个软弱的领导者、激进的后座议员和一项根本上疯狂的政策导致了政治上的痛苦。
2. 通过2016年的公投，英国将自己束缚于脱欧，进而以弱势进入与欧洲委员会的谈判。
3. 孙纳克先生对此犹豫不决，他认为这样做“将导致整个计划崩溃”，因为卢旺达人将退出。
4. 一旦观念从边缘走向中心，它就可能变得难以忽视。
5. 那是美国疯狂的时刻，受到新冠疫情的侵袭，被警察的野蛮行为烫伤。
6. 随着呼声日益高涨，他要求我给报纸最高编辑贝奎特打电话。
7. 特朗普的操纵和他的每一个政治谎言之所以变得更有力，是因为记者们放弃了他们工作中最宝贵的东西：作为真理的仲裁者和观念的经纪人的信誉，这一直是美国人治理自己的堡垒，尽管新闻业有着所有的缺陷和失败，但这已经持续了一个多世纪。
8. 在描述独立新闻的基本品质时，他列举了一系列值得赞扬的特质 – 同情心、谦卑、好奇心等等。
9. 地方报纸是从大学校园到全国新闻室之间的试验场。
10. 正如苏尔茨伯格过去告诉我的，回归旧标准将需要痛苦的改变。
11. 现实是，时报正在成为美国进步精英通过其交流的出版物，讨论一个实际上并不存在的美国。
12. 很难想象一条通往更理智的美国政治的道路，而这条道路不穿越共有事实的共同基础。

Question 36

1. A journalism that starts out assuming it knows the answers, it seemed to me then, and seems even more so to me now, can be far less valuable to the reader than a journalism that starts out with a humbling awareness that it knows nothing.
2. Alarmed by the shoddy journalism of his day, Lippmann was calling for journalists to struggle against their ignorance and assumptions in order to help Americans resist the increasingly sophisticated tools of propagandists.

Answer 36

1. 当时我就这么认为，现在更是如此，一种从一开始就假设自己知道答案的新闻报道，对读者来说可能远不如一种带着谦卑地意识到自己一无所知的新闻报道有价值。
2. 由于对当时粗劣的新闻报道感到担忧，利普曼呼吁记者们要努力克服自己的无知和假设，以帮助美国人抵抗宣传家日益复杂的工具。

Question 37

1. Mr Powell is gambling that recent good news on inflation will keep rolling in.
2. The media magnate found ways to make the written word profitable through his acquisition of the Journal and several publishing houses.
3. Although Hong Kong remains a gateway through which Chinese capital can reach the rest of the world, its appeal as a bolthole for rich families aiming to shield their assets from the Chinese state has dimmed since the territory’s political crackdown.
4. Laredo’s trade is lubricated by axle grease. Every day about 20,000 lorries trundle back and forth across its two trade bridges, transporting everything from cars to chewing gum.
5. Investment is pouring in.

outpouring
downpour

6. It is daunting to think about. The number of lorries is already so large that tailbacks can stretch almost ten miles (16km) into Mexico.
7. The explanation for the buzz is nearshoring, which posits that, given the risks from overstretched supply chains and the trade war with China, manufacturers should move to North America.
8. Logistics executives worry that hot-button issues such as illegal migration and fentanyl will take centre stage during next year’s presidential election in America, causing further trade-disrupting demagoguery.
9. Commissioned before Russia invaded Ukraine, it is a sober examination of history. But it offers allegories to the present too, says Alexander Rodniansky, a Ukrainian-Russian film producer: the helplessness of citizens in impossible circumstances

Answer 37

1. 鲍威尔先生正押宝于近期通胀的利好消息将持续不断。
2. 媒体巨头通过收购《日报》及多家出版社，找到了使文字出版变得有利可图的方式。
3. 尽管香港仍是中国资本通向世界其他地方的门户，但自从该地区政治打压以来，它作为富裕家庭为避开中国政府对资产的控制而寻求的避风港的吸引力已经减弱。
4. 拉雷多的贸易靠轴承油脂润滑。每天约有20,000辆卡车在其两座贸易桥上来回穿梭，运输从汽车到口香糖的各种商品。
5. 投资正源源不断涌入。
6. 光是想想就令人畏惧。卡车的数量已经如此之多，以至于在墨西哥的交通拥堵可能延伸近十英里（16公里）。
7. 这种热议的解释是近岸外包，它认为，鉴于供应链过度拉长和与中国的贸易战的风险，制造商应该迁移到北美。
8. 物流高管担心，如非法移民和芬太尼等敏感问题将在明年美国总统选举期间成为焦点，进一步引发破坏贸易的煽动性言论。
9. 在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰之前就已委托拍摄，它是对历史的冷静审视。但根据乌克兰-俄罗斯电影制片人亚历山大·罗德尼安斯基的说法，它也向当前提供了寓言：即在不可能的情况下公民的无助。

Question 38

1. Asian geopolitics is often described in terms of two giants: America, the incumbent superpower, and China, a rising one, standing astride the region and competing to pull smaller countries to their sides, including the ten members of asean, the Association of South-East Asian Nations. But this misses a lot. It elides smaller countries’ agency and oversimplifies what is rarely a Manichaean divide.
2. Japanese firms covet South-East Asia’s growing markets, and policymakers see the region as a bulwark against Chinese expansionism.
3. Japanese diplomacy tends to be deferential where America’s and China’s can be preachy or pushy.
4. Security ties with states worried about Chinese expansionism will thicken.
5. If Donald Trump is elected president, having promised peace in short order, America could suddenly stop supplying weapons altogether.
6. In December the eu should signal that it is ready to start talks for Ukraine’s membership. But many believe that the process will be intentionally strung out because enlargement is hard and threatens vested interests

string sb. along (lead someone on)

7. He has blighted his country’s prospects by isolating it from Europe and driving its most enterprising people into exile.
8. In response Europe should be redoubling its efforts （double down on）to ensure that Ukraine progresses, with the promise of money and eu accession.
9. They should heed Leon Trotsky: they may not be interested in war, but war is interested in them.

Answer 38

1. 亚洲地缘政治常被描述为两个巨人的博弈：现任超级大国美国和崛起中的中国，它们在该地区雄踞，竞相吸引包括东南亚国家联盟（ASEAN）十个成员国在内的小国加入自己的阵营。但这种描述忽略了很多，它掩盖了小国的主体性，并过分简化了很少是一分为二的局面。
2. 日本企业渴望东南亚日益增长的市场，并且政策制定者将该地区视为对抗中国扩张主义的堡垒。
3. 与美国和中国的外交相比，日本的外交往往更为谦逊，不会那么说教或强硬。
4. 与担忧中国扩张主义的国家的安全联系将加强。
5. 如果唐纳德·特朗普当选总统，并承诺迅速实现和平，美国可能会突然停止提供武器。
6. 12月份，欧盟应该表明它准备开始与乌克兰就其加入欧盟的会谈。但许多人认为，这一过程会被故意拖延，因为扩大规模困难且威胁到既得利益。
7. 他通过使国家与欧洲隔绝并迫使最有创业精神的人流亡国外，破坏了自己国家的前景。
8. 作为回应，欧洲应该加倍努力确保乌克兰取得进展，并承诺提供资金和欧盟入会的可能性。
9. 他们应该听取列昂·托洛茨基的话：他们可能对战争不感兴趣，但战争对他们感兴趣。

Question 39

1. Its aid for Ukraine is fast running out, and dysfunction in Congress is blocking new assistance.
2. Given the depletion of military stocks across the West—and the crisis in the Middle East and a potential one over Taiwan—America’s brass may be reluctant to give away more than they are allowed to buy back.
3. A separate pot known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (usai), worth more than $18bn, has all but run out.
4. the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, has called on European countries to take up the slack from America if necessary
5. Russia outpaces Western shell production and has been helped by a surge of rounds from North Korea.
6. In what has often been an artillery war, Ukraine is already suffering from “shell-hunger”
7. If American support diminishes, Ukraine will be unable to mount another large counter-offensive
8. Representatives of the eu Parliament, member governments and the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, spent nearly 40 hours in a dark meeting room in Brussels until the wee hours of December 9th hashing out a deal on the ai Act, Europe’s ground-breaking law on regulating artificial intelligence.
9. The legislation has yet to be released because kinks still need to be worked out, but the draft version was a document of nearly 100 pages and almost as many articles.
10. A second big sticking point was to what extent law-enforcement agencies should be allowed to use facial recognition, which at its core is an ai-powered service.
11. Mr Breton is never far from the social-media limelight: during the negotiation marathon, he continuously posted shots of himself in the middle of a huddle.
12. But instead of trying to be first, Europe might have done better trying to be best—and come up with an ai act that has more rigour and less piling of exceptions on top of exceptions.

Answer 39

1. 美国对乌克兰的援助即将耗尽，而国会的功能失调正阻碍着新的援助。
2. 鉴于西方军事库存的耗尽——以及中东的危机和台湾可能出现的危机——美国的高层军官可能不愿意提供超出他们被允许购买回来的数量。
3. 一笔名为乌克兰安全援助倡议（USAI）的资金，价值超过180亿美元，几乎已经用尽。
4. 欧盟外交政策负责人呼吁欧洲国家在必要时填补美国留下的空白。
5. 俄罗斯超过西方在炮弹生产方面的速度，并且得到了来自朝鲜的大量炮弹的帮助。
6. 在这场往往是炮兵战的战争中，乌克兰已经因为“弹药饥渴”而遭受苦难。
7. 如果美国的支持减少，乌克兰将无法发起另一次大规模的反攻。
8. 欧盟议会代表、成员国政府和欧盟委员会——这个集团的执行机构——在布鲁塞尔一间昏暗的会议室里，一直开会到12月9日凌晨，敲定了关于欧盟人工智能法案的协议，这是欧洲在人工智能监管方面的开创性法律。
9. 该立法尚未发布，因为仍需解决一些问题，但草案版本是一份近100页、条款几乎同样多的文件。
10. 第二个主要争议点是执法机构应被允许使用面部识别的程度，其核心是一项人工智能驱动的服务。
11. 布雷顿先生总是不远离社交媒体的聚光灯：在谈判马拉松期间，他不断发布自己在人群中央的照片。
12. 但欧洲可能做得更好的不是试图成为第一，而是试图成为最佳——提出一个更严谨、少些例外叠加例外的人工智能法案。

Question 40

1. Some ideas on the table, such as a compulsory 2% haircut on Treasuries posted as collateral, have vexed the masters of the universe.
2. That is worrying some regulators.
3. Instead the chief worry is that a failure of a large hedge fund could set off a repeat of the “dash for cash” at the start of the covid-19 pandemic, in which investors dumped Treasuries; or the doom loop that struck Britain’s bond market in September 2022, in which falling bond prices forced pension funds to sell bonds, further pushing down prices.
4. Fire sales caused by financial rather than fundamental factors in effect result in the central bank buying back government bonds on the cheap.
5. At the end of September the Fed’s mark-to-market losses on its portfolio of Treasuries stood at nearly $800bn.

Answer 40

1. 桌面上的一些想法，如对作为抵押品的国债强制执行2%的折扣，已经让宇宙的主宰们感到困扰。
2. 这让一些监管机构感到担忧。
3. 相反，主要的担忧是一家大型对冲基金的失败可能引发类似于新冠疫情初期的“现金抢购”，当时投资者抛售国债；或者2022年9月英国债券市场遭遇的灾难循环，其中债券价格下跌迫使养老基金抛售债券，进一步压低价格。
4. 由金融而非基本面因素引起的抛售实际上导致央行低价回购政府债券。
5. 9月底，美联储在其国债投资组合上的按市值计算的亏损接近8000亿美元。

Question 41

1. Hardliners chuntered that an already-extreme position does not go far enough: they want to close down avenues for individual asylum-seekers to appeal against deportation.
2. Centrist mps meekly fell into line because they do not want to bring down their own government.

Answer 41

1. 强硬派咕哝着认为，一个已经极端的立场还远远不够：他们想要关闭个别寻求庇护者对驱逐出境提出上诉的途径。
2. 中间派议员顺从地排成一行，因为他们不想让自己的政府垮台。

Question 42

1. In the early 1990s a city that had seemed to be on the skids was rejuvenated.
2. Cue a perfect storm of woes that threatened to capsize cities in general and London in particular.
3. Then a cosmopolis that runs on immigration faced the shuttering of Brexit and the pandemic barred tourists from one of the planet’s most visited places.
4. Its globalised economy has weathered Britain’s exit from the European Union far better than doomsayers had predicted.
5. A regal woman in ceremonial Yoruba attire rides a horse down Peckham’s high street.
6. London has never been as ethnically segregated as some American cities
7. . Partly as a result, London’s population, which dipped during th**e pandemic, is nudging 9m and is expected to hit 10m by 2040.
8. She is walking proof of the opposite: a Buddhist brought up in London by parents from Mauritius and Kenya, she found a Jewish husband and rose to one of the highest offices in the land. The London dream, you might call it.
9. Unhobbled hub

.

Answer 42

1. 20世纪90年代初，一个似乎已经走下坡路的城市焕发了新生。
2. 这引发了一场风暴，威胁着要颠覆一般城市，尤其是伦敦。
3. 然后，一个依赖移民的国际大都市面临着英国脱欧和疫情的双重打击，这让地球上最受游客欢迎的地方之一关闭了大门。
4. 它的全球化经济比末日预言者所预测的更好地经受了英国脱欧的考验。
5. 一位身着尤鲁巴传统礼服的威严女性骑着马穿过佩卡姆的高街。
6. 伦敦从来没有像一些美国城市那样种族隔离严重。
7. 部分原因是，伦敦人口在疫情期间下降，现在接近900万，并预计到2040年将达到1000万。
8. 她是活生生的证据，证明了相反的情况：一个在伦敦长大的佛教徒，父母来自毛里求斯和肯尼亚，她找到了一个犹太丈夫，并在这片土地上升至最高职位之一。你可以称之为伦敦梦。
9. 不受束缚的中心。

Question 43

10. Now the stadium is packed; Gunnersaurus, the team’s mascot, is high-fiving young fans
11. Like the carousing at the Eagle, London’s entertainment economy is buoyant again after the deathly doldrums of covid-19.
12. It stands in a snazzy development with all the modish appurtenances of a modern office complex, including a climbing wall and an art gallery.
13. Lights blink eerily in the dark atrium; the escalators are frozen
14. It has brushed off another crisis that some thought would nobble it: the war in Ukraine and ensuing sanctions on Russia’s elite, who had brought joy to London’s libel lawyers, estate agents, pr firms and football fans
15. That phlegmatism is one of London’s abiding traits.
16. on average London is slightly more socially conservative and less boozy than other regions
17. Too often, policies have corseted the capital without boosting other places—and have wound up punishing everyone.
18. Set amid unlovely 20th-century estates, the units, some of them public housing, form what looks like a Moorish citadel, with turrets and crenellations but also welcoming arches, balconies and a tree-lined central courtyard. Walk up to the railway tracks and you spy the glinting towers that were part of the regeneration spurred by the Olympics.
19. Londoners report a low sense of neighbourhood belonging; as is common amid such hurly-burly, life can feel lonely and atomised.
20. The most affluent decile has nearly ten times the income of the poorest. Because of London’s unusually integrated economic geography, deprived and well-heeled families rub shoulders more than in Paris or New York, pound shops abutting artisan bakeries on the high street.
21. Still, the pandemic may open up solutions to this age-old problem

Answer 43

10. 现在体育场内人满为患；枪手队的吉祥物，Gunnersaurus，正在与年轻球迷们击掌庆祝。
11. 就像在Eagle酒吧的狂欢一样，伦敦的娱乐经济在新冠疫情的沉闷时期后又重新充满活力了。
12. 它位于一个时髦的开发区，拥有现代办公大楼的所有流行附件，包括攀岩墙和艺术画廊。
13. 黑暗中的中庭闪烁着诡异的灯光；自动扶梯静止不动。
14. 它摆脱了一些人认为会阻碍它的另一个危机：乌克兰战争及其对俄罗斯精英的随之而来的制裁，这些人曾给伦敦的诽谤律师、房地产经纪人、公关公司和足球迷带来过欢乐。
15. 那种冷静是伦敦一直以来的特点。
16. 平均而言，伦敦在社会保守程度上略高，饮酒习惯较少。
17. 政策过于频繁地限制了首都，而没有促进其他地方的发展——结果最终惩罚了所有人。
18. 这些建筑群坐落在不太讨人喜欢的20世纪住宅区中，其中一些是公共住房，外观像是摩尔城堡，有塔楼和垛口，但也有欢迎的拱门、阳台和一个树木繁茂的中央庭院。走到铁路轨道上，你可以看到奥运会带动的再生中闪耀的高楼大厦。
19. 伦敦人报告说，他们对邻里的归属感较低；在这种喧嚣中，生活常常感到孤独和分散。
20. 最富有的十分之一人口的收入几乎是最贫困的十倍。由于伦敦独特的经济地理结构，贫困家庭和富裕家庭比在巴黎或纽约更频繁地擦肩而过，廉价商店和手工面包店在高街上并列。
21. 然而，大流行可能为解决这个长期问题提供了解决方案。

Question 44

1. Because the rich world still has some know-how that China needs, Chinese leaders will, from time to time, deny that they harbour any animus towards the West
2. In 2024 Chinese officials will tell leaders from Africa, South Asia and elsewhere that high food and energy prices are caused by Western sanctions, and accuse American arms and energy firms of profiteering at Europeans’ expense.
3. Indeed, because China claims to set great store by the principle of territorial integrity, it has never recognised Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
4. But a wild American campaign presents dangers, as candidates out-hawk one another on China.
5. Shared resentment of the West is the force that binds China to its closest partners, an otherwise motley bunch.

Answer 44

1. 由于富裕国家仍拥有中国所需的一些专业知识，中国领导人将时不时地否认他们对西方有任何敌意。
2. 到2024年，中国官员将告诉来自非洲、南亚及其他地区的领导人，高食品和能源价格是由于西方制裁所致，并指责美国的武器和能源公司在以欧洲人的损失为代价牟利。
3. 的确，由于中国声称一向重视领土完整的原则，它从未承认俄罗斯在2014年对克里米亚半岛的并吞。（一般只有国家采用这个短语）
4. 但是，美国一场狂热的竞选活动带来了危险，因为候选人们在对中国问题上互相竞争强硬。
5. 对西方的共同不满是中国与其最亲密伙伴之间的纽带，这些伙伴本身是一个杂乱无章的团体。

Question 45

1. Combined with a reputation for fusty investors who prefer established business models to new ones, that led to disruptive tech companies with the potential for rapid growth listing elsewhere.
2. he is unaware of any company choosing an ipo venue based on its listing rules. Instead, clients ask how much money their shares will fetch and how readily local investors will support their business. These are fronts on which the City has long been found wanting. Even those running Britain’s bourse seem to doubt its chances of revival.
3. The market’s flagship ftse 100 index now trades at around ten times the value of its underlying firms’ annual earnings—barely higher than the nadir reached during March 2020, as the shutters came down at the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

Answer 45

1. 与那些更偏好传统商业模式而非新兴模式的老派投资者的名声相结合，这导致了拥有快速增长潜力的颠覆性科技公司选择在其他地方上市。
2. 他并不知道有任何公司是基于其上市规则来选择IPO地点的。相反，客户们询问的是他们的股票能够卖多少钱以及当地投资者对他们的业务支持有多大。这些都是伦敦金融城长期以来所欠缺的方面。甚至连英国证券交易所的负责人似乎也对其复苏的可能性表示怀疑。
3. 市场的旗舰富时100指数现在的交易价格大约是其所涵盖公司年收益的十倍——这一水平几乎只比2020年3月，在新冠肺炎疫情刚开始时市场关闭时达到的最低点稍高。

Question 46

1. Once in Hong Kong he worked his way up from factory dogsbody to clothing empresario and media mogul.
2. In 1995 Mr Lai founded Apple Daily, a popular Chinese-language tabloid that mixed tittle-tattle with criticism of the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing.
3. Kishiki noriyo pulls up outside a house in Akashi, a city in western Japan, in a truck emblazoned with a heart logo and the slogan: “Diaper delivery: we also deliver kindness.”

Answer 46

1. “一到香港，他就从一个工厂小工一步步努力成长为一名服装企业家和媒体大亨。”
2. “1995年，黎智英创立了苹果日报，这是一份混合了闲言碎语与批评香港和北京政府的流行中文小报。”
3. “岸木典代驾着一辆印有心形标志的卡车停在了日本西部城市明石的一所房子外，车上标语写着：“尿布递送：我们还传递温情。””

Question 47

1. It was brought about in the first place by globalisation, quiescent inflation and, most of all, a long decline in interest rates.
2. Step out of the Lyceum Theatre after seeing “The Lion King” on a Friday night, and the noise is cacophonous. Some 30 pedicabs, many fur-lined and dotted with bright lights, lie in wait. Drivers woo theatregoers by blaring out music: schmaltzy Christmas songs, trancy electro-pop and bhangra.
3. Long popular in South Asia, cycle rickshaws arrived in London only in 1998.
4. These days they are bigger and swisher—and pricier. Shadahan Khan, who takes your correspondent for a spin, charges £5 ($6) a minute, plus a service fee.
5. The gullible and the plastered alike can be whacked by unscrupulous drivers
6. After the assistant drops a bag of shopping inside and scans a bar code, the box trundles off.
7. Amazon, for one, announced with great fanfare ambitious plans for its Prime Air drone-delivery service in 2013, but progress was slow and not much happened.

seafaring life 航海生活

8. If not, there are already enough firms demonstrating that, at least in some areas, delivery bots using wheels, wings or rotors are coming your way.

Answer 47

Certainly! Here are more native translations:

1. 它最初是由全球化引起的，还有低迷的通货膨胀，最主要的是长期利率的下降。
2. 周五晚上从里西姆剧院看完《狮子王》出来，外面的噪音震耳欲聋。大约30辆装饰着毛皮和闪亮灯光的人力车在等待。司机们通过大声播放音乐来吸引剧院的观众：俗气的圣诞歌曲、电子流行舞曲和印度北部音乐。
3. 人力车在南亚一直很受欢迎，但直到1998年才出现在伦敦。
4. 现在这些车更大、更豪华—也更贵。给你的记者同行的沙达汗·汗每分钟收费5英镑（约合6美元），外加服务费。
5. 易受骗和醉酒的人都可能被无良司机敲诈。
6. 助手把一袋购物物品放进去并扫描了一个条码后，这个箱子缓缓驶离。
7. 亚马逊就是一个例子，它在2013年大张旗鼓地宣布了其Prime Air无人机配送服务的宏伟计划，但进展缓慢，几乎没什么大的动作。
8. 如果不是这样，已经有足够多的公司证明，至少在某些领域，使用轮子、翅膀或旋翼的配送机器人正向你靠近。

Question 48

1. In May, sadly, the restaurant will close. That has not helped the morale of the city’s beleaguered financial industry. Hong Kong’s main stockmarket index has plunged by more than a quarter since late January. Its index for smaller, “growth” enterprises is well below the trough it reached in October 2022, before China began lifting the quarantine requirements that starved Hong Kong of visitors.
2. Mainlanders have described Exchange Square, where the bourse is located, as a “ruin”.
3. A surfeit of young and cheap workers once did these jobs; now wages are higher and workers less abundant.
4. Tourists flock to Europe’s historic cities to ogle its artworks, taste its local delicacies and drink its fine wines; the rich and famous gather in the summer for lavish parties on the Riviera.
5. In an interview with the New York Times in 1996 Tom Ford, a famed American designer, gushed that Europeans, unlike his compatriots, “appreciate style”.
6. Hobnobbing with other fashionistas is not the only advantage on offer in Europe. The continent is dotted with artisanal workshops that have for decades catered to the exacting standards of the luxury industry.

Answer 48

Sure, here are the translations:

1. 五月份，遗憾的是，这家餐厅将关闭。这并没有帮助提升这座城市受困的金融行业的士气。自从1月底以来，香港的主要股票指数已经下跌了四分之一以上。其针对较小的“增长型”企业的指数远低于2022年10月所达到的低谷，那是在中国开始取消对香港游客的隔离要求之前。
2. 大陆人曾将交易所所在的交易广场描述为“废墟”。
3. 曾经有大量年轻且廉价的工人做这些工作；现在工资更高，工人却不那么多了。
4. 游客们蜂拥至欧洲的历史名城，欣赏其艺术品，品尝当地美食，饮用美酒；而富人和名流则在夏天聚集在里维埃拉举办奢华派对。
5. 在1996年接受《纽约时报》采访时，美国著名设计师汤姆·福特热情地说，与他的同胞不同，欧洲人“欣赏风格”。
6. 与其他时尚界人士交往并不是在欧洲唯一的好处。这个大陆点缀着工匠作坊，几十年来一直满足奢侈品行业的苛刻标准。

Question 49

1. Dedicated autocrats use cold, patient repression to bring even the meek and unthreatening into line. Their aim is to snuff out any belief—no matter how harmless—that might divide subjects’ loyalties
2. In Xingmeng’s cobbled back alleys, your columnist heard wistfulness and fatalism about the new Naadam, rather than revolt.
3. It takes an implacable regime to hear such words and still detect a need for stricter controls.
4. Amid a surge of inflation, firms have found several stealthy ways to raise prices. Could 2024 mark a turning-point in this invidious trend?

Answer 49

1. 专制的独裁者使用冷酷、耐心的压迫手段来使即使是温顺和无害的人也步入正轨。他们的目的是要扑灭任何信念——无论多么无害——可能会分裂臣民的忠诚。
2. 在兴蒙的鹅卵石后巷里你的专栏作家听到了对新那达慕的怀旧和宿命论，而不是反抗。
3. 需要一个坚不可摧的政权才能听到这样的话语，仍然觉得需要更严格的控制。
4. 在通货膨胀激增之际，企业找到了几种隐蔽的方式来提高价格。2024年是否会成为这种不良趋势的转折点？

Question 50

1. Some chalk it up to Mr Trump’s conservative policies. (He appointed the judges who gave back to the states the power to ban abortion.) Others think they share Mr Trump’s nostalgia for America’s past—an era when white Christians dominated the country. Yet another factor may also have played a role: the belief that Mr Trump was anointed by God to lead the country.
2. Many protesters brandished flags emblazoned with the words “An Appeal to Heaven”, the apostles’ rallying cry for a Christian conquest of America.
3. How many people in pulpits today are willing to stand up and to speak what we believe is righteous
4. It was also lost on the one who wore the flag like a cape as he entered the Capitol. By day’s end it was spattered with blood.
5. In a folksy tone, Mr Hood gives this familiar verse an unusual gloss. “God’s not religious. He’s a government man, if I can put it like that,” he guffaws. “He’s a king, a ruler.” His authority does not end at the church gates. It flows through the halls of government, too.

Answer 50

1. 有些人把它归因于特朗普先生的保守政策。（他任命了赋予各州禁止堕胎权力的法官。）其他人认为他们与特朗普对美国过去的怀旧情绪相共鸣——那是一个白人基督徒主导国家的时代。还有一个因素可能也起了作用：人们相信特朗普是上帝选定的领导国家的人。
2. 许多抗议者挥舞着旗帜，上面印有“向天堂呼吁”的字样，这是使徒们对于基督教征服美国的号召性口号。
3. 如今在讲坛上，有多少人愿意站出来讲我们认为是正义的事？
4. 这个穿着像斗篷一样的旗帜进入国会大厦的人也没有意识到这一点。到了一天结束的时候，它已经被鲜血溅染。
5. 胡德先生用一种亲切的语气给这个熟悉的经文一个不寻常的解释。“上帝不是宗教性的。如果我可以这么说，他是个政府人物，”他大笑着说。“他是国王，是统治者。”他的权威不仅限于教堂大门。它还流经政府的走廊。

Question 51

1. An affable, burly man with a shaved head, Apostle Greg Hood can often be found at the premises of an organic, gluten-free snack-food company in Franklin, Tennessee.
2. The country is expanding its storage capacity, building underground caverns that are both more secure and harder to spy on than tanks out in the open.
3. It might also go on a buying spree. Such was the case in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, when Russia’s main gas company curbed supply.
4. Financial markets tend to react late to geopolitical dangers. But if investors got wind of China’s plans, there would be capital flight. The government would probably tighten its capital controls. State entities would also cash in assets held by overseas custodians and repatriate the proceeds.
5. Xi says “stormy seas” are ahead. The state’s efforts to batten down the hatches could be mistaken for something worse

Answer 51

1. 格雷格·胡德是一个和蔼可亲、魁梧的男人，他的头发剃得光光的，经常可以在田纳西州富兰克林的一家有机无麸质小吃食品公司的场所找到他。
2. 该国正在扩大其储存能力，建造地下洞穴，这些洞穴比露天的油罐更安全，也更难以被间谍发现。
3. 它还可能会开始大举购买。就像去年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰之前的情况一样，当时俄罗斯的主要天然气公司削减了供应。
4. 金融市场通常对地缘政治危险反应迟钝。但如果投资者得知中国的计划，可能会出现资本外逃。政府可能会加强资本管制。国家实体也会兑现由海外托管人持有的资产，并将收益汇回国内。
5. 习近平说“暴风雨前的海面”即将来临。国家为了加固舱门所做的努力可能会被误解为更糟糕的事情。

Question 52

1. Inundated with Silicon Valley refugees and Manhattan defectors, the Texan city once known for its cool subculture has become a tech metropolis.
2. Locals are getting priced out, homeless people line the downtown streets and traffic is hellish.

Answer 52

1. 充斥着硅谷避难者和曼哈顿叛逃者，这个德克萨斯城市曾因其酷炫的亚文化而闻名，如今已成为一个科技大都会。
2. 当地人被高价逼走，无家可归的人在市中心的街道上排成行，交通糟糕透顶。

Question 53

1. We get passed by a lot at this table,” a recruiter from a local public-transport agency told me; she managed to draw a smattering of enquirers.
2. Some of this yearning comes from a sense of competitiveness and one-upmanship, driven by social media.
3. Students who have secured jobs and internships crow about their success on LinkedIn, said Ayara.
4. Japanese is (mostly) written with a subset of the Chinese characters, but most characters can be given either a Japanese or Chinese pronunciation, making the task mind-tangling in that language too.
5. First, there is a growing zone of impunity where neither global powers nor global institutions tread.

Answer 53

1. “我们在这个桌子旁经常被人忽视，”一位来自当地公共交通机构的招聘人员告诉我；她设法吸引了少量询问者。
2. 这种渴望的部分来源是一种竞争感和互相攀比，这是由社交媒体驱动的。
3. 阿亚拉说，已经找到工作和实习机会的学生会在领英上夸耀他们的成功。
4. 日语（大部分）是用汉字的一个子集书写的，但大多数字符可以用日语或汉语发音，这使得在那种语言中的任务也变得令人头脑纠结。
5. 首先，存在一个日益增长的免责区域，全球大国和全球机构都不涉足。

Question 54

1. Housing prices in China have teetered on the brink for years, and 2024 could be the year they finally go over the edge.
2. The government has fiddled with data and threatened commentators in what seems to be an effort to stop people from talking about how bad the Chinese economy is really doing.
3. There is now a big discrepancy between official housing price indexes and what real estate will actually fetch on the market; prices are sliding by at least 15 percent in many cities and by as much as 30 percent in Beijing.
4. The full story of both dismissals remains opaque, but the politics of the CCP’s top leadership feels volatile going into the new year—despite Xi packing the top posts with loyalists last year.
5. Mandatory adoration can’t stop him from feeling insecure—or from recognizing that many people blame him for the state of the country.
6. For all the talk of factions and allies, CCP politics in some ways resembles the dynamics of organized crime; when the knives come out, friendships don’t matter. If there ever is a significant move against Xi, it may come from the people he’s promoted and sponsored.
7. One sign of this shift is that Chinese public opinion of the United States has risen sharply—**a coded way of **expressing discontent with Beijing’s course.
8. There are always concerns that anti-China rhetoric in Washington will gum up the relationship during an election year.

Gum up the work

Answer 54

1. 中国的房价多年来一直处于崩溃的边缘，2024年可能是它们最终走向崩溃的一年。
2. 政府篡改数据，并威胁评论员，似乎是为了阻止人们谈论中国经济的真实状况。
3. 官方的房价指数与市场上房地产的实际成交价之间现在存在很大差异；在许多城市价格下降了至少15%，在北京的跌幅甚至达到了30%。
4. 这两次解职的全部内幕仍然不透明，但进入新年，中共高层的政治局势感觉很不稳定——尽管习去年用忠诚者填满了高层职位。
5. 强制性的赞美无法阻止他感到不安——或者认识到许多人因为国家的状况而责怪他。
6. 尽管有关派系和盟友的讨论不断，中共政治在某些方面类似于有组织犯罪的动态；当刀剑出鞘时，友谊不再重要。如果真的有针对习的重大举动，可能会来自于他提拔和支持的人。
7. 这种转变的一个迹象是，中国公众对美国的看法急剧上升——这是一种表达对北京政策不满的隐晦方式。
8. 在选举年，总有人担心华盛顿的反华言论会使两国关系陷入僵局。

Question 55

1. There is more to work (and life) than productivity. Perhaps the greatest virtue of remote work is that it leads to happier employees. People spend less time commuting, which from their vantage-point might feel like an increase in productivity, even if conventional measures fail to detect it. They can more easily fit in school pickups and doctor appointments, not to mention the occasional lie-in or midmorning jog (late afternoon workout). And some tasks—notably, those requiring unbroken concentration for long periods—can often be done more smoothly from home than in open-plan offices. All this explains why so many workers have become so office-shy.
2. So the wide swings in these yields throughout the year might have been expected to leave all sorts of asset classes looking wobbly.
3. Other markets shrugged off the interest-rate ructions
4. Sadly, not everyone is feeling bullish. The market for initial public offerings remains moribund.

Answer 55

1. 工作（和生活）不仅仅是生产力。或许远程工作的最大优点是它让员工更加快乐。人们减少了通勤时间，从他们的角度看，这可能感觉像是生产力的提升，即使传统的衡量标准无法检测到它。他们更容易安排接孩子和医生预约，更不用说偶尔的赖床或上午跑步（下午晚些时候锻炼）。并且某些任务——特别是那些需要长时间不间断集中注意力的任务——通常在家里比开放式办公室更容易完成。所有这些解释了为什么这么多工作者变得如此不愿去办公室。
2. 所以这一年中这些收益率的巨大波动可能会导致所有种类的资产类别看起来摇摇欲坠。
3. 其他市场对利率的动荡不以为意。
4. 可悲的是，并不是每个人都感到乐观。首次公开募股市场仍然停滞不前。

Question 56

1. This is the night when some characters muster the gumption to reverse their fortunes.
2. In “Trading Places”, the good guys ruin the baddies in a heist featuring a gorilla and a fancy-dress party on a train.
3. Even when they don’t involve fratricide, new year’s resolutions can be ill-advised. It may be a natural time to assess your life, but it is also a febrile, maudlin and frequently inebriated one.
4. Francis Fukuyama has described the federal government as a vetocracy, because the House majority, 41 senators, the president and the Supreme Court all have the power to kill legislation.
5. There are some asterisks to this happy story: the federal budget deficit is huge.

Answer 56

1. 这是一个一些角色鼓起勇气扭转命运的夜晚。
2. 在《换位交易》中，好人通过一次包含大猩猩和在火车上的化装舞会的抢劫来毁掉坏人。
3. 即使新年决议不涉及兄弟相残，它们也可能是不明智的。这或许是评估你生活的自然时刻，但它同时也是一个热烈、多愁善感且经常醉酒的时刻。
4. 弗朗西斯·福山将联邦政府描述为一个否决制国家，因为众议院多数、41名参议员、总统和最高法院都有权力废止立法。
5. 这个乐观故事有一些附加条件：联邦预算赤字巨大。

Question 57

1. That strategy will run out of road in January, when a partial government shutdown looms.
2. While that is going on, Republicans will hold their Iowa caucuses on January 15th, which will probably confirm Mr Trump’s grip on the party, and the Supreme Court may have to rule on a couple of important cases involving him.
3. This confluence of events is potentially awful, and that’s before Mr Trump is in effect confirmed as the nominee on Super Tuesday in March, the day after his federal trial for attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 election is set to begin.

Answer 57

1. 那个策略将在一月份走到尽头，届时政府部分关门迫在眉睫。
2. 在此期间，共和党将于1月15日在爱荷华州举行党团会议，这很可能会确认特朗普先生对党的掌控，而最高法院可能需要对涉及他的几个重要案件做出裁决。
3. 这些事件的汇合可能极为糟糕，那还是在特朗普先生实际上在三月的超级星期二被确认为提名人之前，也就是他试图推翻2020年选举结果的联邦审判预计开始的前一天。

Question 58

1. As they grow old, those who suffered or witnessed acts of political violence become harder to cow into silence.
2. While there is time, some survivors are speaking out about that deadly decade of purges and bloodletting, unleashed in 1966 by Chairman Mao Zedong as a way to outflank critics within the party establishment. Unfortunately for such survivors, the collective interests of the ruling party and thus the nation, as defined by the supreme leader, President Xi Jinping, leave little room for individual pangs of conscience.
3. School textbooks offer only terse accounts of the 1960s and 1970s, declaring that Mao’s mistakes are outweighed by his achievements.
4. The market value of Tencent, one of China’s most innovative firms that also has a big gaming business, tumbled by 12%.
5. This heavy-handed strategy has slowed the uptake of consumer-facing generative ai in the country.

Answer 58

1. 随着年龄的增长，那些遭受或目睹政治暴力行为的人变得更难被压迫成沉默。
2. 在还有时间的时候，一些幸存者正在公开谈论那个致命的十年，即1966年由毛泽东主席发起的清洗和流血事件，目的是为了在党内击败批评者。不幸的是，对于这些幸存者来说，由最高领导人习近平定义的执政党的集体利益和国家的利益，几乎没有给个人的良心之痛留下空间。
3. 学校教科书对1960年代和1970年代的描述只是简短的记载，称毛的错误被他的成就所掩盖。
4. 腾讯的市值，作为中国最具创新力的公司之一，同时拥有庞大的游戏业务，下跌了12%。
5. 这种高压策略减缓了消费者面向的生成式人工智能在该国的普及速度。

Question 59

1. So the other plank of China’s strategy is to turn corporate data into a public good.
2. Everyone from bankers to brewers has been ensnared in America’s toxic culture wars.
3. Few multinationals are unscathed.
4. Among Western ceos even a loudmouth like Elon Musk is learning the value of silence in China.
5. Intel is building fabs not just in America but in Germany, too.

a microchip fabrication plant.

Answer 59

1. 所以中国策略的另一个方面是将企业数据转化为公共利益。
2. 从银行家到啤酒商，每个人都被卷入了美国的毒性文化战争。
3. 几乎没有跨国公司能完好无损。
4. 在西方的首席执行官中，即便是像埃隆·马斯克这样的大嘴巴也在中国学到了沉默的价值。
5. 英特尔正在建造芯片工厂，不仅在美国，也在德国。

Question 60

1. In a fractious world, businesses cannot hide from politics and geopolitics.
2. But the lesson of the wokelash is that outspokenness can backfire. When deciding whether to speak up, bosses of global firms should use long-term shareholder value as their lodestar.
3. Chief executives have long had to be contortionists, balancing the needs of employees, suppliers and above all shareholders while staying within the limits set by governments.
4. These convulsions affect big firms far more than arguments over who should use which bathroom. Yet, out of joint after the wokelash, few bosses are prepared to say so.
5. Others hope that by keeping under the radar, they will avoid political flak.
6. A more menacing China.
   Think twice before cozying up to China.
   Deepening rivalry between China and the US

Answer 60

1. 在一个纷争四起的世界中，企业无法远离政治和地缘政治的影响。
2. 但是，觉醒反击的教训表明，过分直言不讳可能会产生反效果。决定是否表态时，全球公司的领导应以长期股东价值为他们的导航星。
3. 长期以来，首席执行官必须像杂技演员一样，在满足员工、供应商以及尤其是股东的需求与遵守政府规定之间找到平衡。
4. 这些剧变对大公司的影响远超过关于谁该使用哪个洗手间的争论。然而，在经历了觉醒反击后，很少有企业领袖愿意公开承认这一点。
5. 其他人希望通过低调行事，来避免政治上的攻击。
6. 一个更具威胁的中国。与中国走得太近前要三思。

Question 61

1. China’s under-vaccinated population was ill-prepared: according to some estimates, well over 1m people died of the disease as the country staggered back to normality (officials admitted to only a fraction of that number).
2. Mr Xi will try to put on a brave face. In mid-January he will send an unusually large delegation to schmooze with plutocrats at the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of businesspeople, politicians and celebrities in Davos, Switzerland. Reuters, a news agency, says the team will be led by China’s prime minister, Li Qiang—the highest-ranking Chinese official to attend in person since Mr Xi himself showed up in 2017.
3. Many officials and firms in the West were shuddering at the prospect of Donald Trump’s presidency (he was about to be sworn in) and the impact that his threatened trade war with China would have on global growth.
4. They were enraptured by Mr Xi’s efforts to portray himself as a champion of free trade.

.

Answer 61

1. 中国疫苗接种不足的人口准备不足：根据一些估计，随着该国艰难恢复正常，超过100万人死于这种疾病（官方只承认了其中的一小部分）。
2. 习先生将尝试表现得镇定。1月中旬，他将派遣一个异常庞大的代表团去瑞士达沃斯参加世界经济论坛，与富豪们亲切交流。这是一个商界人士、政治家和名人的年度聚会。据路透社报道，这个团队将由中国的总理李强领导——这是自习本人2017年亲自出席以来，中国最高级别的官员出席。
3. 许多西方的官员和公司都对唐纳德·特朗普总统（他即将宣誓就职）及其威胁与中国发起贸易战可能对全球增长产生的影响感到不安。
4. 他们被习先生努力将自己塑造为自由贸易的捍卫者所深深吸引。

Question 62

5. In Western capitals and boardrooms the new year begins with much China-linked worry.
6. Ostensibly they were against covid-related lockdowns, but they also had a political hue.
7. Nothing that emerged from the closed-door gathering suggested any bold new measures to rev up growth.
8. Throughout 2023 police tracked down participants, warning many and detaining some. Fear has taken hold again.

Answer 62

5. 在西方的首都和会议室里，新的一年开始时充满了与中国相关的担忧。
6. 表面上他们是反对与新冠相关的封锁措施，但也带有一种政治色彩。
7. 在这次闭门会议中，没有任何迹象表明有任何大胆的新措施来刺激增长。
8. 整个2023年，警方追踪参与者，警告许多人并拘留了一些人。恐惧再次笼罩。

Question 63

9. In the coming months verdicts will be reached in juryless trials of dozens of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists. The outcomes could cast an even deeper chill over Hong Kong’s shrinking space for free speech.
10. It is sometimes difficult to tell what motivates these shakeups. Mr Xi is waging a relentless war on corruption as well as a campaign to enforce loyalty to his rule—there may be hidden political reasons why certain people are targeted for graft.
11. State media say that in 2023 more than 100 financial officials, mostly bankers, were rounded up for graft.
12. The glumness that has settled over China’s private sector is unlikely to be dispelled in 2024.

Answer 63

9. 在未来几个月中，数十名香港最杰出的亲民主活动人士将在无陪审团的审判中被宣判。这些结果可能会对香港日益缩小的言论自由空间投下更深的阴影。
10. 有时候很难判断是什么激发了这些动荡。习先生正在对腐败进行无情的战斗，同时也在开展一场确保对他统治忠诚的运动——某些人因为腐败而成为打击对象可能有隐藏的政治原因。
11. 国家媒体称，2023年有超过100名金融官员，大多是银行家，因腐败而被抓捕。
12. 已经笼罩在中国私营部门上的忧郁情绪在2024年不太可能被消散。

Question 64

13. Mr Xi may hope that China’s troubles will be offset by malaise in the West, such as divisions over support for Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, and political strife in America as a presidential election looms there in November.
14. But the West’s anxieties about China will not abate—whoever wins America’s elections, China will remain a bugbear in Washington.
15. Murmurings about Mr Xi’s autocratic rule, fanned by the country’s troubles since then, will probably remain mostly private

Answer 64

13. 习先生可能希望中国的困境能够被西方的不安所抵消，比如对乌克兰的支持和以色列在加沙的战争的分歧，以及美国因11月的总统选举而出现的政治纷争。
14. 但西方对中国的担忧不会减少——无论谁赢得美国的选举，中国将继续成为华盛顿的心腹大患。
15. 自那时以来，关于习先生专制统治的低语，由国家的困境所助长，可能会主要保持在私下。

Question 65

1. These vary widely, but all have something in common: breathtaking ambition.
2. There is a snag, however. Industrialisation is even harder to induce than it was 40 or 50 years ago. Technological advances mean that fewer workers than ever are needed to produce, say, a pair of socks
3. Meanwhile, fossil-fuel beneficiaries are trying another strategy altogether: to reinvent the entrepot.
4. The fund is shelling out on everything from football teams and petrochemical plants to entirely new cities. Industrial policy has never been conducted on such a scale
5. All this means that the race to get rich in the 21st century will be more gruelling than the one in the 20th century

Answer 65

1. 这些各不相同，但都有一个共同点：惊人的雄心。
2. 然而，这里有一个问题。如今，引发工业化比40或50年前更难。技术进步意味着生产一双袜子所需的工人比以往任何时候都少。
3. 与此同时，化石燃料的受益者正在尝试另一种策略：重新发明转口港。
4. 该基金正在大量投资于从足球队和石化厂到全新城市的各种项目。这种规模的产业政策是前所未有的。
5. 所有这些意味着，在21世纪致富的竞争将比20世纪更为艰苦。

Question 66

1. Administration became slapdash. Equipment—centrifuges that separated plasma from blood, syringes and needles—was reused without being disinfected.
2. The result was the scene Dr Gao chanced on in one village: a young wife who had just hanged herself in front of her little son.
3. He trudged down a dirt road, past rows of sunflowers. He roused a herd of cattle, 22 in total, and drove them out to graze.

Answer 66

1. 行政管理变得草率。设备——用于将血浆与血液分离的离心机、注射器和针头——在未经消毒的情况下被重复使用。
2. 结果就是高医生在一个村子里偶然发现的情景：一位年轻的妻子刚刚在她小儿子面前上吊自杀。
3. 他沿着一条泥土路走着，经过一排排向日葵。他唤醒了一群牛，总共22头，然后赶它们出去吃草。

Question 67

1. We write to taste life twice,” Nin wrote, “in the moment and in retrospection.” She spent her last years reading her diaries to worshipping crowds. Like today’s influencers, she knew that retrospection tastes much sweeter in company.

Answer 67

1. “我们写作是为了二次品味生活，”宁写道，“一次在当下，一次在回顾中。”她在生命的最后几年，向崇拜她的人群朗读自己的日记。就像今天的网红一样，她知道在他人陪伴下的回顾会更加甜美。

Question 68

1. Until they fully know the risks, there will be plenty more phish in the sea.
2. Brazil’s underworld has developed the most advanced “point of sale” malware, which scammers use to filch bank details from card readers, according to Kaspersky Lab.
3. China calls Mr Lai a “destroyer of peace”. Mr Lai, for his part, once described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”. Of late, though, he has emphasised the fudgy status quo.
4. Were he to prove more overtly pro-China, Mr Hou might irk America. Evan Medeiros, a former China hand at the White House, notes a “background debate” about America’s one-China policy.
5. The United States would in theory be content to see the unification of Taiwan with the mainland if done peacefully. In practice these days it is wedded to the status quo.
6. Another is that, during a fevered presidential race in which standing up to China becomes a virility test, Mr Biden overreacts or hawks in Congress stage a provocation akin to Ms Pelosi’s trip.
7. Worryingly, the Chinese side has (or pretends to have) unrealistic expectations that President Joe Biden and his administration would help to constrain a Lai presidency. In part, that nods to China’s scornful insistence that the dpp—and indeed Taiwan’s voters—are America’s hapless pawns in a superpower game to hold China down.

Answer 68

1. 在他们完全了解风险之前，海里还会有更多的诈骗之鱼。
2. 据卡巴斯基实验室称，巴西的地下世界开发了最先进的“销售点”恶意软件，诈骗者用它来从刷卡器偷取银行细节。
3. 中国称赖先生为“和平的破坏者”。赖先生曾自称为“台湾独立的务实工作者”。但最近，他强调了模糊不清的现状。
4. 如果霍先生表现得更明显亲中，可能会惹恼美国。曾在白宫担任中国事务专家的埃文·梅德罗斯指出，关于美国的一中政策有一场“背景辩论”。
5. 理论上，如果和平实现，美国愿意看到台湾与大陆的统一。但实际上，如今美国坚守现状。
6. 另一个是，在一场狂热的总统竞选中，对抗中国成为一种阳刚之气的考验，拜登可能会过度反应，或者国会中的鹰派会像佩洛西的访问那样策划挑衅。
7. 令人担忧的是，中国方面（或是假装）对拜登总统及其政府帮助约束赖总统的期望不切实际。这部分暗示了中国对民进党——甚至台湾选民——是美国在遏制中国的超级大国游戏中无助的棋子的轻蔑坚持。

Question 69

1. The budding Sino-Arabic relationship will not replace the wilting Sino-American one.

Answer 69

1. 中阿关系的萌芽不会取代中美关系的凋零。

Question 70

1. As Donald Trump and his imitators have made politics more outlandish and offensive, films, television and even comedy, dominated as they are by creative types of the left, have grown more didactic and censorious—thereby supplying more fuel to the right.
2. This loop has sucked in even some entertainers wise enough to try to stand outside it, at least to judge by the comedian Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, “The Dreamer”, released on the last day of 2023. Mr Chappelle’s wit is still fanged, his storytelling still absorbing, the strike of his punchlines as surprising—as deserving of the name—as ever.
3. For his part, while Mr Chappelle may not have won the culture war, having overcome his adversaries he is relishing the rout.
4. So do his adversaries, though snide reviews of “The Dreamer” from leftish publications have sounded less enraged than resigned. Everyone is going through the motions.
5. On both sides the furious battles of yesteryear are being reprised as shtick.That is progress, of a sort.

Answer 70

1. 当唐纳德·特朗普和他的模仿者使政治变得更加离奇和冒犯时，电影、电视甚至喜剧界——这些领域由左派创意人士主导——变得越来越教条和审查，反过来又为右翼提供了更多的火药。
2. 这种循环甚至吸引了一些试图保持中立的娱乐人士，至少从喜剧演员戴夫·查普尔最新的Netflix特辑《梦想家》来看是这样，该节目在2023年的最后一天发布。查普尔的幽默仍然锋利，他的讲故事能力依然引人入胜，他的笑点突然出击，仍然配得上他的名声，像以往一样。
3. 就查普尔本人而言，虽然他可能没有在文化战争中胜出，但他在战胜对手后正享受着这一胜利。
4. 他的对手们也是如此，尽管左派出版物对《梦想家》的挖苦评论听起来不是愤怒，而是无奈。每个人都在走过场。
5. 在双方，昔日的激烈战斗正被以滑稽戏重现。这种情况，某种程度上是一种进步。

Question 71

1. Thelonious Ellison, known as Monk, is a black academic and author whose erudite novels do not sell well.
2. This broad conceit about racial tropes occasions many more subtle observations of bigotry and hypocrisy, as when a white film director inflated with self-regard over his sensitivity to anti-black cruelty casually humiliates an Asian-American assistant.
3. At the same time the creative engine at the centre of Walt Disney’s diagram—the cinema—is sputtering.
4. “You’re trying to take the pulse of what folks are interested in,”

Answer 71

1. 费洛尼厄斯·埃里森，人称蒙克，是一位黑人学者和作家，他那些博学的小说却销量不佳。
2. 这个关于种族陈词滥调的广泛构想引出了许多关于偏见和伪善的更微妙的观察，比如当一位对自己对反黑暴行的敏感性沾沾自喜的白人电影导演，随意羞辱一位亚裔美国助理时。
3. 与此同时，沃尔特·迪士尼图表中心的创造引擎——电影——正在发出嘶嘶声。
4. “你正试图探测人们感兴趣的东西，”

Question 72

1. Most election-riggers are more subtle. They want to cheat just enough to win, but not so much that their country’s reputation takes a nose-dive. Rather than crudely stuffing ballot boxes on election day, they try to tilt the playing field beforehand, in various ways.
2. All this sets the scene for stage two: nobbling the election itself.
3. In Zimbabwe in 2023, strict but selectively enforced limits on campaign spending, combined with a sudden 20-fold increase in registration fees for candidates, left the opposition with little cash for campaigning, while the president swanned around in a helicopter.
4. On election day itself, a mysterious shortage of ballot papers in opposition strongholds forced voters to queue until the small hours.
5. The volume and verisimilitude of fake videos of opposition leaders doing unspeakable things will surely increase in 2024, and that may sway some voters, especially in countries with low literacy and declining press freedom, such as India and Pakistan.
6. This starts with steps that are not directly tied to elections, such as handsomely paying the police and army to ensure their loyalty, co-opting judges, turning the public broadcaster into a propaganda megaphone and hounding watchdog groups into bankruptcy with meritless tax probes.

Answer 72

1. 大多数操纵选举的人更为微妙。他们想作弊刚好足以赢得胜利，但又不至于让国家的声誉急剧下降。他们不是在选举日粗暴地塞满投票箱，而是事先以各种方式尝试倾斜竞技场。
2. 这一切为第二阶段铺垫：操纵选举本身。
3. 在2023年的津巴布韦，对竞选支出严格但选择性执行的限制，加上候选人登记费用突然增加20倍，使得反对派几乎没有资金进行竞选活动，而总统则乘坐直升机四处游荡。
4. 在选举当天，神秘的选票短缺在反对派的大本营迫使选民排队等候直到凌晨。
5. 2024年，制作反对派领导人做不可告人之事的假视频的数量和逼真度肯定会增加，这可能会影响一些选民，尤其是在识字率低、新闻自由下降的国家，如印度和巴基斯坦。
6. 这一切始于与选举没有直接关系的步骤，如慷慨支付警察和军队以确保他们的忠诚，收买法官，将公共广播机构变成宣传喇叭，并通过毫无根据的税务调查迫使监督团体破产。

Question 73

1. Nervous travellers will break out in a cold sweat seeing pictures of a gaping hole in the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 max 9, blown out at 15,000 feet (4,600 metres) after the plane had taken off over Oregon on January 5th.
2. Although it was not a safety risk, the defect put another dent in Boeing’s reputation.
3. Ironing out manufacturing niggles is one reason that deliveries of Boeing’s 777x, another long-haul jet, will begin only in 2025, six years behind schedule.
4. It is struggling to rehire skilled workers laid off during the covid-19 lull as it tries to increase production of the 737 max from 38 a month to 50 by 2025-26, in order to meet strong demand from airlines dealing with a surge in post-pandemic revenge flying.
5. Some of Boeing’s woes on Mr Calhoun’s watch were beyond his control. Soon after he took over at the start of 2020 covid sent the industry into a tailspin.

Answer 73

1. 神经紧张的旅客看到阿拉斯加航空公司的波音737 max 9机身上一个巨大的洞的照片时，将会冒出冷汗。这个洞是在飞机于1月5日从俄勒冈州起飞后在15,000英尺（4,600米）处被吹开的。
2. 尽管这不是一个安全风险，这个缺陷又给波音的声誉造成了一次打击。
3. 解决制造上的小问题是波音777x——另一款远程喷气机——交付推迟至2025年（比原计划晚六年）的原因之一。
4. 随着波音试图将737 max的产量从每月38架增加到2025-26年的50架，以满足航空公司应对疫情后复仇性飞行激增的强烈需求，它正努力重新雇佣在新冠肺炎低迷期被裁掉的熟练工人。
5. 在卡尔洪掌舵期间，波音遇到的一些困难是他无法控制的。他在2020年初接手后不久，新冠疫情就使整个行业陷入混乱。

Question 74

1. Nervous travellers will break out in a cold sweat seeing pictures of a gaping hole in the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 max 9, blown out at 15,000 feet (4,600 metres) after the plane had taken off over Oregon on January 5th.
2. Although it was not a safety risk, the defect put another dent in Boeing’s reputation.
3. Ironing out manufacturing niggles is one reason that deliveries of Boeing’s 777x, another long-haul jet, will begin only in 2025, six years behind schedule.
4. It is struggling to rehire skilled workers laid off during the covid-19 lull as it tries to increase production of the 737 max from 38 a month to 50 by 2025-26, in order to meet strong demand from airlines dealing with a surge in post-pandemic revenge flying.
5. Some of Boeing’s woes on Mr Calhoun’s watch were beyond his control. Soon after he took over at the start of 2020 covid sent the industry into a tailspin.

Answer 74

1. 神经紧张的旅客看到阿拉斯加航空公司的波音737 max 9机身上一个巨大的洞的照片时，将会冒出冷汗。这个洞是在飞机于1月5日从俄勒冈州起飞后在15,000英尺（4,600米）处被吹开的。
2. 尽管这不是一个安全风险，这个缺陷又给波音的声誉造成了一次打击。
3. 解决制造上的小问题是波音777x——另一款远程喷气机——交付推迟至2025年（比原计划晚六年）的原因之一。
4. 随着波音试图将737 max的产量从每月38架增加到2025-26年的50架，以满足航空公司应对疫情后复仇性飞行激增的强烈需求，它正努力重新雇佣在新冠肺炎低迷期被裁掉的熟练工人。
5. 在卡尔洪掌舵期间，波音遇到的一些困难是他无法控制的。他在2020年初接手后不久，新冠疫情就使整个行业陷入混乱。

Question 75

1. At a dpp rally in New Taipei, the exurbs of the capital, Cody Chen, a 30-year-old who works in finance, says she will vote for the ruling party because it is “most able to resist China’s pressure”.
2. That would threaten gridlock on big contested issues such as defence spending and cross-straits trade.
3. Such developments will be prompting flashbacks among veteran Western policymakers. China’s rise was accompanied by an epochal shift in global trade.
4. Early last year investors expected output to fall, as Chinese construction flagged.
5. Steel mills, which have access to cheap capital, are willing to take considerable losses in order to preserve market share.

Answer 75

1. 在新北市一场民进党集会上，30岁的金融行业工作者陈科迪表示，她将投票给执政党，因为它“最有能力抵抗中国的压力”。
2. 这可能会在诸如国防开支和两岸贸易等大型有争议的问题上造成僵局。
3. 这些发展将会在资深西方政策制定者中引发回忆。中国的崛起伴随着全球贸易的划时代转变。
4. 去年早些时候，投资者预计产出将下降，因为中国建筑业出现下滑。
5. 钢铁厂，由于能够获得廉价资本，愿意承受相当大的损失以维持市场份额。

Question 76

1. In 2012, during a previous era of manufacturing stimulus, overcapacity meant that the profit on a couple of tonnes of steel “was just about enough to buy a lollipop”,
2. In November Britain launched a probe into Chinese excavators, after jcb, a local firm, alleged that Chinese rivals were flooding the market with cut-price machines.
3. age, they say, brings wisdom. But it also brings decrepitude. When the latter begins to outweigh the former, perhaps it is time for even the most ambitious to consider retiring into slippered ease.
4. The most popular scientific explanation of ageing, disposable-soma theory, holds that natural selection hones youth at the expense of age, since this best serves the task of passing genes to the next generation
5. Perhaps, some suggest, the slippers should beckon after all.

Answer 76

1. 在2012年，上一个制造业刺激时期，产能过剩意味着几吨钢铁的利润“仅够买一个棒棒糖”。
2. 11月，英国针对中国挖掘机启动了一项调查，此前当地公司JCB声称中国竞争对手正在用廉价机器充斥市场。
3. 人们说，年龄带来智慧。但它也带来了衰老。当后者开始超过前者时，也许即使是最雄心勃勃的人也该考虑退休，享受穿着拖鞋的舒适。
4. 年龄增长最受欢迎的科学解释，一次性体理论，认为自然选择以牺牲晚年为代价磨练青春，因为这最有助于将基因传递给下一代。
5. 也许，一些人建议，拖鞋最终还是应该吸引人们。

Question 77

1. Conversely, work published in 2022 by a team from Northwestern University, in Chicago, looked at neurofibrillary tangles, another Alzheimer’s marker. It reported that so-called “super-agers”—those lucky enough in the disposable-soma genetic lottery to maintain healthy minds in healthy bodies long after others’ decrepitude—had fewer of these tangles than did apparently disease-free non-super-agers.
2. A paper published last year by Ege Erdil and Tamay Besiroglu of Epoch, a research firm, argues that “explosive growth”, with gdp zooming upwards, is “plausible with ai capable of broadly substituting for human labour”.
3. A mood of techno-optimism had gripped some businesses, while others sought to firm up supply chains.
4. An American capex “tracker” produced by Goldman Sachs, a bank, offers a picture of businesses’ outlays, as well as hinting at future intentions.
5. ai is still likely to change the economy, but with a whimper not a bang.

Answer 77

1. 相反，2022年，芝加哥西北大学的一个团队发表的研究关注了神经纤维缠结，这是另一个阿尔茨海默病的标志。研究报告称所谓的“超级衰老者”——那些在一次性体遗传彩票中幸运地保持健康头脑和健康身体，远超其他人衰老的人——比看似没有疾病的非超级衰老者拥有更少的这种缠结。
2. 去年，Epoch研究公司的Ege Erdil和Tamay Besiroglu发表的论文认为，随着GDP快速上升，“人工智能能够广泛替代人类劳动力”的“爆炸性增长”是“可行的”。
3. 一种技术乐观主义情绪已经影响了一些企业，而其他企业则寻求巩固供应链。
4. 美国的一家投资支出“追踪器”由高盛银行提供，展示了企业的支出，同时也暗示了未来的意图。
5. AI仍然可能改变经济，但是轻声而非轰动。

Question 78

1. Although Microsoft released a groundbreaking operating system in 1995, American firms only ramped up spending on software in the late 1990s.
2. A week later it fell off a cliff, as did that of NetEase, after the National Press and Publication Administration (nppa) published draft rules capping spending on online games.
3. The signal from Beijing, cacophonous though it may be, is being heard. On January 1st Baidu, the country’s search giant, said it had scrapped a $3.6bn purchase of a local live-streaming platform called joyy. Baidu said only that conditions of the deal, originally signed in 2020, were not fulfilled.
4. Tencent and Alibaba, China’s biggest e-emporium, have been divesting some assets.

Answer 78

1. 尽管微软在1995年发布了一款开创性的操作系统，但美国公司直到1990年代末才大幅增加软件支出。
2. 一周后，随着国家新闻出版广电总局（NPPA）发布限制网络游戏消费的草案规定，其股价暴跌，网易的股价也是如此。
3. 尽管北京发出的信号可能嘈杂，但人们正在听到。1月1日，中国搜索巨头百度宣布已取消收购当地一家名为joyy的直播平台的36亿美元交易。百度只表示，原本在2020年签署的交易条件未能满足。
4. 腾讯和阿里巴巴，中国最大的电子商务平台，一直在剥离一些资产。

Question 79

1. The travails of China’s domestic digital darlings stand in stark contrast to a boom in state-favoured “hard tech”.
2. They are also flush with money. Over the past three years, even as capital for the consumer internet has all but dried up, hard-tech developers have collectively raised about 550bn yuan through initial public offerings.
3. Ten times a second an object shaped like a thick pizza box and holding a silicon wafer takes off three times faster than a manned rocket.
4. The company has become so important in the Sino-American tech-tussle that, as it emerged at the start of the year, President Joe Biden’s administration pressed asml to cancel planned deliveries of even its older machines to China.

Answer 79

1. 中国国内数字明星公司的困境与国家青睐的“硬科技”繁荣形成了鲜明对比。
2. 他们也资金充裕。过去三年里，即使面向消费者的互联网资本几乎已经枯竭，硬科技开发商通过首次公开募股总共筹集了约5500亿元人民币。
3. 每秒十次，一个形状像厚披萨盒、装着硅片的物体以比载人火箭快三倍的速度起飞。
4. 这家公司在中美科技竞争中变得如此重要，以至于据今年初披露，乔·拜登总统的政府曾向ASML施压，要求其取消向中国交付甚至是其较旧机器的计划。

Question 80

1. To get an idea of what it takes to build such a device, pay a visit to a nondescript factory in Neukölln, a neighbourhood of Berlin.
2. When the company was spun out of Philips, a Dutch electronics giant, in 1984, asml seemed stillborn.
3. Prices rise and fall as shortages turn to gluts.
4. Suppliers are not squeezed to the last penny. Quite the opposite: “We need them to stay healthy,” says Mr Allan.

Answer 80

1. 要了解构建这样一台设备需要什么，可以参观柏林诺伊科尔恩区一家外观普通的工厂。
2. 1984年，这家公司从荷兰电子巨头飞利浦分拆出来时，ASML似乎一出生就夭折。
3. 供应短缺转变为过剩时，价格会上涨和下跌。
4. 供应商并没有被压榨到最后一分钱。恰恰相反：“我们需要他们保持健康，”艾伦先生说。

Question 81

1. Tests will collect reams of data and trigger adjustments. “We have thousands of knobs we can turn to put it into a perfect state,” says Jos Benschop, who is in charge of technology atasml.
2. For the time being, though, the company’s network and its network effects remain indomitable.
3. If technical requirements become too otherworldly the supplier network may unravel. Economics is another. Chipmakers may recoil at asml’s data hunger, which extends to other linked devices in their factories.
4. For that reason, although many Democratic operatives have grave misgivings about his candidacy, most are keeping quiet. As one puts it, if you’re all stuck on a boat of questionable seaworthiness, it is natural to wish for a finer vessel, but unproductive to poke holes in the hull or stoke a mutiny.

Answer 81

1. 测试将收集大量数据并触发调整。“我们有成千上万的旋钮可以调节，以使其达到完美状态，”负责ASML技术的Jos Benschop说。
2. 然而，目前来看，该公司的网络及其网络效应仍然不可战胜。
3. 如果技术要求变得太过超现实，供应商网络可能会解体。经济学是另一个因素。芯片制造商可能会对ASML的数据饥渴感到退缩，这种数据饥渴还扩展到他们工厂中的其他联网设备。
4. 因此，尽管许多民主党操作人员对他的候选资格有严重疑虑，但大多数人保持沉默。正如某人所说，如果你们都被困在一艘可疑的船上，自然会希望有更好的船，但在船体上打洞或煽动叛乱是不产生结果的。

Question 82

1. they are much less likely to think that he is too old or frail to resume the office.
2. Mr Trump appears to like nothing better than rambling on in front of adoring crowds
3. When Americans are paying more attention, the campaign insists, the spectacle of Mr Trump shuttling between rallies and court appearances will remind Americans of the chaos of his time in office
4. Americans like to invoke democratic norms to chide someone from the opposing party, but are willing to suspend them when it comes to their own preferred candidate.

Answer 82

1. 他们不太可能认为他年龄太大或体弱，无法再次担任这一职务。
2. 特朗普似乎最喜欢的就是在崇拜他的人群面前喋喋不休。
3. 当美国人更加关注时，竞选团队坚称，特朗普在集会和法庭出庭之间穿梭往返的场景将提醒美国人他任职期间的混乱。
4. 美国人喜欢援引民主规范来批评对方党派的人，但在涉及自己偏爱的候选人时，他们愿意暂时搁置这些规范。

Question 83

1. Republicans in Congress may pursue a farcical impeachment inquiry against Mr Biden in order to claim that both men are equally disreputable.
2. The party has plenty of non-geriatric politicians who could helm a presidential ticket.
3. But such an outcome would not necessarily be providential for the Democrats.
4. Only a few candidates, with the resources to crank up an electoral machine at short notice, would be able to compete.

Answer 83

1. 国会中的共和党人可能会对拜登先生发起一场滑稽的弹劾调查，以此声称两人都同样不值得信赖。
2. 该党拥有许多非老年的政治家，他们可以领导总统候选人名单。
3. 但这样的结果对民主党来说不一定是天意。
4. 只有少数候选人拥有资源，能够在短时间内启动一台选举机器，从而有能力参与竞争。

Question 84

1. Chinese evs are so snazzy, whizzy and—most important—cheap that the constraint on their export today is the scarcity of vessels for shipping them.
2. As the world decarbonises, demand will rise further.
3. A frosty geopolitical climate will feed the sentiment that subsidised production unfairly puts Western workers on the scrapheap.
4. These subsidies come on top of the ransacking of technology from joint ventures with Western carmakers and Western and South Korean battery-makers

Answer 84

1. 中国的电动汽车如此时尚、迅捷，而且最重要的是便宜，以至于如今限制它们出口的主要因素是运输船只的稀缺。
2. 随着世界实现脱碳，需求将进一步上升。
3. 一个寒冷的地缘政治气候将助长这种观点，即补贴生产不公平地将西方工人置于被淘汰的境地。
4. 这些补贴是在从与西方汽车制造商以及西方和韩国电池制造商的合资企业掠夺技术之上的额外支持。

Question 85

1. Even as cars roll off Chinese assembly lines, the economy is spluttering—in part because it has been so distorted by subsidies and state control.

his body is convulsing 痉挛

2. Last, consider the benefits to the environment. Politicians around the world are realising just what a tall order it is to ask consumers to go green, as a backlash against costly emissions-reductions policies builds.
3. It is taboo in China to cast aspersions on the war-readiness of the People’s Liberation Army (pla). But amid reports that it is also struggling with graft as it splurges on new weaponry, there may be good reason for it, too, to worry.
4. In December nine senior officers were expelled from the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress.

Answer 85

1. 即使汽车从中国的装配线上滚下，经济也在抽搐——部分原因是它被补贴和国家控制所扭曲。
2. 最后，考虑对环境的好处。全世界的政客们正在意识到，要求消费者绿色生活是多么艰巨的任务，因为对成本高昂的减排政策的反弹正在增加。
3. 在中国，质疑人民解放军（PLA）的战备状态是禁忌。但是，鉴于有报道称它在大举购买新武器时也在与腐败作斗争，对它来说也有充分的理由担忧。
4. 十二月，九名高级军官被开除出国家的橡皮图章立法机构，全国人民代表大会。

Question 86

1. But when China lobbed missiles into the sea near the island in a bid to sway the vote towards candidates friendly to itself, he felt compelled to run for office himself.
2. Mr Lai, for his part, has portrayed his rivals as appeasers of an increasingly belligerent China, and says that under their rule, China’s outsize influence will help to destroy Taiwan’s har
3. Donors ran lengthy application processes, provided funds that were ring-fenced for specific uses and enforced painstaking reporting requirements

*earmarked

4. The people working on the front lines are likely to have the better ideas on how to solve a problem.
   No-strings giving may not be for everyone: there will always be donors who want to roll up their sleeves and get involved.
5. Now many think the pendulum has swung too far.

Answer 86

1. 但是当中国向靠近该岛的海域发射导弹，试图影响选票倾向于对自己友好的候选人时，他觉得自己不得不亲自参选。
2. 赖先生则将他的对手描绘成对日益好战的中国的绥靖者，并表示在他们的统治下，中国巨大的影响力将帮助摧毁台湾的民主。
3. 捐助者进行了漫长的申请过程，提供了被专门指定用途的资金，并执行了繁琐的报告要求。
4. 一线工作人员可能对如何解决问题有更好的想法。无附加条件的赠予可能并非适合所有人：总会有想要卷起袖子亲自参与的捐助者。
5. 现在许多人认为摆动的钟摆已经过头了。

Question 87

1. Although academics have since criticised its methodology, the findings were breathlessly cited by bosses and corporate advisers, and the link was treated as causal and cast-iron.
2. In recent days the Pentagon has scrambled to get its story straight.
3. The White House insists it has confidence in the defence secretary, who oversaw Mr Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and has marshalled Western military aid to Ukraine in frequent meetings of around 50 defence ministers since April 2022.

Answer 87

1. 尽管学者们后来批评了它的方法论，但这些发现被老板和企业顾问们急切引用，而这种联系被视为因果关系并牢不可破。
2. 近日来，五角大楼急忙整理自己的说辞。
3. 白宫坚称对国防部长有信心，他在2021年监督了拜登先生搞砸的阿富汗撤军，自2022年4月以来在大约50名国防部长的频繁会议中组织了对乌克兰的西方军事援助。

Question 88

1. By their nature organisations crackle with competitiveness. Adding a bit of fuel to the fire can be fine. Spraying petrol everywhere is unnecessary.
2. As with every skirmish in America’s culture wars, how you view the ousting of Harvard University’s president has much to do with where you are sitting.
3. Whatever the target, they are unlikely to be broken by the initial salvo—and may fire back.
4. Even for Mr Ackman, his new venture will prove a tall order.
5. For all its admirable chutzpah, the escalation points to danger ahead.

Answer 88

1. 由于它们的性质，组织内部充满了竞争性。在火上加一点油是可以的。无需到处喷洒汽油。
2. 就像美国文化战争中的每一场小冲突一样，你如何看待哈佛大学校长被罢免，在很大程度上取决于你所处的位置。
3. 无论目标是什么，它们不太可能被第一轮攻击所击垮——而且可能会反击。
4. 即使对于阿克曼先生来说，他的新企业也将证明是一个艰巨的任务。
5. 尽管其表现出来的令人钦佩的勇气，这种升级指向了前方的危险。

Question 89

1. The fact that so many Americans are so dejected about such a strong economy has spawned a cottage industry of theories.
2. Although few Americans would want to go back to a world of covid shutdowns, many did receive big benefits from the government’s spending spree at the time.

On a winning streak

3. Throw in the vitriol that tends to go viral on social-media platforms, and the negative bias might be even more pronounced.
4. Many are still upset by the bruising battle with inflation.
5. The sticker-shock takes some getting used to.

Answer 89

1. 许多美国人对如此强劲的经济感到沮丧的事实，催生了一系列理论的小作坊。
2. 尽管很少有美国人希望回到新冠病毒封锁的世界，但许多人确实从当时政府的大规模支出中获得了巨大的好处。
3. 再加上在社交媒体平台上往往会走红的恶毒言论，负面偏见可能会更加明显。
4. 许多人仍然对与通货膨胀的激烈战斗感到不安。
5. 价格冲击需要一些时间来适应。

Question 90

1. But Ukraine worries that American hyper-partisanship and Donald Trump’s hostility will steadily throttle support from the Pentagon.
2. This month nato’s Support and Procurement Agency said it would help a group of eu members to bulk-buy 1,000 Patriot air-defence missiles worth about €5bn.

Stock-piling on

3. In wars of attrition the need for quantity nearly always overrides quality.
4. But while Europe can make gmlrs and interceptors, it cannot now do so at scale.
5. Europe will struggle to keep Ukraine in the fight this year if American assistance dries up.

Answer 90

1. 但乌克兰担心美国的极端党派分歧和唐纳德·特朗普的敌意将逐渐削减来自五角大楼的支持。
2. 本月，北约支援和采购机构表示，它将帮助一组欧盟成员国大批购买价值约50亿欧元的1,000枚爱国者防空导弹。
3. 在消耗战中，对数量的需求几乎总是超过了对质量的需求。
4. 但是虽然欧洲能够制造地对地导弹系统和拦截器，它目前还不能大规模生产。
5. 如果美国援助减少，欧洲将难以在今年继续支持乌克兰的战斗。

Question 91

1. As a result of scrimping and saving, the budgets and impact assessments that ngos send to donors are patchy at best, misleading at worst, and the cycle continues.
2. She hired the Bridgespan Group, a non-profit consulting firm spun out of Bain & Company, to help her develop a strategy and do due diligence on ngos working on the topics she cares about, such as race relations and women’s empowerment.
3. A nudge is not always enough to force change within an industry. Sometimes a series of forceful shoves is required.
4. In the rarified world of Western philanthropy, the shoves began in 2020.

Answer 91

1. 由于节衣缩食，非政府组织（NGOs）向捐助者提交的预算和影响评估报告充其量是零散的，最坏情况下是误导性的，这种循环就这样继续。
2. 她聘请了桥梁集团（Bridgespan Group），一家从贝恩公司分离出来的非营利咨询公司，帮助她制定策略并对从事她所关心的主题（如种族关系和女性赋权）的非政府组织进行尽职调查。
3. 一次轻推并不总是足以在行业内促成变革。有时需要一系列的强力推动。
4. 在西方慈善事业的稀有世界里，这些强力推动始于2020年。

Question 92

1. I don’t see how you can sit in your plush foundation office and think you understand what is needed in a local context
2. Even among those who plan to do good, the same pattern holds
3. An industry used to a sedate cycle of marginal improvements is being upended at “China speed”
4. As the shift away from the internal-combustion engine (ice) gathers pace, established carmakers are beginning to worry that Chinese upstarts might run them off the road.

Answer 92

1. 我不明白你怎么能坐在你的豪华基金会办公室里，就认为你理解当地情况所需的是什么。
2. 即使在那些计划做好事的人当中，同样的模式依然存在。
3. 习惯于缓慢周期的边际改进的行业正在被“中国速度”彻底颠覆。
4. 随着从内燃机（ICE）转向的步伐加快，成熟的汽车制造商开始担心中国新兴企业可能会将他们挤出道路。

Question 93

1. As their exports increase, the Chinese government may balk at subsidising Western consumers as lavishly as it has Chinese ones.
2. As a result, Volkswagen’s market share in China has slumped, from nearly 20% in 2020 to 14% in 2023. Its share of ev sales is a puny 3%.
3. But firms that launch a new model every six or seven years cannot keep pace with buccaneering Chinese rivals, which move almost twice as fast.
4. Stellantis (whose largest shareholder owns a stake inThe Economist) has had little presence in China since a joint venture to make Jeeps folded in 2022.

Answer 93

1. 随着它们出口的增加，中国政府可能会犹豫不决是否像对中国消费者那样慷慨地补贴西方消费者。
2. 因此，大众汽车在中国的市场份额从2020年的近20%下降到2023年的14%。它在电动汽车销售中的份额只有区区3%。
3. 但那些每六到七年才推出一款新车型的公司无法跟上敢于冒险的中国竞争对手的步伐，后者的速度几乎快了一倍。
4. 斯泰兰蒂斯（其最大股东持有《经济学人》杂志的股份）自从2022年一家合资企业制造吉普车倒闭以来，在中国的存在感就很小。

Question 94

1. Such is the drubbing foreign firms are receiving at the cheaper end of the market that they may all depart in the next five years,
2. The fancier German brands, bmw and Mercedes, and Lexus, Toyota’s upmarket arm, may hang on for longer.
3. Europe is likely to become the next battleground. Chinese firms’ models, which are mostly small hatchbacks and suvs, suit the continent’s motorists.
4. Europe’s carmakers are not baying for them. China remains a big market for most of them, and they worry about retaliatory measures

Answer 94

1. 由于外国公司在市场低端领域遭受的猛烈打击，它们可能在接下来的五年内全部撤离。
2. 较为高端的德国品牌，如宝马和梅赛德斯，以及丰田的高端品牌雷克萨斯，可能会坚持更长时间。
3. 欧洲可能成为下一个战场。中国公司的车型，主要是小型掀背车和SUV，适合该大陆的汽车驾驶者。
4. 欧洲的汽车制造商并不热衷于它们。对他们大多数来说，中国仍然是一个大市场，他们担心报复性措施。

Question 95

1. The Chinese government, though, seems to have tired of providing fodder for activists by putting its failings on display
2. Later in the year analysts at banks were warned against publishing bearish views on the economy
3. The gutting of China Judgments Online will have as big an impact as any of these moves.
4. But that could involve paying backhanders.
5. In 2022 a woman was found chained by the neck in a freezing outhouse in Jiangsu province, provoking public outrage.

Answer 95

1. 然而，中国政府似乎已经厌倦了通过将其失误公之于众来供激进分子利用。
2. 今年晚些时候，银行分析师被警告不要发表对经济持悲观看法。
3. 中国裁判文书网的削弱将产生与这些举措一样大的影响。
4. 但这可能涉及行贿。
5. 2022年，江苏省发现一名女性被链在一个冷藏的外屋的脖子上，引发了公众的愤怒。

Question 96

1. On January 1st he officially replaced James Gorman, who transformed Morgan Stanley from **an also-ran **to the envy of Wall Street during his 14-year term.

2.

Answer 96

1. 在1月1日，他正式接替詹姆斯·戈尔曼，而在戈尔曼的14年任内，他将摩根士丹利从平庸之辈转变成了华尔街的翘楚。

Question 97

1. In his previous job as party chief of Shanghai, Mr Li oversaw a strict lockdown of the city to quell an outbreak of covid-19.
2. For one, ai chatbots have a bad habit of spouting nonsense, an unhelpful trait in an educational context.
3. The company has not allowed Chatgpt and other ais to ingest its material, but has instead used the content to train its own models, which it is embedding into its suite of learning apps.
4. Chatbots must also be tailored to different age groups, to avoid either bamboozling or infantilising students.

Answer 97

1. 在担任上海市党委书记的前职务中，李先生曾主持了对该市的严格封锁，以遏制新冠病毒爆发。
2. 首先，人工智能聊天机器人有一个不好的习惯，那就是胡言乱语，这在教育环境中是不受欢迎的特点。
3. 该公司没有允许Chatgpt和其他人工智能摄取其材料，而是利用这些内容来训练自己的模型，然后将其嵌入其一套学习应用程序中。
4. 聊天机器人还必须针对不同年龄段进行定制，以避免让学生感到困惑或婴儿化。

Question 98

1. China’s leaders have no qualms about using intimidation and force to stay in power.
2. respondents may not share their actual views for fear of reprisal
3. When james gorman took the helm of Morgan Stanley it was barely afloat.
4. Other global banks are now aping its push into wealth management.

*mimic/imitate badly or to make fun of东施效颦

Answer 98

1. 中国的领导人毫不犹豫地使用恐吓和武力来保持权力。
2. 调查对象可能不会分享他们的真实观点，因为担心遭到报复。
3. 当詹姆斯·戈尔曼掌舵摩根士丹利时，它几乎濒临破产。
4. 其他全球银行现在都在效仿其进军财富管理领域。

Question 99

1. Mr Pick himself seems set to stay the course.
2. When donald trump left office three years ago, still huffing, puffing and plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the leaders of most of America’s biggest corporations were only too happy to see the back of him.
3. True, they had conveniently put aside their earlier scruples about Mr Trump’s suitability for the White House, bought off by generous corporate and personal tax cuts in 2017.
4. True, many had cravenly turned a blind eye to his torching of environmental rules in support of a broad-brush regulatory bonfire.

Answer 99

1. 皮克先生本人似乎坚定地保持现状。
2. 当唐纳德·特朗普三年前卸任时，仍然怒气冲冲、筹划着推翻2020年总统选举结果，大多数美国最大的企业领导都对他离任感到高兴。
3. 的确，他们方便地搁置了他们早前对特朗普是否适合担任总统的顾虑，被2017年慷慨的企业和个人减税所收买。
4. 的确，许多人卑躬屈膝地对他对环保法规的大规模破坏视而不见，以支持广泛的监管火烧。

Question 100

1. Mr Trump’s runaway victory in the first bout of the Republican primary contest in Iowa on January 15th cemented his status as the party’s presumptive nominee.
2. The message is: duck and cover.
3. With trust in big companies on the wane in recent decades, it has become easier for populists to whip up an anti-business hue and cry
4. A public-relations adviser to ceos thought a year ago that it would be relatively easy for business to disown Mr Trump because of his legal travails

Answer 100

1. 特朗普先生在1月15日的爱荷华州共和党初选竞选的首轮胜利巩固了他作为该党候选人的地位。
2. 信息是：闪避和保护。
3. 随着近几十年来对大公司的信任日益减弱，民粹主义者更容易煽动反企业的喧哗声。
4. 一位公共关系顾问曾在一年前认为，由于特朗普先生法律上的问题，企业相对容易与他划清界限。

Question 101

1. Then there is Mr Biden. When pushed to express a preference, many businesspeople say they see him as a steadier pair of hands in policymaking and geopolitics.
2. Trump is a wild card.
3. Even Mr Biden’s backers rail against the ”big is bad” stance of his trustbusters. Those trustbusters’ bite has not been as bad as their bark; many of their cases have failed in court.
4. A trade war is the most palpable worry. The self-described “Tariff Man” has floated the idea of imposing a baseline 10% levy on all imports.

Answer 101

1. 对于拜登先生，还有一点。在被迫表达偏好时，许多商界人士表示，他们认为他在政策制定和地缘政治方面是一位更为稳重的决策者。
2. 特朗普是一个不可预测的因素。
3. 即使是拜登的支持者也对他的托拉斯打击政策中的“大即坏”的立场表示不满。这些托拉斯打击者的行动并没有像他们的言辞那样猛烈，许多案件在法庭上都失败了。
4. 贸易战是最令人担忧的问题。这位自称“关税人”的人曾提出过对所有进口商品征收基准10%的关税。

Question 102

1. If Mr Trump pursues his most unorthodox economic ideas, there are fears that a loss of confidence could jolt the treasury market, pushing up borrowing costs and sending the dollar into a tailspin.
2. “Maybe their point is that business has transcended politics in America,” he says. He adds pensively: “Maybe they are right.”
3. “Things like the rule of law are gossamer concepts that disappear just like that,” says a New York financier.
4. “There is almost a sense of complacency, married with entitlement, combined with presumptuousness,” he concludes. If anyone is likely to shake corporate America out of such numbness, it is Mr Trump.

Answer 102

1. 如果特朗普先生追求他最不正统的经济观念，有人担心失去信心可能会震动国库市场，推高借款成本，并使美元急转直下。
2. 他说：“也许他们的观点是在美国，商业已经超越了政治。”他沉思着补充道：“也许他们是对的。”
3. “法治等概念就像脆弱的薄纱一样，瞬间消失不见，”一位纽约金融家说道。
4. 他总结道：“几乎有自满感，伴随着权利感，再加上傲慢自大。”如果有人有可能唤醒美国企业摆脱这种麻木状态，那就是特朗普先生。

Question 103

1. Higher interest rates have brought America’s bankers both ruin and riches.
2. And because the Fed is owned by taxpayers, the free money the banks are hoovering up comes at the taxpayers’ expense.
3. A central-banking rule named after Walter Bagehot, a 19th-century editor of The Economist, prescribes that central banks should lend freely to solvent institutions that are threatened by bank runs, against good collateral and at a penalty rate of interest. By lending at generous rates, with a reverse-haircut, and to banks that might be insolvent on a mark-to-market basis, the Fed has arguably violated all three of Bagehot’s conditions.
4. Now that he has won Iowa’s caucuses by a margin of 30 points, they are digesting the reality that this time next year Mr Trump could be behind the Resolute desk once again.

Answer 103

1. 更高的利率给美国的银行家带来了灭顶之灾和巨大财富。
2. 而且因为美联储归纳纳税人所有，银行疯狂获取的免费资金实际上是由纳税人承担的成本。
3. 一项以《经济学家》19世纪编辑沃尔特·贝吉特命名的中央银行规则规定，中央银行应该向受银行挤兑威胁的有偿还能力的机构提供充足的贷款，提供良好的抵押品，并以罚息率借款。通过以宽松的利率、反向质押和根据市值核算可能资不抵债的银行进行贷款，美联储可以说违反了贝吉特的这三个条件。
4. 现在他以30个百分点的优势赢得了爱荷华州的党团会议，他们正在消化明年同一时刻特朗普先生可能再次坐在坚决桌后的现实。

Question 104

1. What’s more, Trump enthusiasts in the c-suite have plenty of grumbles about Joe Biden. Mention Lina Khan, who oversees the Federal Trade Commission (the antitrust police), or Gary Gensler, who leads the Securities and Exchange Commission (the Wall Street police), and they inhale sharply (倒吸一口凉气）.
2. Mr Biden wants to raise taxes on companies. His administration also wants to go ahead with the Basel III “Endgame” regulations, which oblige big banks to hold perhaps 20% more capital on their balance-sheets, sedating animal spirits and damaging profitability.
3. The Fed is supposed to be independent, but Mr Trump will have a chance to nominate a stooge as chair in May 2026 and a pliant Senate could indulge him.
4. Businesses often say that what they fear most is uncertainty. With Mr Trump that is guaranteed.

Answer 104

1. 此外，C级高管中的特朗普热心支持者对乔·拜登也有很多抱怨。提到监管联邦贸易委员会（反垄断警察）的丽娜·卡恩，或领导证券交易委员会（华尔街警察）的加里·根斯勒，他们会倒吸一口凉气。
2. 拜登希望提高对企业的税收。他的政府还希望继续执行巴塞尔III的“终局”规定，这些规定要求大型银行可能在其资产负债表上持有多达20%的资本，镇压了投资冲动并损害了盈利能力。
3. 联邦储备系统本应独立运作，但特朗普将有机会在2026年5月提名一名傀儡作为主席，而温顺的参议院可能会迁就他。
4. 企业经常说他们最害怕的是不确定性。与特朗普在位期间，这是肯定的。

Question 105

1. The idea that in this scenario business leaders could keep a low profile and focus on ebitda is fanciful.
2. In the long run, the idea that corporate profits can be insulated from societal upheaval is a fantasy.

Immunize/insulated from/ inoculate you from further investigation

Wall off

Chinese wall

隔绝
The insularity of American discourse is appalling
Incestrus /self-referential

3. Consider data from the whole 20th century, and not just its second half, and the fading of the most recent bout of inflation is much less surprising.
4. China’s economy grew by 5.2% last year, just above the government’s target of 5%. Speaking at Davos, Li Qiang, China’s prime minister, crowed that the government had not had to resort to massive stimulus to achieve an economic rebound. However, the figure is a comparison with the low base of 2022, when gdp expanded by just 3% because of pandemic restrictions. Investors weren’t impressed. Chinese stockmarkets extended their rout from the start of 2024, despite the authorities ordering some institutional investors not to sell shares.
   China’s population also fell in 2023 for the second year, by 2m people to 1.409bn.

Answer 105

1. 在这种情况下，企业领导者可以低调并专注于EBITDA的想法是幻想的。
2. 从长远来看，企业利润可以免受社会动荡影响的想法是一种幻想。
3. 考虑整个20世纪的数据，而不仅仅是它的下半部分，最近一轮通货膨胀的减弱就不会那么令人惊讶了。
4. 中国去年经济增长了5.2%，略高于政府设定的5%目标。中国总理李强在达沃斯发表讲话时夸耀政府没有不得不采取大规模刺激措施来实现经济复苏。然而，这个数字与2022年的低基数相比，当时由于大流行病限制，GDP仅增长了3%。投资者并不感到满意。尽管当局要求一些机构投资者不要出售股票，但中国股市自2024年初以来一直在下跌。中国的人口在2023年也连续第二年下降，减少了200万人，至14.09亿。

Question 106

1. It is more that the rejigging of the economy acted like a supply shock, raising inflation for any given level of aggregate demand.
2. In 2005 Shi Wen-Long, a petrochemical magnate and one of Mr Chen’s biggest backers, was forced into a humiliating public endorsement of China’s anti-secession law, which formalised military threats against the island.
3. This time corporate grandees, even those with exposure to the mainland, appear less cowed.
4. Speaking to assembled party grandees on December 30th, he declared that the North and the South were now “two belligerents in the midst of war”.

Answer 106

1. 这更多地是因为对经济的重新调整起到了供应冲击的作用，使得在任何给定的总需求水平下都提高了通货膨胀率。
2. 2005年，石文龙，一位石油化工业巨头，也是陈先生最大的支持者之一，被迫公开支持中国反分裂法，该法案正式规定了对台湾的军事威胁。
3. 这一次，即使那些与中国大陆有关系的企业大佬们，似乎也不太畏惧。
4. 在12月30日对党内高层发表讲话时，他宣称北方和南方现在是“战争中的两个交战国”。

Question 107

1. Arch of Reunification, a garish monument to inter-Korean rapprochement straddling the motorway between North Korea’s capital and the demilitarised zone separating the two countries, will be torn down.
2. On January 17th the two countries’ foreign ministers met to follow up on a pow-wow between Mr Kim and Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, held last September.
3. The response to these problems is often cash handouts for old people.
   *political giveaway
   *bailout
4. There is room for improvement. Latin America’s productivity is the second-lowest of any region in the world after the Middle East.

Answer 107

1. 统一拱门，这座在朝鲜首都和分隔两国的非军事区之间的高速公路上横跨的鲜艳纷呈的纪念碑，将被拆除，这是为了庆祝朝韩和解。
2. 1月17日，两国外交部长会面，继续追踪去年9月金正恩与俄罗斯总统普京的会晤。
3. 对这些问题的应对通常包括向老年人提供现金津贴。
   *政治性派发
   *纾困
4. 还有改进的空间。拉丁美洲的生产率在全球各地区中仅次于中东，排名第二低。

Question 108

1. In 2010, eric dubarry and his two-year-old son Seamus were crossing a street in Portland, Oregon, when an elderly driver mistook the accelerator for the brake, and ploughed into the pair and another man
2. They were flung across the street —the pram wrapping itself around a lamppost.
3. Prices are often controlled at state level, but regulators are approving the increases because the industry is losing money hand over fist

(Very rapidly)

4. America’s spartan car insurance stands out in the rich world.
5. And in those countries, going into hospital does not mean running up a life-altering bill.

Answer 108

1. 在2010年，埃里克·杜巴里和他两岁的儿子西莫斯正在俄勒冈州波特兰过马路时，一名年迈的司机错误地踩下油门而撞上了他们和另一名男子。
2. 他们被甩到了街对面，婴儿车紧紧缠绕在路灯柱上。
3. 价格通常在州一级进行控制，但监管机构批准提价，因为该行业正严重亏损。
4. 美国的简陋汽车保险在富裕国家中脱颖而出。
5. 在那些国家，入院不意味着积累一笔改变生活的账单。

Question 109

1. Some migrants huddled in tents provided by local volunteers. Others slept on the desert floor, facing fire pits burning rubbish

2 America’s northern border has proved porous, too

3. Yet expanding legal pathways has not, so far, been part of Congress’s spasmodic negotiations.
4. Donald trump loves to crow about his big crowds and smashing victories, even when he has to stretch the truth.
5. On January 15th Mr Trump failed to crack 40% of the vote in only four counties: Dallas, Johnson, Polk and Story, counties that are disproportionately educated and suburban

Answer 109

1. 一些移民蜷缩在当地志愿者提供的帐篷里。其他人则睡在沙漠地板上，面对着燃烧垃圾的火坑。
2. 美国的北部边界也被证明是容易渗透的。
3. 然而，迄今为止，扩大合法途径并未成为国会断断续续的谈判的一部分。
4. 唐纳德·特朗普喜欢吹嘘他的大规模集会和辉煌的胜利，即使他不得不歪曲事实。
5. 1月15日，特朗普先生在仅有四个县中未能获得40%以上的选票：达拉斯、约翰逊、波克和斯托里，这些县受教育水平较高且郊区化。

Question 110

1. And it seems likely that many voters like the suburban Iowans who caucused for Ms Haley or Mr DeSantis will make their way to Mr Trump’s camp come November.
2. But despite broad support overall among Republicans, his narrower margins among some key parts of the electorate could also presage struggles in the general election.
3. As we report this week, the arms race between generation and detection favours the forger. Eventually ai models will probably be able to produce pixel-perfect counterfeits—digital clones of what a genuine recording of an event would have looked like, had it happened. Even the best detection system would have no crack to find and no ledge to grasp.Models run by regulated companies can be forced to include a watermark, but that would not affect scammers wielding open-source models, which fraudsters can tweak and run at home on their laptops.

Answer 110

1. 看起来很可能会有许多选民，如那些在爱荷华郊区支持Haley女士或DeSantis先生的选民，将在十一月份转向特朗普阵营。
2. 尽管在共和党内总体上获得广泛支持，但在选民中的一些关键部分取得的较小优势也可能预示着在大选中可能会面临困难。
3. 正如我们本周报告的，生成和检测之间的竞赛有利于伪造者。最终，人工智能模型很可能能够生成像素完美的伪造品，即事件的真实记录如果发生了，它们看起来就像是数字克隆。即使是最好的检测系统也将无法找到漏洞，无法抓住把柄。由受监管公司运行的模型可以被强制加入水印，但这不会影响那些使用开源模型的骗子，这些骗子可以在家中的笔记本电脑上进行调整和运行。

Question 111

1. That was bombastic, given that it had taken her department a full year to rework the restrictions to cut off Nvidia’s previous workaround.
2. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are likely to relent.
3. His Republican predecessor and main rival, Donald Trump, has long been America’s China-basher-in-chief. China hawks in Washington want to stymie Chinese efforts both to get around the rules and to recreate the necessary technological capabilities at home.
4. To Ms Raimondo’s chagrin, for instance, it is possible to train ai models using chips that are not necessarily at the cutting edge, so long as you have enough of them. If the sale of any chip which can “do ai” is to be banned, as she implies, America must restrict the flow of a much broader array of chips to China.
5. But it is the chip firms themselves that are largely responsible for enforcement. That includes ensuring that their customers are not, in fact, a buying front for Chinese entities with which trade is prohibited.

Answer 111

1. 那是夸张的言辞，考虑到她的部门花了整整一年来修改限制，以切断Nvidia以前的漏洞。
2. 无论是民主党还是共和党，都不太可能放松。
3. 他的共和党前任和主要竞争对手，唐纳德·特朗普长期以来一直是美国的“中国批评家”。华盛顿的中国鹰派希望阻止中国的努力，既绕过规则，又在国内重建必要的技术能力。
4. 令Raimondo女士感到不快的是，例如，只要拥有足够数量的芯片，就可以使用不一定处于尖端的芯片来训练人工智能模型。如果像她所暗示的那样禁止销售任何能够“做人工智能”的芯片，那么美国必须限制向中国供应更广泛范围的芯片。
5. 但实际上，芯片公司在执法方面负有主要责任。这包括确保他们的客户实际上不是中国实体的购买前线，与这些实体的贸易被禁止。

Question 112

1. With their access to foreign chips curtailed, Chinese ai companies are now turning to Huawei and smic for chips.
2. America’s campaign against Chinese technology may, then, **be both ineffective and counterproductive. ** Ineffective, because China is adept at exploiting loopholes. And counterproductive, because it is leading to the creation of a more sophisticated Chinese industry.
3. As Mr Miller points out, oomph is expensive, so ai developers will try to use it as sparingly as possible.
4. Gaining support from allies for such an extreme policy will be hard. Japanese and Dutch businesses—and their governments—rankle even at the porous controls that are in place today.

Answer 112

1. 由于对外国芯片的限制，中国的人工智能公司现在正转向华为和中芯国际寻找芯片。
2. 美国对中国科技的打压可能会既无效又适得其反。无效，因为中国善于利用漏洞。适得其反，因为这导致了更加复杂的中国产业的产生。
3. 正如Miller先生所指出的，实力是昂贵的，因此人工智能开发者将尽量节约使用。
4. 要争取盟友支持这种极端政策将会很困难。即使在今天已经存在的宽松控制下，日本和荷兰的企业以及它们的政府也会感到不满。

Question 113

1. Heady optimism about China Inc. is an increasingly distant memory.
2. And whereas returns on Chinese investments tend to follow their own logic, smaller economies are more exposed to the vagaries of the dollar and American interest rates.
3. Think of Mr Trump in 2019 stepping across the border into North Korea—which he had earlier threatened to incinerate.
4. China will have lower expectations as previous negotiations with Mr Trump disappointed and because mutual hostility is now baked into both countries’ polities.

Answer 113

1. 对中国企业的乐观情绪日益成为遥不可及的记忆。
2. 而且，中国投资的回报往往遵循其独特的逻辑，而较小规模的经济体更容易受到美元汇率和美国利率的变幻莫测的影响。
3. 想象一下2019年特朗普跨越边境进入朝鲜，而他此前曾威胁要摧毁朝鲜。
4. 由于之前与特朗普先生的谈判令人失望，而且相互敌意现在已经深入根植于两国的政治体系，因此中国对此的期望会较低。

Question 114

1. LONG a staple of personnel departments, these days personality tests are grist for dating sites and New Age seminars.
2. For their part, her colleagues at ETS deemed it “little better than a horoscope” (as Ms Emre paraphrases), and were queasy about marketing it
3. Today, the MBTI is variously assailed for spreading a phoney sense of selfhood and its susceptibility to gaming. But its popularity endures. As Ms Emre says, the personality test offers a double-hit of narcissism and community. Respondents experience a “rush of self-discovery” and “the cheerful lull of self-acceptance”, but also “the comfort of solidarity”.

Answer 114

1. 在人事部门长期以来一直是人才选拔的重要工具，如今却成了约会网站和新时代研讨会的话题。
2. 至于她在ETS的同事们，他们认为它“不比星座运势好多少”（正如Emre女士所改述的），对于将其推广感到不安。
3. 如今，MBTI因传播虚假的自我感和容易受到操控而受到各种抨击。但它的受欢迎度依然持续。正如Emre女士所说，这个人格测试为参与者提供了“自我发现的快感”和“自我接受的愉快宁静”，但也提供了“团结的安慰”。

Question 115

1. In spite of the welter of complex psychometric tests on the market, general mental ability is the single most predictive test of how well a candidate will perform.

Answer 115

尽管市场上有大量复杂的心理测量测试，但普遍的心智能力是预测候选人表现如何的最重要的单一测试。

Question 116

1. Can you feel the chill? It is bone-deep, now. In 2021 capital markets were searing hot. On average, at least one new firm went public every working day. But financial districts today are icy. For two long years private companies have spurned public markets, as rising interest rates dashed lofty valuations and stock prices vacillated.
2. Could conditions soon thaw? Company bosses like to make their debut in a roaring bull market, when investors are cheery and liable to overpay
3. It still feels as if the economic mood could spin on a dime.
4. Their first find is that today’s market really is extraordinarily chilly.

Answer 116

1. 你能感受到寒意吗？现在它是刺骨的。2021年资本市场火热异常。平均每个工作日至少有一家新公司上市。但今天的金融区冰冷清寂。由于利率上升打击了高企的估值，股价波动不定，私人公司已经连续两年回避公开市场。
2. 情况会不会很快解冻？公司老板们喜欢在牛市中咆哮时首次亮相，那时投资者心情愉快且易于支付过高的价格。
3. 经济氛围似乎仍然可能转瞬即变。
4. 他们的第一个发现是，今天的市场确实异常寒冷。

Question 117

1. The run of bad news may continue on February 1st, when Apple reports its latest quarterly earnings.
2. And if the Vision Pro’s launch is a flop, the short-term effect on Apple’s revenues will be nugatory, given the headset’s limited initial production.
3. Nevertheless, Apple’s boss would be unwise to dismiss the new year’s niggles.
4. This helped convince investors that Apple was no longer a stodgy hardware provider. It was a software platform, where new paying users could be added at little extra cost.

Answer 117

1. 不好的消息可能会在2月1日继续，届时苹果将公布其最新季度财报。
2. 如果Vision Pro的发布是个失败，鉴于该头戴设备初始生产有限，其对苹果短期收入的影响将是微不足道的。
3. 然而，苹果的老板不明智地忽视这些新年的小烦恼是不明智的。
4. 这帮助说服投资者，苹果不再是一家呆板的硬件供应商。它是一个软件平台，可以以极低的额外成本增加新的付费用户。

Question 118

1. A big scandal under the previous government over false accusations of child-benefits fraud showed that Dutch bureaucracies can ride roughshod over citizens’ rights, which in populist hands could be scary.
2. But last year private equity’s tailwinds went into reverse, as valuations fell and leverage became scarce.
3. Since funds invested during downturns tend to be among private equity’s most profitable, some investment managers, sensing expectations of a recession have created bargains, are now itching to deploy capital.
4. They are scooping up companies with valuations that have been struck by rising interest rates.

Answer 118

1. 前政府时期因虚假指控儿童福利欺诈而引发的重大丑闻表明，荷兰官僚机构可以对公民权利肆无忌惮，这在民粹主义者手中可能是可怕的。
2. 但去年私募股权的顺风转为逆风，随着估值下降和杠杆趋紧。
3. 由于在经济低迷期间投资的基金往往是私募股权最有利可图的，一些投资经理，感觉到对经济衰退的预期已经创造了便宜货，现在迫切希望投放资本。
4. 他们正在收购因利率上升而估值受到冲击的公司。

Question 119

1. The beleaguered British e-commerce company had seen its share price fall by 90% since 2021.
2. One steely private-equity boss says he likes to remind his investors that a buyer of Microsoft shares in the months before the dotcom bubble burst in 2000 would have had to wait until 2015 to break even.
3. Between 2017 and 2022, improving profit margins provided a measly 5% of returns.
4. The companies are the world’s most prominent purveyors of artificial intelligence (ai), which has the business world giddy

Answer 119

1. 困境中的英国电商公司自2021年以来，其股价已经下跌了90%。
2. 一位铁腕的私募股权老板说，他喜欢提醒他的投资者，如果在2000年互联网泡沫破灭前几个月购买微软股票，他们将不得不等到2015年才能收支平衡。
3. 从2017年到2022年，利润率的提高仅为区区5%的回报率。
4. 这些公司是人工智能（ai）领域令商界兴奋的最著名的供应商。

Question 120

1. Regulators, he notes, will have to weigh the risks and capabilities of ai—as with aeroplanes, which **create enormous benefits despite occasionally crashing. **
2. He talks about the 20 meetings he had earlier in the day with executives from a range of industries, talking to them “about something that they are doing where I can have some input”. He is, in other words, firming up Microsoft’s relationships—as befits a big boss in Davos.
3. Every family has an heirloom which is too precious to throw away yet of little practical use.
4. Yet most monarchies have approval ratings their democratically elected counterparts might murder a parent for.

Answer 120

1. 他指出，监管机构将不得不权衡人工智能的风险和能力——就像飞机一样，尽管偶尔会发生坠机事故，但仍创造了巨大的利益。
2. 他谈到了当天早些时候与来自不同行业的高管举行的20次会议，与他们讨论“他们正在做的事情，我可以有所贡献”。换句话说，他在巩固微软的关系——正如达沃斯的一位大老板所应做的。
3. 每个家庭都有一个传家宝，它太珍贵了，不能扔掉，但实际用途却很小。
4. 然而，大多数君主制国家的支持率是其民选对手可能会为之杀死父母的。

Question 121

1. Like the human appendix, Europe’s royal highnesses are essentially vestigial: they serve little obvious purpose, but few think there is much reason to excise them until they cause trouble.
2. Frederik lost no time in pledging fealty to the Danish people as he ascended to the throne last week.
3. Each new case brought before the International Court of Justice (icj) in The Hague ought to give the world a chance to make good on its word and help strengthen the taboo against genocide by clarifying the obligations of countries to prevent and punish it.
4. Alas, South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, heard by the icj this week, cheapens the term.
5. South Africa’s case is so flimsy that it would be shocking if its final arguments convince the judges that Israel had committed genocide.

Answer 121

1. 就像人类的阑尾一样，欧洲的皇室成员本质上是退化的：他们几乎没有明显的作用，但在他们引起麻烦之前，很少有人认为有太多理由切除他们。
2. 弗雷德里克上周登基时，毫不迟疑地向丹麦人民宣誓效忠。
3. 海牙国际法院（icj）审理的每一起新案件都应该给世界一个机会来兑现其承诺，并通过明确各国预防和惩治种族灭绝的义务来加强反对种族灭绝的禁忌。
4. 可惜的是，南非本周在国际法院声称以色列对巴勒斯坦人实施种族灭绝，贬低了这一术语。
5. 南非的案例如此站不住脚，如果最终论证能说服法官以色列犯有种族灭绝罪，那将是令人震惊的。

Question 122

1. Israel would claim it is being treated unfairly, and it would be right. Instead of restraining Israel in the war, such a provisional ruling might even embolden it to dismiss all international criticism; Israel would feel it is damned, no matter what it does.
2. South Africa is setting a terrible precedent. Its case is more of a political act than a legal one, long on theatre and short on principle.
3. As Gaza nears famine, its people do not need grandstanding, they need food. Israel’s leaders need to realise that if they block supplies, they will be held accountable by the court of public opinion—the only court available.
4. It offers fat incentives to foreign investors, both explicit (tax breaks, cheap land) and de facto (high-tech workers were among the first to get covid vaccines).

Answer 122

1. 以色列会声称自己受到了不公平的对待，而且它是对的。这种临时裁决不仅不能约束以色列的战争行为，反而可能会鼓励它对所有国际批评置之不理；以色列会觉得无论做什么都会受到谴责。
2. 南非正在树立一个糟糕的先例。它的案例更像是一次政治行为而非法律行为，长于戏剧性而短于原则性。
3. 随着加沙地带接近饥荒，当地人民需要的不是哗众取宠，而是食物。以色列的领导人需要意识到，如果他们阻止供应，他们将受到公众舆论法庭的审判——这是唯一可用的法庭。
4. 它为外国投资者提供丰厚的激励，包括明确的（税收减免、廉价土地）和事实上的（高科技工作者是最早获得新冠疫苗的人群之一）。

Question 123

1. A push to install more solar panels has helped a bit, but a promise to hit net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 looks fanciful unless the country harvests the wind off its blustery, 3,000km-long coast.
2. Environmentalists gripe that vested interests (ie, bigwigs who have invested in coal) are blocking the country’s energy transition.
3. Despite the crackdown, corruption still hurts business. One foreign entrepreneur grumbles about having to play by two sets of rules: the formal ones, such as paying taxes and ensuring his warehouse doesn’t catch fire, and the informal ones, such as paying off local officials so they don’t throttle him with inspections.
4. Vietnam is greying fast: its working-age population will shrink after 2038, by one estimate.

Answer 123

1. 推动安装更多太阳能板有所帮助，但到2050年实现净零碳排放的承诺看起来很幻想，除非该国利用其多风、长达3000公里的海岸线的风力资源。
2. 环保主义者抱怨既得利益者（即投资于煤炭的大人物）正在阻碍该国的能源转型。
3. 尽管有打击行动，腐败仍然伤害着企业。一位外国企业家抱怨不得不遵守两套规则：正式的规则，比如缴纳税款和确保他的仓库不发生火灾，以及非正式的规则，比如向当地官员行贿，以免他们以检查为由对他进行打压。
4. 越南正在迅速变老：据一项估计，到2038年后，其适龄工作人口将开始减少。

Question 124

1. His supporters see him as the man who built the ramparts protecting Israel’s fragile democracy from a rising tide of populist nationalism and religious fundamentalism.
2. **To his detractors*^ he is a “judicial dictator” whose rulings have usurped the will of the people and imposed liberal values that they claim contradict traditional Jewish ones.
3. They draw a contrast with Western governments that bluster about upholding moral principles, then leave poor countries to pay the price as conflicts drive millions from their homes or as sanctions cause food and fuel prices to spike.
4. Reports of the latest conclave on foreign affairs mention no economic promises.

Answer 124

1. 他的支持者视他为那位建立了壁垒，保护以色列脆弱民主不受崛起的民粹主义和宗教原教旨主义冲击的人。
2. 对于他的批评者而言，他是一个“司法独裁者”，他的裁决剥夺了人民的意愿，并强加了他们声称与传统犹太价值观相矛盾的自由价值观。
3. 他们对比西方政府，这些政府咄咄逼人地声称要捍卫道义原则，然后却让贫困国家为冲突导致数百万人流离失所或制裁导致食品和燃料价格飙升付出代价。
4. 有关外交事务的最新报道提及最新的秘密会议，未提及任何经济承诺。

Question 125

1. To date the party’s response is policy drift. Will Mr Xi be able to bestride the world, taking advantage of American introspection, if his economy stalls at home?
2. Across much of Africa, from Benin to Zambia, courts have increasingly been used to tilt electoral playing-fields by hobbling opposition candidates and parties.
   - hobble 搞垮
3. This will not be easy or quick work—it involves the long, grinding process of judicial reform.
4. Unbowed by the judgment, he called her a “whack job” on cnn the next day and denied ever having met her (even though they were photographed together).

Answer 125

1. 到目前为止，该党的回应是政策漂移。如果他的国内经济停滞，习主席能够在世界上称雄，利用美国的内省吗？
2. 在非洲大部分地区，从贝宁到赞比亚，法院越来越多地被用来通过削弱反对派候选人和政党来倾斜选举竞争场。
3. 这项工作既不容易也不会迅速——它涉及到漫长而艰难的司法改革过程。
4. 对判决不屈不挠，他第二天在CNN上称她为“怪人”，并否认曾经见过她（尽管他们曾一起被拍照）。

Question 126

1. But at least for now the lesson appears to have sunk in.
2. Those appearances marked an effort to bring the campaign trail to the courthouse, to underscore the supposed lawfarebeing waged against him by Democrats (Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn and Democratic donor, helped finance Ms Carroll’s first case).
3. The defendant’s huffing and puffing—he stormed out during closing arguments—no doubt helped Ms Carroll’s case.
4. Or he could try to secure a loan against his other assets. Much of his money is tied up in property. Mr Trump likes to brag about his wealth—one of the reasons the jury opted to award such a thumping sum in damages.

Answer 126

1. 但至少目前看来，教训似乎已经深刻吸取。
2. 这些出现标志着一种努力，将竞选活动带入法庭，以强调民主党人（LinkedIn的联合创始人兼民主党捐助者Reid Hoffman帮助资助了卡罗尔女士的第一案）对他发动的所谓法律战。
3. 被告的大发雷霆——他在结案陈词期间冲出法庭——无疑有助于卡罗尔女士的案件。
4. 或者他可以尝试用其他资产作为担保贷款。他的大部分钱都投在了房产上。特朗普喜欢夸耀他的财富——这是陪审团选择判给如此巨额赔偿金的原因之一。

Question 127

1. Victory in this struggle would give China’s leaders a big diplomatic cudgel—as well as a legal basis for invading the island.
2. In recent quarters wage growth across the rich world has hovered at around 5% year on year.
3. Is high wage growth, and thus above-target inflation, now **baked into the economic cake? **
4. Still, Mr Park argues, Mormons’ subsumption into the religious right belies fissures within the faith.

Answer 127

1. 在这场斗争中取胜将给中国领导人提供一大外交大棒——以及入侵该岛的法律基础。
2. 最近几个季度，富裕国家的工资增长每年约为5%。
3. 高工资增长，因此高于目标的通货膨胀，现在是经济蛋糕中的固定成分了吗？
4. 然而，朴先生争论说，摩门教徒的纳入宗教右翼掩盖了信仰内部的裂痕。

Question 128

1. That means a variety of approaches could prosper. Some developers in India are already taking Western models and fine-tuning them with local data to provide a whizzy language-translation service, avoiding the heavy capital costs of model-building.
2. A medical ai is unlikely to need to generate amusing limericks in the style of William Shakespeare, as Chatgpt does so successfully.
3. Though the global south will not dislodge America’s crown, it could benefit widely from all this expertise.
4. Some developing countries also made criticisms, albeit couched in soft language.
5. But the upr has no enforcement teeth. So China still happily uses it to promote the notion of the bullying West versus the righteous rest.

Answer 128

1. 这意味着多种方法可能会成功。一些印度的开发者已经在采用西方模型并用本地数据进行微调，以提供一种快速的语言翻译服务，避免了模型建造的高昂资本成本。
2. 医疗人工智能不太可能需要生成威廉·莎士比亚风格的有趣打油诗，正如ChatGPT所成功做到的那样。
3. 虽然全球南方不会撼动美国的王冠，但它可以从所有这些专业知识中广泛受益。
4. 一些发展中国家也提出了批评，尽管措辞温和。
5. 但是UPR没有执行力。因此，中国仍然乐于利用它来宣传欺凌西方与正义其他的观念。

Question 129

1. Politicians of various stripes have suggested that the Chinese either want to spy, or to control America’s food supply, or both.
2. Overall Chinese investment into America peaked in 2016, and has fallen off a cliff since the pandemic,
3. He wishes politicians would focus more on improving American competitiveness in general. Sadly that is harder than blustering about farmland.
4. Decades of neglect and partisan rancour have crippled America’s immigration system and created a situation where immigrants view asylum-seeking as the surest way to get into the country, rather than a long-shot attempt.

Answer 129

1. 各种派别的政治人士曾提议，中国人要么想要间谍活动，要么想要控制美国的粮食供应，或者两者兼而有之。
2. 总体上，中国对美国的投资在2016年达到高峰，自疫情以来已经急剧下降，
3. 他希望政治家们能更多地关注提高美国的整体竞争力。可悲的是，这比对农地进行大肆宣扬要难。
4. 几十年的忽视和党派争斗已经削弱了美国的移民系统，创造了一种情况：移民视寻求庇护为进入该国的最确定方式，而不是一种机会渺茫的尝试。

Question 130

1. But in remaining professionally active into what would historically be considered dotage, they are not unique.
2. If you were moderately restless, you could play bridge or help out with the grandchildren
3. Once you retire after 32 years as a lawyer atthe World Bank, you can begin to split your time between photography and scrounging flea markets for a collection of Americana.
4. You can have a packed diary devoid ofdeadlines, meetings and spreadsheets and flourish as a consumer of theatre matinees, art exhibitions and badminton lessons.

Answer 130

1. 但他们在继续保持职业活跃进入历史上被认为是晚年时期，并不是独一无二的。
2. 如果你稍感不安，你可以打桥牌或帮忙照顾孙辈。
3. 一旦你在世界银行作为律师退休后32年，你可以开始分时间进行摄影和在跳蚤市场淘宝，收集美国民俗艺术品。
4. 你可以拥有一个排满活动的日程，没有截止日期、会议和电子表格，成为剧院午场演出、艺术展览和羽毛球课程的消费者并从中蓬勃发展。

Question 131

1. When this guest Bartleby entered the job market, she assumed that when the day came she too would be a pensioner in a pastel-coloured shirt opting for the “early-bird special”.
2. The majority of the nevers said they could not afford to give up a full-time job, especially when inflation was eating into an already measly Social Security cheque.
3. Most countries in the oecd, including America and France, have managed to maintain or even increase minimum wages in real terms during the recent bout of inflation.
4. Western leaders want to ensure that they can fight the next election while being able to point to healthy employment and rising wages, especially for the lower paid

Answer 131

1. 当这位名为巴特尔比的客人进入就业市场时，她假设当她的日子到来时，她也会成为一位穿着淡色衬衫、选择“早鸟特惠”的退休人员。
2. 大多数永不退休者表示，他们无法放弃全职工作，尤其是当通货膨胀侵蚀了本就微薄的社会保障支票时。
3. 在最近的通货膨胀期间，包括美国和法国在内的大多数经合组织国家都设法以实际价值保持或甚至提高了最低工资。
4. 西方领导人希望确保他们能在下一次选举时指向健康的就业和上升的工资，特别是对于低收入者。

Question 132

1. This was a much lower threshold for South Africa to cross.
2. By finding against Israel on such flimsy evidence, and using such a low threshold of “plausibility”, it has set a precedent that will almost certainly lead to many more spurious cases being brought before the icj.
3. This is not the first controversy to beset unrwa.
4. These days the banks of the Rio Grande are strewn with enough clothing and shoes to fill a shopping mall. Haribo wrappers and stray baby-socks are a reminder of the children coming through.
5. On warmer days Mexicans wade into the water to collect items that they can sell back home, calling out to American soldiers to throw more garments over the razor-wire. The detritus is evidence of the ongoing toll of failed public policies.

Answer 132

1. 这是南非更容易达到的一个较低门槛。
2. 凭借如此脆弱的证据对以色列做出不利判决，并使用如此低的“可能性”标准，这设立了一个先例，几乎肯定会导致更多无稽之谈的案件被提交至国际法院。
3. 这不是第一次争议困扰着联合国救济和工程处。
4. 如今，里奥格兰德河岸遍布足以填满一个购物中心的衣物和鞋子。哈里波糖果包装和散落的婴儿袜子提醒人们有孩子经过这里。
5. 在天气温暖的日子里，墨西哥人涉水收集他们能够带回家卖的物品，呼喊着美国士兵向铁丝网外扔更多衣物。这些残留物是失败的公共政策持续造成损害的证据。

Question 133

1. Joe biden’s opponents focus on his age as something that makes him doddering, confused and ultimately unfit for office.
2. He breathed life into a beleaguered union movement.
3. The five elements were all present in the $3.5trn “Build Back Better” bill that Democrats in the House of Representatives backed in 2021, only to run smack into a split Senate.
4. But that giant slug of cash was only authorised, not appropriated, meaning it is up to Congress to pass budgets to provide the promised amount.

Answer 133

1. 乔·拜登的对手们聚焦于他的年龄，认为这使他显得步履蹒跚，困惑，最终不适合担任公职。
2. 他为四面楚歌的工会运动注入了生命力。
3. 五大要素都出现在2021年众议院民主党人支持的价值3.5万亿美元的“重建更美好”法案中，结果却直接撞上了参议院的分歧。
4. 但那一巨额资金只是被授权，而非拨款，这意味着提供承诺金额取决于国会通过预算。

Question 134

1. Without Republican support for funding, the investment kick-started over the past couple of years may ease off.
2. Once they come down from their elation at such an outcome, the team around Mr Biden would know that they have a limited window—probably just two years,
3. The flipside of Mr Biden craving approbation as a pro-union president is that he has also come to be seen as anti-business.
4. Although her efforts to cut down corporate giants have spluttered, with failed lawsuits against Meta and Microsoft, she is not done.

Answer 134

1. 如果没有共和党对资金的支持，过去几年启动的投资可能会减缓。
2. 一旦他们从对这样的结果的欢欣鼓舞中平复过来，拜登先生周围的团队就会知道他们的时间窗口有限——可能只有两年，
3. 拜登先生渴望作为支持工会的总统获得认可的反面是，他也开始被视为反商业。
4. 尽管她削弱企业巨头的努力遭遇挫折，包括对Meta和微软的诉讼失败，但她还没有完成。

Question 135

1. With the opposition parties in disarray, the ldp’s grip on power is probably secure.
2. But Mr Kishida’s leadership is creaking. He has called for an end to factional politics and launched a task-force on internal reform.
3. The wing of the party that belonged to Seiwakai, the largest faction and the one at the centre of the financial misdeeds,
4. A clean read on the economic fallout from Britain’s departure from the eu has proved impossible.

Answer 135

1. 在反对党混乱不堪的情况下，自民党对权力的控制很可能是安全的。
2. 但是岸田文雄的领导地位正在岌岌可危。他已呼吁结束派系政治，并启动了一个内部改革的特别工作组。
3. 属于清和政策研究会的党派，这是最大的派系，也是财务不当行为中心的那个。
4. 从英国脱欧后的经济影响得到一个清晰的判断已被证明是不可能的。

Question 136

1. But some schools seem more interested in fleecing parents.
2. Parents shell out for things like after-school classes just so their children can keep up.
3. Expensive skipping ropes have made them hopping mad.
4. They think that the economy is in bad shape and that President Joe Biden is mismanaging it. What gives?

Answer 136

1. 但有些学校看起来更热衷于从家长身上榨取钱财。
2. 家长们不得不为了让孩子跟得上，花大价钱购买课后辅导班等东西。

Shell out for
(Overpay sth resentfully)
Cough up money
(Reluctantly give sth)

3. 昂贵的跳绳让他们怒不可遏。
4. 他们认为经济状况糟糕，而且认为乔·拜登总统的管理不当。这是怎么一回事？

Question 137

1. The fact that so many Americans are so dejected about such a strong economy has spawned a cottage industry of theories.
2. A first batch argues that they have every right to feel glum: some of the figures which matter most to their pocketbooks are just not that rosy.
3. Throw in the vitriol that tends to go viral on social-media platforms, and the negative bias might be even more pronounced.
4. It has been a topsy-turvy period. The extreme uncertainty of the covid years—job losses, school closures, bankruptcies and illness—took a toll on people.
5. Many are still upset by the bruising battle with inflation

Answer 137

1. 如此多的美国人对如此强劲的经济感到沮丧的事实，催生了一系列理论的小产业。
2. 第一批理论认为他们有充分的理由感到忧郁：对他们的钱包来说最重要的一些数据并不那么乐观。
3. 再加上倾向于在社交媒体平台上病毒式传播的恶意言论，负面偏见可能会更加明显。
4. 这是一个颠倒混乱的时期。新冠疫情年代的极端不确定性——工作丧失、学校关闭、破产和疾病——对人们造成了影响。
5. 许多人仍然对与通货膨胀的艰苦斗争感到不满。

Question 138

1. It does not matter to you where or how—or indeed in how many pieces divided among various hardware devices strewn across the planet—your data is kept; you pay to not have to worry about it.

2.

Answer 138

1. 对你来说，数据被保存在地球上散布的各种硬件设备中的哪里、以何种方式，或确实是被分割成多少块，这些都无关紧要；你付费就是为了不必担心这些问题。

Question 139

1. But at present China appears to believe that the threat from the Houthis is bearable. cosco has said it would re-route its ships around the Cape of Good Hope and stop delivering to Israel. But some of its vessels have continued to ply the Red Sea.
2. Ships try to protect themselves from Houthi attacks by making clear a link with China in their automated identification systems—transponders that are fitted on ships above a certain tonnage on international voyages
3. Sam Altman, boss of Openai, the startup behind Chatgpt, is reportedly in talks to start a firm with Jony Ive, former head of design at Apple, to make a gadget purpose-built for ai.
4. New gadgets are also less finicky to develop and manufacture.

Answer 139

1. 但目前中国似乎认为来自胡塞武装的威胁是可以承受的。中远海运已表示将重新规划航线绕过好望角，并停止向以色列交付货物。但其一些船只仍继续在红海航行。
2. 为了保护自己免受胡塞武装攻击，船只通过在其自动识别系统中明确与中国的联系来进行防护——这些应答器安装在执行国际航行的一定吨位以上的船只上。
3. 据报道，Openai的负责人萨姆·奥特曼，这是一家推出Chatgpt的初创公司，正在与苹果前设计总监乔尼·艾夫谈判，共同创立一家公司，制造一款专为人工智能设计的设备。
4. 新的设备也更容易开发和制造。

Question 140

1. It is such a bugbear to senior Republicans that it provoked one of the most risible moments of the primary debates—when Nikki Haley, a presidential contender, mocked Mr Ramaswamy, a rival, for using the app, then called him “scum” for daring to suggest that her daughter did, too.
2. Whether TikTok can stay above the fray hinges on three things: political expediency, the courts and its efforts to distance itself from China.
3. That does not reflect support. TikTokers may hashtag Mr Trump even if they hate him. But it does suggest that his presence is more kinetic than his rival’s.
4. Legal obstacles are another reason taking on TikTok should give him pause for thought. Almost every attempt to ban the app has foundered in the courts.

Answer 140

1. 这是共和党高层的一个心头大患，它引发了初选辩论中最为荒谬的时刻之一——当尼基·黑利（一位总统竞选人）嘲笑她的对手拉马斯瓦米因使用这款应用，然后因他敢暗示她的女儿也使用这款应用而称他为“渣滓”。
2. TikTok能否保持在纷争之外取决于三件事：政治权宜、法院以及其努力将自己与中国区分开来。
3. 这并不代表支持。即使讨厌特朗普的TikTokers也可能使用他的标签。但这确实表明他的影响力更为动感，超过了他的对手。
4. 法律障碍是另一个让他对禁用TikTok三思的原因。几乎每一次尝试禁用这款应用的行动都在法院中失败了。

Question 141

1. His strongman reputation has blighted his political prospects
2. Would they have hit it off, they are asked, if the company hadn’t matched them? In essence, this is a question many couples ponder, since all are brought together by propitious circumstance and chance.
3. This Mr Smith worries that he will be conspicuous at a swish art auction, so disguises himself as a waiter.
4. But no longer is it an unremarked perquisite of the killing business.

Answer 141

1. 他的铁腕人物声誉已经损害了他的政治前途。
2. 如果不是公司将他们配对，他们会不会相处得来？本质上，这是许多夫妇都会思考的问题，因为所有人都是通过吉利的机遇和偶然走到一起的。
3. 这位史密斯先生担心他会在一场高档艺术拍卖会上显得格格不入，所以伪装成了一名侍者。
4. 但它不再是杀戮生意中不被注意的特权。

Question 142

1. As well as being fun, social media are the crucible of online debate and a catapult for political campaigns
2. Time spent on Instagram has risen by 40% since Meta launched Reels. Even the geriatric Facebook somehow added 5m new users in America and Canada last year.
3. As users’ newsfeeds become unmoored from their network of friends and family, they are posting less about themselves.
4. Under Mr Musk, who is scathing about what he calls the “legacy media”, X has removed headlines from posted news articles, and appeared to throttle traffic to out-of-favour publications such as the New York Times.

Answer 142

1. 除了娱乐性外，社交媒体还是在线辩论的熔炉和政治运动的弹射器。
2. 自从Meta推出Reels以来，Instagram的使用时间增加了40%。即使是年迈的Facebook去年在美国和加拿大也不知怎的增加了500万新用户。
3. 随着用户的新闻源脱离了他们的朋友和家人网络，他们发布关于自己的内容变少了。
4. 在马斯克先生的领导下，他对他所称的“传统媒体”毫不留情，X已经移除了发布新闻文章的标题，并似乎对诸如纽约时报这样的不受欢迎的出版物的流量进行了限制。

Question 143

1. “It’s a simple fact that you can get more numbers by being a bit more vitriolic, by being a bit more critical, by being a bit more personal…There is a tension and it is hard.” Candidates with uncompromising messages seem to travel furthest.
2. Hardest of all is infiltrating the millions of small group-chats into which the public square has splintered.
3. These are channels that put their thumbs on the scale for certain kinds of content over other kinds of content.”
4. The design of the platform is such that, “You’re going to have a laugh about a stupid gaff, or a hot-mic moment or something like that, and not have good-faith, in-depth conversations about what we ought to do about Gaza.”

Answer 143

1. “简单的事实是，通过变得更加尖刻，更加批评，更加个人化……你可以获得更多的关注。存在一种紧张关系，这很难。”带有不妥协信息的候选人似乎走得最远。
2. 最困难的是渗透进公共广场已经破碎化成的数以百万计的小群聊中。
3. 这些频道对某些类型的内容而不是其他类型的内容施加了影响。
4. 该平台的设计使得，“你会因为一个愚蠢的失误，或者一个热话筒时刻之类的事情而发笑，而不是进行有诚意的、深入的关于我们应该如何处理加沙问题的讨论。”

Question 144

1. Articles of impeachment must first be passed with a majority of the House, which Republicans might even struggle to do because they retain control by the barest of margins.
2. But in their articles of impeachment, the Republicans lay all of the blame at the feet of Mr Mayorkas
3. Another gripe is over the administration’s use of “parole authority”, which allows it to grant reprieve from deportation on a case-by-case basis.
4. That should settle an argument over how to arrange America’s schools that has been raging for 30 years.

Answer 144

1. 弹劾条款必须首先由众议院以多数票通过，这对于共和党来说甚至可能难以做到，因为他们仅以微弱优势保持控制。
2. 但在他们的弹劾条款中，共和党将所有责任都归咎于梅约卡斯先生。
3. 另一个不满是关于政府使用“假释权”，它允许政府在个案基础上暂缓遣返。
4. 这应该能解决关于如何安排美国学校的争论，这场争论已经持续了30年。

Question 145

1. Data on January 31st showed a slowdown in construction and unremitting declines in manufacturing prices.
2. Mr Pan, Mr Li and He Lifeng, China’s economic tsar, have all stressed the importance of a stable stockmarket in recent days.
3. The administration is simultaneously engaged in an intense bout of diplomacy over the conflict in Gaza.
4. If an educational chatbot misfires, a pupil might flunk a test; if a medical one hallucinates, a patient could die.

Answer 145

1. 1月31日的数据显示建筑业增长放缓以及制造业价格持续下跌。
2. 潘先生、李先生和中国的经济大臣何立峰近日都强调了稳定股市的重要性。

tsar-沙皇

3. 政府目前同时在加沙冲突上进行一场激烈的外交斡旋。
4. 如果教育类聊天机器人出错，学生可能会在考试中不及格；如果医疗类机器人产生幻觉，患者可能会丧命。

Question 146

1. They are using a database of clinical guidelines from Brazil’s health ministry, rather than the whole internet, which is full of voodoo health tips.
2. There are lots of upsides to making bikes for kids, explains Mr Li, a young entrepreneur from Pingxiang, a scruffy county in northern China that has become a centre for the children’s bicycle industry.

Answer 146

1. 他们使用的是巴西卫生部的临床指南数据库，而非充斥着各种迷信健康建议的整个互联网。
2. 李先生解释，为孩子们制造自行车有诸多好处，他是一位来自中国北部的萍乡——一个略显杂乱的县城，该地已经成为儿童自行车行业的中心的年轻创业者。

Question 147

1. A red panda might be throwing its paws in the air, like a furry thief being apprehended, or a kitten may sit astride a tiny motorcycle.
2. Technology has offered new ways to enjoy winsome things.
3. So voracious is the appetite for cute content that in 2014, when Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, was asked what surprised him most about internet usage, he replied simply: “Kittens”.
4. America’s stockmarket is on a tear. Over the past three months the s&p 500 index of large companies has soared by nearly 15%, reaching a record high (see chart 1).

Answer 147

1. 一只红熊猫可能会把它的爪子举在空中，就像一个被捕的毛茸茸的小偷，或者一只小猫可能会跨坐在一辆微型摩托车上。
2. 科技为享受可爱的事物提供了新方式。
3. 对于可爱内容的贪婪之大，以至于在2014年，当世界广域网的发明者蒂姆·伯纳斯-李被问及互联网使用最让他感到惊讶的是什么时，他简单地回答：“小猫”。
4. 美国的股市正处于飙升中。过去三个月里，标普500指数的大公司股价猛增了近15%，达到了创纪录的高点（见图表1）。

Question 148

1. Investors are now betting that by the end of the year the Fed will lower its benchmark interest rate from its current range of between 5.25% and 5.5% to below 4%, putting a rocket booster under America’s economy—and with it America Inc.
2. This wager is not, however, by any means sure-fire. On January 31st Jerome Powell, chairman of the Fed, scuppered hopes of an imminent rate cut, arguing inflation was “still too high”.
3. Student loan repayments, which resumed last October after the Supreme Court quashed a pandemic-era moratorium, are adding to pressure on pocketbooks
   钱袋子
4. As a result, pedlars of discretionary goods are bracing for tough times.

Necessities

Answer 148

1. 投资者现在押注，到年底时，美联储将会将其基准利率从目前的5.25%到5.5%的区间降低到4%以下，为美国经济装上火箭助推器—同时也推动了美国公司。
2. 然而，这个赌注绝非铁板钉钉。1月31日，美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔粉碎了即将降息的希望，他辩称通胀“仍然过高”。
3. 学生贷款还款，去年十月在最高法院推翻了一个疫情时代的暂停令后恢复，这增加了对钱袋子的压力。
4. 因此，非必需品的推销者正为艰难时期做准备。

Question 149

1. On January 23rd Wayfair, an e-emporium for furniture, announced it would lay off 13% of staff in response to “persistent category weakness”, just weeks after its boss sent an inspiring Christmas memo to staff extolling the joys of “working long hours” and “blending work and life”.
2. On January 30th Whirlpool, a maker of home appliances, said it expected like-for-like sales to be flat in 2024.
3. Over the past two years manufacturers of packaged food and sundry home essentials have managed to protect profits from rising costs by jacking up prices without crushing demand.
4. On January 26th Colgate-Palmolive, a purveyor of toothpastes, said it expected sales to grow between 1% and 4% this year, down from 8% last year.

Answer 149

1. 1月23日，家具电子商务平台Wayfair宣布，作为对“持续的类别弱势”的回应，将裁员13%，就在几周前，其老板还发送了一份鼓舞人心的圣诞备忘录给员工，赞扬“长时间工作”的乐趣和“工作与生活的融合”。
2. 1月30日，家用电器制造商惠而浦表示，预计2024年的同比销售将保持平稳。
3. 在过去两年中，包装食品和日用家庭必需品的制造商通过提高价格而不是压制需求，成功地保护了他们免受成本上升的影响。
4. 1月26日，牙膏供应商高露洁-棕榄公司表示，预计今年的销售增长将在1%到4%之间，低于去年的8%。

Question 150

1. A new paper by Ashish Arora, Sharon Belenzon, Larisa C. Cioaca, Lia Sheer and Hansen Zhang, five economists, suggests that universities’ blistering growth and the rich world’s stagnant productivity could be two sides of the same coin.
2. A boffin in a university lab might publish brilliant paper after brilliant paper, pushing the frontier of a discipline.
3. In the 1940s Bell Labs had the interdisciplinary team of chemists, metallurgists and physicists necessary to solve the overlapping theoretical and practical problems associated with developing the transistor. That cross-cutting expertise is now largely gone.
   Cross-sectional
4. As universities produce more freshly minted phd graduates, companies seem to find it easier to invent new stuff, the authors find.
5. And corporate researchers, rather than universities, are driving the current generative ai innovation boom: in a few cases, the corporate lab has already risen from the ashes.

Answer 150

1. 阿希什·阿罗拉、莎伦·贝伦松、拉丽莎·C·奇奥卡、莉娅·希尔和汉森·张这五位经济学家的一篇新论文表明，大学的迅猛增长和富裕世界的停滞不前的生产率可能是同一枚硬币的两面。
2. 一位在大学实验室的学者可能会发表一篇又一篇杰出的论文，推动一个学科的前沿。
3. 在1940年代，贝尔实验室拥有解决发展晶体管相关的交叉理论和实践问题所需的跨学科化学家、冶金学家和物理学家团队。那种跨界的专业知识现在基本上已经消失了。
4. 随着大学生产出更多新近获得博士学位的毕业生，作者发现，公司似乎发明新东西变得更加容易。
5. 而且，与大学相比，企业研究人员正在推动当前的生成式人工智能创新热潮：在少数情况下，企业实验室已经如凤凰涅槃。

Question 151

1. Claims that starry love affairs are shams, such as Ms Swift’s with Travis Kelce of the Chiefs, are a common strand of conspiracy theories.
2. A conspiracy theory doesn’t have to make sense to you, only to its adherents; likewise the cultish devotion of Swifties can seem baffling to the uninitiated.
3. One of them became president, a reality-tv star whose rallies combine the vitriol of a witch-burning with the reassuring formula of a game show.
4. Democrats hunting for a silver lining can **take solace in **one clear pattern: pollsters with the best records of accuracy show better results for Mr Biden.

Answer 151

1. 声称像泰勒·斯威夫特和酋长队的特拉维斯·凯尔西这样的明星恋情是骗局，是阴谋论的一个常见主题。
2. 阴谋论不必对你有意义，只需对其信徒有意义；同样，斯威夫特粉丝的狂热崇拜对外行人来说可能难以理解。
3. 其中一位成为了总统，一位真人秀明星，他的集会结合了焚烧女巫的恶毒和游戏节目的安慰性公式。
4. 寻找一线希望的民主党人可以在一种明确的模式中找到安慰：准确率记录最佳的民意调查显示拜登先生的结果更好。

Question 152

1. Tiring of agents and producers, he became fascinated by the local mortuary and embalming business.
2. At odds with the modern world, this slothful behemoth of a man-boy farts, belches and bickers his way through a succession of lowly jobs in New Orleans to pay off his drunken mama’s debts, the erratic Mrs Reilly being his only consistent companion.
3. The laughs are all in Ignatius’s haughty, misanthropic reflections on those unfortunate enough to come into his odorous orbit.
4. This allows Ms Fielding to get into Bridget’s pantomime of a love life that much quicker.
5. Our heroine tries to be a liberated, independent woman, if fortified by chardonnay and self-help books.
6. But too often she slips into slavish dependence on unsuitable men with questionable taste in jumpers.

Answer 152

1. 对经纪人和制片人感到厌倦之后，他开始对当地的殡仪馆和防腐业务产生了浓厚的兴趣。
2. 与现代世界格格不入，这个懒惰的庞然大物男孩以放屁、打嗝和争吵的方式在新奥尔良历经一系列低级工作，以偿还他醉酒妈妈的债务，唯一持续陪伴他的是古怪的瑞利夫人。
3. 笑点全在于伊格纳修斯对那些不幸进入他那有味道的轨道的人的傲慢、厌世的反思中。
4. 这让菲尔丁小姐能更快地进入布里奇特的爱情生活的闹剧中。
5. 我们的女主角试图成为一个独立自主的女性，如果有霞多丽酒和自助书籍的加持的话。
6. 但她往往陷入对不合适的男人的盲目依赖，这些男人在毛衣的品味上值得怀疑。

Question 153

1. But the tone of “Lucky Jim” is not so much angry as irreverent and waspish. It chronicles the misadventures of an inept young history lecturer, Jim Dixon, in a provincial university in repressed, dreary post-war Britain.
2. Many plump for “Striptease”, a satire on political sleaze that was made into a brilliant film starring Demi Moore as the stripper and Burt Reynolds as a wayward congressman.
3. It is human versus machine at its simplest.
4. The soldier is crouched under the hull of his battered and immobilised tank

Answer 153

1. 但《幸运的吉姆》的基调并不是愤怒，而是不敬和尖酸刻薄。它记录了一个无能的年轻历史讲师，吉姆·迪克森，在压抑、沉闷的战后英国一个省级大学的不幸遭遇。
2. 许多人选择了《脱衣舞娘》，这是一部关于政治腐败的讽刺作品，被改编成了一部出色的电影，由黛米·摩尔扮演脱衣舞女，伯特·雷诺兹扮演一个行为不端的国会议员。
3. 这是人与机器的最简单形式。
4. 士兵蹲藏在他那破损且无法移动的坦克的船体下面。

Question 154

1. He clambers over the front of his tank to escape.
2. As the smoke clears, the soldier lies crumpled on the ground.
3. The internet is awash with snuff movies from the war in Ukraine.
4. Derived from racing quadcopters, these are guided to their target by a pilot on the ground who watches a video feed through goggles.

Answer 154

1. 他爬过他的坦克前部以逃脱。
2. 当烟雾散去时，士兵蜷缩在地上。
3. 互联网上充斥着来自乌克兰战争的暴力视频。
4. 这些来源于竞速四轴飞行器，通过地面上的飞行员戴着护目镜观看视频信号来引导至目标。

Question 155

1. Artillery barrages typically come in waves. Soldiers in trenches can hide in relative safety underground until a bombardment is finished. But drones can loiter near their targets, making them a persistent, insidious threat that can strike at any time.
2. And artillery can still fire in high winds or heavy rain—or in the cold, which can sap a drone’s battery, and therefore its range.
3. Of 3,804 Russian FPV videos analysed by Lostarmour, a Russian military blog, 40% record attacks on dugouts, trenches and other front-line positions, and another 28% on soldiers in the open or sheltering in pre-existing buildings.
4. Drones can have their electronics hardened to resist jamming, though that increases the price. Some newer FPV drones are being delivered with swappable radio chips, making it easy to change the frequencies on which they operate.

Answer 155

1. 炮弹齐射通常成波进行。士兵们可以在战壕中相对安全地躲藏在地下，直到轰炸结束。但无人机可以在目标附近盘旋，使它们成为一种持续的、潜在的威胁，随时可能发动攻击。
2. 并且即使在大风、大雨中或寒冷天气，炮兵仍然能够开火，这些条件可以耗尽无人机的电池，因此减少其作用范围。
3. 根据俄罗斯军事博客Lostarmour分析的3,804个俄罗斯FPV（第一人称视角）视频，40%记录了对掩体、战壕和其他前线位置的攻击，另外28%记录了对在露天或在预建建筑物中避难的士兵的攻击。
4. 无人机的电子设备可以被加固以抵抗干扰，尽管这会增加价格。一些较新的FPV无人机正在配备可更换的无线电芯片，使得更换它们操作的频率变得容易。

Question 156

1. Now they circle around and strike at the base of the rear of the turret, which can cause the tank’s ammunition to detonate, destroying it. In one video a column of six Russian armoured vehicles are struck one after the other in exactly this way.
2. Trainees begin with lectures on aeronautics and electronic warfare, before switching to a hangar with a special course of hoops and obstacles.
3. They make it easier to implement techniques such as frequency hopping, which should make communications harder to jam.
4. December 2023 was an inflection point, says Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s tech-savvy deputy prime minister, with “tens of thousands” of drones rolling off production lines—twice the level of the entire previous year.

Answer 156

1. 现在它们围绕着目标盘旋，然后攻击炮塔后部的底部，这可能导致坦克的弹药爆炸，从而摧毁坦克。在一个视频中，六辆俄罗斯装甲车依次以这种方式被击中。
2. 训练生首先接受有关航空学和电子战的讲座，然后转到一个特设的机库，那里有一个特别设计的环形和障碍物课程。
3. 它们使实现如跳频等技术变得更加容易，这应该会使通信更难以被干扰。
4. 乌克兰的技术娴熟的副总理米哈伊洛·费多罗夫表示，2023年12月是一个转折点，有“成千上万”的无人机从生产线上下线——是前一整年水平的两倍。

Question 157

1. When Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish essayist, published a book analysing the French revolution, a reviewer tutted that it was too soon.
2. It is not clear when the mundane “present” (to be dealt with by journalists) becomes the monumental “past” (to be dealt with by historians).
3. Herodotus, the “father of history”, was notably nippy.
4. Churchill made pandemic histories look slow: he published “The Gathering Storm”, more than 600 pages of billowing prose, just four years after the end of the second world war.

Answer 157

1. 当苏格兰散文家托马斯·卡莱尔出版了一本分析法国革命的书时，一位评论家嘟囔说这太早了。
2. 现实中的“当下”（由记者处理）何时变成了重大的“过去”（由历史学家处理）并不清楚。
3. 被称为“历史之父”的希罗多德，特别是敏捷的。
4. 丘吉尔让大流行病历史看起来缓慢：他在第二次世界大战结束仅四年后就出版了《聚集的风暴》，这是一本超过600页的波澜壮阔的散文。

Question 158

1. Many recent books on Ukraine read like dry assemblages of press clippings, with little analysis. It takes yet more time for classified documents to become declassified.
2. Western history books, once full of tales of biffing foreigners in far-flung places, are now more likely to reflect on the evils of imperialism.
3. At universities today, courses boast less naval history and more navel-gazing.
4. However, television trash can turn into social-media treasure. “Power Slap” garnered a devoted online audience and now claims 4.2m followers on TikTok, with some videos achieving more than 1m views.

Answer 158

1. 许多关于乌克兰的近期书籍读起来像是枯燥的新闻剪报集合，几乎没有分析。机密文件变为解密文件还需要更多时间。
2. 西方历史书籍，曾经充满了在遥远地方 打击外国人的故事，现在更可能反思帝国主义的罪恶。
3. 在今天的大学里，课程更少地讲述海军历史，更多地进行自我反思。
4. 然而，电视垃圾可以变成社交媒体的宝藏。“Power Slap”吸引了一批忠实的在线观众，现在在TikTok上拥有420万粉丝，有些视频的观看次数超过了100万次。

Question 159

1. contestants are not allowed to duck, dodge or wince when hit. Most bouts conclude with a knockout (involving a fighter being unable to get up) or a technical knockout (with a referee deeming the fighter unfit to continue).
2. Gavin Newsom, the governor, vetoed it, knowing political opponents would tackle him for regulatory overreach
3. The ufc experienced similar scrutiny in the 1990s. John McCain, a senator who later ran for president, **branded MMA “human cockfighting” ** and attempted to ban it
4. Most power-slappers are unbothered by complaints that their “sport” shows how desensitised viewers have become to violence.

Answer 159

1. 参赛者不允许在被击中时闪避、躲闪或畏缩。大多数比赛以击倒结束（涉及到一名战斗员无法站起来）或技术性击倒（裁判认为战斗员不适合继续比赛）。
2. 加文·纽森，这位州长，否决了它，因为他知道政治对手会因为监管过度而抨击他。
3. UFC在1990年代遭受了类似的审查。后来竞选总统的参议员约翰·麦凯恩把MMA称为“人类斗鸡”并试图禁止它。
4. 大多数力量拍打者对于他们的“运动”显示出观众对暴力的麻木不仁的投诉并不在意。

Question 160

1. An epic stockmarket rout since late 2022 has seen investors lose $2trn.
2. Its resulting lopsided contribution to the world economy is stark.
3. He ploughed his savings into a flat for his children in a town near his village, where many properties cannot find buyers.
4. A market rout can end your career, or worse. On February 7th, after weeks of stockmarket instability, Yi Huiman, the head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (csrc), was suddenly fired and replaced.

Answer 160

1. 自2022年底以来，一场史诗般的股市崩盘导致投资者损失了2万亿美元。
2. 它对世界经济的失衡贡献非常明显。
3. 他将自己的积蓄投入到一个位于他村庄附近城镇的公寓中，用于他的孩子，而许多房产找不到买家。
4. 股市崩盘可能会终结你的职业生涯，或者更糟。2月7日，在经历了数周的股市不稳定之后，中国证券监督管理委员会（csrc）的负责人易会满突然被解雇并更换。

Question 161

1. Many have piled onto the American embassy’s social-media account to gripe.
2. The “national team”, a handful of state-owned asset managers, which includes Central Huijin, often steps in during downturns. In 2015 it hoovered up about 6% of the entire market capitalisation through purchases of individual stocks.
3. This is because soes are viewed by investors as clunky operators that are more loyal to party apparatchiks than to shareholders.
4. In the months following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s economy teetered on the edge of recession.

Answer 161

1. 许多人纷纷涌向美国大使馆的社交媒体账户发牢骚。
2. “国家队”，一小撮国有资产管理公司，包括中央汇金，在经济低迷期间经常介入。2015年，它通过购买个股吸纳了整个市场资本化的大约6%。
3. 这是因为投资者将国有企业视为笨拙的运营商，它们对党的干部的忠诚度超过了对股东的忠诚度。
4. 在2022年2月入侵乌克兰的几个月后，俄罗斯经济濒临衰退的边缘。

Question 162

1. He is thought to be hiding with hostages in the honeycomb of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza.

2.

Answer 162

1. 人们认为他正藏匿在哈马斯在加沙地下建造的隧道迷宫中，和人质在一起。

Question 163

1. The constitutional tribunal, dominated by pis appointees, is gumming things up too.
2. When the eu’s top court ruled that this violated the separation of powers, Polish prosecutors began going after judges who had the temerity to appeal to that court.
3. Undoing pis’s takeover of the state will be a long and controversial slog.

Answer 163

1. 由法律与正义党（PiS）任命的人主导的宪法法庭也在阻碍事情的进行。
2. 当欧盟最高法院裁定这违反了权力分立时，波兰的检察官开始追究那些胆敢向该法院提出上诉的法官。
3. 撤销法律与正义党对国家的控制将是一场漫长而有争议的艰苦斗争。

Question 164

1. Oil, though, is not covered. Singapore is a refining and oil-trading giant, as well as the world’s busiest bunkering port.

Answer 164

1. 然而，石油并未被包括在内。新加坡是一个炼油和石油交易巨头，同时也是世界上最繁忙的加油港。

Question 165

1. This year, for instance, the central government will attempt to merge more than 2,000 rural banks with more than $6trn in assets, to strengthen institutions catering mainly to people on the lowest rung of China’s economic ladder.
2. The government’s numbers claim that prices have barely budged in Shanghai. Local economists, in contrast, reckon they have crashed by 20-30% in some central districts and could fall further in 2024.
3. That means punters pumped some 5trn yuan into investment properties at the top of the market and will have lost a big part of their savings.
4. The authorities have long wanted to quell speculation in property and prevent bubbles forming.

Answer 165

1. 例如，今年中央政府将尝试将2000多家农村银行合并，这些银行拥有超过6万亿美元的资产，以加强主要服务于中国经济阶梯最底层人群的机构。
2. 政府的数据声称上海的价格几乎未有变动。与此相反，当地经济学家认为，一些中心区的价格已经暴跌了20-30%，并且在2024年可能会进一步下跌。
3. 这意味着投机者在市场顶峰时期将大约5万亿人民币投入到投资性房产中，并将损失他们大部分的储蓄。
4. 当局长期以来一直希望平息房地产投机，防止泡沫形成。

Question 166

1. Buthis blasé view disregards the gloom that is spreading fast among the got-rich-first
2. All this will have a **baleful effect*+ on the financial system and the broader economy.
3. The Economist has spoken to several well-off investors over the past two years who have taken to the streets and even clashed with police in the hopes of spurring the authorities to action.

Answer 166

1. 但他的漠不关心的看法忽视了那些首先致富的人中迅速蔓延的忧虑。
2. 所有这些都将对金融系统和更广泛的经济产生恶劣影响。
3. 《经济学人》在过去两年中采访了几位富裕的投资者，他们走上街头，甚至与警察发生冲突，希望促使当局采取行动。

Question 167

1. This year investors in Chinese stocks have been on a hair-raising ride. Even as America’s s&p 500 index reached record highs, markets in China and Hong Kong shed $1.5trn in January alone.
2. The decline signals a fundamental problem. Investors abroad and at home once saw China’s government as a dependable steward of the economy. Now this trust has seeped away, with severe consequences for China’s growth.
3. China was expanding at a steady and impressive clip of over 6% a year

Answer 167

1. 今年投资中国股市的投资者经历了一场令人毛骨悚然的旅程。即使美国的标普500指数达到历史新高，中国和香港的市场在仅1月份就损失了1.5万亿美元。
2. 这种下降表明了一个根本性问题。国内外的投资者曾将中国政府视为经济的可靠管理者。现在这种信任已经流失，对中国的增长产生了严重的后果。
3. 中国的扩张速度曾经稳定而令人印象深刻，年增长率超过6%。

Question 168

1. Just as Pixar helped animated films captivate an audience beyond popcorn-popping children, Light Chaser Animation, a studio in Beijing, has boosted cartoons’ popularity in China.
2. This chimes with the Communist Party’s drive for “cultural confidence”; in other words, China should be proud of its heritage and not in thrall to Western cultural influences.
3. There is no harm in that. Nor is there in crooning a duet with a Singaporean minister at a charity event, as he has also been seen to be doing.
4. Israel, more eager to conserve its stockpiles than avoid collateral damage, has rained dumb bombs on Gaza.

Answer 168

1. 就像皮克斯帮助动画电影吸引了不仅仅是爆米花飞扬的孩子们的观众一样，位于北京的追光动画工作室提升了卡通在中国的受欢迎程度。
2. 这与共产党推动的“文化自信”相呼应；换句话说，中国应该为自己的遗产感到自豪，而不是沉迷于西方文化影响之下。
3. 这样做没有任何害处。在慈善活动中与新加坡部长合唱一首二重唱，他也被看到这样做了，这也无妨。
4. 以色列更倾向于保留其弹药库存，而不是避免附带伤害，已经对加沙投下了哑弹。

Question 169

1. Not only in Ukraine but also in Myanmar, where rebels have routed government forces in recent days, volunteers can use 3d printers to make key components and assemble airframes in small workshops.
2. The government says many are gaming the system by enrolling in** dud courses**
3. A banner running down the side of the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels depicts cartoon workers recladding its 13-floor façade with solar panels.
4. The illustration might come across as a cruel joke to residents of the Belgian capital, for whose leaden skies the phrase “fifty shades of grey” could have been coined.

Answer 169

1. 不仅在乌克兰，而且在缅甸，近日叛军已经击溃了政府军，志愿者可以使用3D打印机制造关键部件并在小型车间组装机身。
2. 政府表示，许多人通过报名参加无用的课程来钻制度的空子。
3. 一条横幅贴在布鲁塞尔欧洲委员会总部的一侧，描绘了卡通工人正在为其13层外墙重新覆盖太阳能板。
4. 对于比利时首都的居民来说，这幅插图可能看起来像是一个残酷的笑话，对于他们那灰蒙蒙的天空，“五十度灰”这个短语似乎是专为此而创。

Question 170

1. But thanks to green edicts devised by the Euro-wallahs at the commission, the continent’s fields and rooftops are being paved with very real photovoltaic cells.
2. The sizzling solar sector has been an unexpected ray of hope for a continent still reeling from the cut-off of Russian gas.
3. But amid the cheering some are squealing for help.
4. Companies that make solar panels in Europe are teetering on the brink of failure; the outlook for them is not so much cloudy as apocalyptic.

Answer 170

1. 但得益于欧洲委员会的欧洲官员们设计的绿色法令，该大陆的田野和屋顶正被非常真实的光伏电池所铺设。
2. 火热的太阳能行业已成为一个意想不到的希望之光，对于一个仍在从俄罗斯天然气切断供应中挣扎的大陆而言。
3. 但在欢呼声中，一些人正在呼救。
4. 在欧洲制造太阳能板的公司正处于崩溃的边缘；对他们来说，前景不仅是多云，简直是末日般的。

Question 171

1. Given that Chinese panels now sell for around half the cost of European ones—aided by cheap labour and energy costs, and also by ample state backing—that would mean vast and probably sustained levels of largesse.
2. “Sovereignty might have a cost, but it also has no price,” its deputy ambassador to the eu said recently according to the Financial Times, in a valiant bid to sound like a Gallic Braveheart. Some wince at ordering solar panels from
3. Some wince at ordering solar panels from China, since over a third of one of their key inputs is sourced from Xinjiang, a restive region where forced labour is rife.
4. Europe was deprived of green technology, given the planetary effects of climate change.

Answer 171

1. 鉴于中国的太阳能板现在的售价大约是欧洲的一半——得益于廉价的劳动力和能源成本，以及充足的国家支持——这意味着巨大且可能持续的慷慨水平。
2. “主权可能有成本，但它也无价，”据《金融时报》报道，欧盟的副大使最近在一次勇敢尝试中声称自己像高卢的勇士。有些人对从中国订购太阳能板感到不安，
3. 有些人对从中国订购太阳能板感到不安，因为他们的一个关键原材料超过三分之一来自新疆，这是一个动荡地区，强迫劳动非常普遍。
4. 欧洲被剥夺了绿色技术，鉴于气候变化的全球影响。

Question 172

1. The eu has yet to decide whether it wants the cake or its eating.
2. Nobody knows how a viable solar industry could be magicked up in just a few years without a protectionist revival.
3. Europe has the chance to green itself fast and cheaply through imports.

Answer 172

1. 欧盟尚未决定它是想要蛋糕还是想要吃蛋糕。
2. 没有人知道如何在短短几年内不通过保护主义复兴就凭空创造一个可行的太阳能产业。
3. 通过进口，欧洲有机会快速且廉价地实现绿色转型。

Question 173

1. ai models such as gpt-4 have done little to settle the debate. The way these models learn language—by trawling through reams of text data from millions of web pages—is vastly different to the experiences of babbling babies.
2. President Putin’s response was a lengthy disquisition on Rurik, a Varangian chieftain of the ninth century, the medieval reign of Yaroslav the Wise and the depredations of the Mongol horde.
3. He came across as one of those cranks who fixate on an arcane bit of history, except that his obsession—Russia’s historical claim to Ukraine—is backed by a nuclear arsenal.
4. “It is not about the leader,” Mr Putin said disobligingly. Invited, more than once, to blame nato for the war—a bogus explanation favoured by American isolationists—he repeatedly blathered about history.
5. Mr Carlson looked, now and then, like a man who has drifted into a reverie over whether he left the oven on.

Answer 173

1. 像GPT-4这样的AI模型几乎没有帮助解决争论。这些模型学习语言的方式——通过从数百万网页中搜集大量文本数据——与咿呀学语的婴儿的经历截然不同。
2. 普京总统的回应是关于九世纪瓦良格首领鲁里克、中世纪亚罗斯拉夫智者的统治以及蒙古大军的掠夺的长篇大论。
3. 他给人的印象就像那些对某个晦涩历史细节着迷的怪人，只不过他的痴迷——俄罗斯对乌克兰的历史主张——是由核武库支持的。
4. 普京先生不客气地说：“这不是关于领导人的。”被邀请多次将战争归咎于北约——一种美国孤立主义者青睐的伪解释——他反复地大谈历史。
5. 卡尔森先生时不时地看起来像是一个人陷入了沉思，思考自己是否忘了关烤箱。

Question 174

1. Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv as a gesture of goodwill, he fibbed
2. He did press for the release of Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist imprisoned in Russia on risible espionage charges.
3. For Mr Putin made several remarks which, out of their rambling context, will give succour to those who say backing Ukraine is not in America’s interests.
4. And he was asked about the hypothetical deployment of American troops to the Ukrainian front; shorn of the question, his answer is bound to be clipped and replayed. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” he scoffed, mentioning America’s border and national debt.

Answer 174

1. 俄罗斯军队撤出基辅是一种善意的姿态，他撒了谎。
2. 他确实要求释放埃文·格什科维奇，一名在俄罗斯因可笑的间谍指控而被监禁的美国记者。
3. 普京先生做出了几个评论，从它们冗长的上下文中脱离出来，将给那些说支持乌克兰不符合美国利益的人提供慰藉。
4. 他被问及假设美国军队部署到乌克兰前线的情况；脱离了问题本身，他的回答注定会被剪辑并重播。“你们没有更好的事情做吗？”他嘲笑说，提到了美国的边境和国债。

Question 175

1. In office for almost a quarter of a century, Mr Putin is still avenging old grudges.
2. Another lesson lay in his sneering hauteur. He faced a hand-picked interviewer who lobbed softball questions. Even so, Mr Putin’s answers showed no regard for the patience or interests of viewers.
3. Mr Carlson was granted rare access to him, and fluffed it.
4. Some videos are almost certain to go viral: wild animals that pilfer food from unsuspecting families, cars that career through the windows of crowded cafés, pilots trying to land planes in high winds.

Answer 175

1. 任职将近四分之一个世纪，普京先生仍在报复旧怨。
2. 另一个教训在于他那轻蔑的傲慢态度。他面对的是一个精心挑选的采访者，提出了一些轻松的问题。即便如此，普京的回答并未考虑到观众的耐心或兴趣。
3. 卡尔森获得了难得的接近他的机会，并且表现失常。
4. 一些视频几乎肯定会变得病毒式流传：野生动物从毫无防备的家庭中偷取食物，汽车冲进拥挤咖啡馆的窗户，飞行员试图在强风中降落飞机。

Question 176

1. Members of its Politburo are chummy with the Chinese government, and the state maintains an informal embassy in Myanmar.
2. His previous book, “Hello, Shadowlands”, peeked at the uwsa as part of a broader look at rebel fiefdoms.
3. Dredging up little-known research, he sets out how the cia sponsored various opium-smugglers in Myanmar in the 1950s-70s.
4. Langley thwarted attempts to arrest top capos and even lent them spy planes to move dope.
5. Myanmar’s generals have granted Wa State carte blanche so long as it does not seek recognition from the un.

Answer 176

1. 它的政治局成员与中国政府关系密切，而且该国在缅甸维持着一个非正式大使馆。
2. 他之前的书籍《你好，暗影之地》窥探了联邦政府作为更广泛审视叛军领地的一部分。
3. 挖掘鲜为人知的研究，他阐述了在1950年代至1970年代CIA如何赞助缅甸的各种鸦片走私者。
4. 兰利（CIA的总部）阻挠了逮捕顶级头目的尝试，甚至借给他们间谍飞机来运输毒品。
5. 缅甸的将军们已经给予佤邦完全自由，只要它不寻求联合国的认可。

Question 177

1. The uwsa produces bright pink, sweet-smelling meth pills that are triumphs of branding: the “wy” logo is “as recognisable…as Nike’s swoosh”, Mr Winn claims.
2. Wa State is not so much a den of vice, the author argues, as a nest of realpolitik and innovation.
3. Last year bank bosses seemed resigned to their fate.
4. Polycrisis, what polycrisis?

Answer 177

1. 联邦政府生产的是鲜艳的粉红色、香味宜人的甲基苯丙胺药丸，是品牌成功的典范：“wy”标志“像耐克的勾标一样可识别”，温先生声称。
2. 作者认为，佤邦不仅仅是一个罪恶之巢，更是一个现实政治和创新的巢穴。
3. 去年银行老板们似乎已经接受了他们的命运。
4. 多重危机，什么多重危机？

Question 178

1. Beyond private suasion, Mr Biden could go public with his criticism, suspend or halt military supplies and deny Israel protection from hostile resolutions at the United Nations.
2. Many pine for a new James Baker, secretary of state to the elder Mr Bush, who orchestrated a coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 and then summoned Israeli and Arab leaders to a peace conference the same year in Madrid.
3. The Biden administration will no doubt bristle at such demands.
4. But when he traded in his Porsche for an electric bmw he became entranced by both the superior performance and the community of engineers and enthusiasts trying to overcome the obstacles to electrification.

Answer 178

1. 除了私下劝说，拜登先生可以公开表达他的批评，暂停或停止军事供应，并拒绝在联合国为以色列抵御敌对决议提供保护。
2. 许多人渴望一位新的詹姆斯·贝克，他是老布什先生的国务卿，于1991年组织了一个联盟将伊拉克从科威特驱逐出去，然后在同年召集以色列和阿拉伯领导人到马德里参加和平会议。
3. 拜登政府无疑会对这样的要求感到愤怒。
4. 但当他把他的保时捷换成了一辆电动宝马时，他被其卓越的性能以及试图克服电气化障碍的工程师和爱好者社区深深吸引。

Question 179

1. Today they, and other big tech firms, have huge campuses 20 or 30 miles south of San Francisco, but their young employees rent cupboard-sized flats in the city.
2. Much of the funding for the ai boom is coming from these tech behemoths.
3. These efforts face stern resistance.
4. Then as now, the region was ablaze: Iran was helping Bashar al-Assad turn Syria into a charnel house, and the Houthis were sweeping down from their northern redoubts to seize control of most of Yemen’s population centres.

Answer 179

1. 今天，他们和其他大型科技公司在旧金山以南20或30英里处拥有庞大的园区，但他们年轻的员工在城市里租赁像橱柜一样大小的公寓。
2. 人工智能热潮的许多资金来自这些科技巨头。
3. 这些努力面临严厉的抵抗。
4. 当时如今，该地区一片火海：伊朗正在帮助巴沙尔·阿萨德将叙利亚变成一个死亡工厂，胡塞武装从他们的北方要塞扫荡下来，控制了也门大部分人口中心。

Question 180

1. few scattered sorties will not dislodge it
2. Chinese officials have been touring the West to promote the campaign, helped by a video in which happy-looking foreigners intone the Chinese greeting.
3. They suggest a country overshadowed by a profoundly changing relationship with the West, a more security-driven style of policymaking at home and by the parlous state of its economy.
4. At America’s borders, officers have become twitchier about Chinese entering for study.

Answer 180

1. 少数零星的出击不会将其驱逐。
2. 中国官员一直在西方国家巡回推广这一活动，借助一个视频中面带笑容的外国人吟诵中国问候语。
3. 他们提出一个国家被与西方深刻变化的关系、更加以安全为导向的国内政策制定风格以及经济的危险状态所笼罩。
4. 在美国的边境，官员对中国人进入学习变得更加紧张。

Question 181

1. The West’s heightened resolve to counteract harmful behaviour by China abroad has stiffened his sinews
2. The hearing was dominated by bloodless parsing of legal technicalities and worries about what would happen if the Colorado court’s ruling stood.
3. His insistence on this conception overwhelmed the scoffers at his candidacy eight years ago, bulldozed most Republicans into believing he did not lose in 2020 and may now persuade Americans to return him to the White House.
4. Biographers of Mr Trump have recounted how, as he discovered he could dominate and bamboozle others, he acquired some contempt for them as well.

Answer 181

1. 西方加强决心反制中国在海外的有害行为，这强化了他的决心
2. 听证会主要由对法律技术性细节的无情剖析和对科罗拉多州法院裁决若成立将发生什么的担忧所主导。
3. 他对这一概念的坚持在八年前压倒了对他候选资格的嘲笑者，推翻了大多数共和党人相信他在2020年并未输掉选举的看法，现在可能会说服美国人将他送回白宫。
4. 特朗普先生的传记作者们回顾了，当他发现自己可以主宰和欺骗他人时，他对他们也产生了一些蔑视。

Question 182

1. Instead of a sunny belief in progress, national conservatives are seized by declinism.
2. Today Donald Trump, Viktor Orban and a motley crew of Western politicians have demolished that orthodoxy, constructing in its place a statist, “anti-woke” conservatism that puts national sovereignty before the individual
3. These complaints have their merits, and sneering at them only confirms how out of touch elites have become.
4. Closed shops need busting apart. To have the truly open society they claim to want, liberals must press for elite intellectual institutions—the top businesses, newspapers and universities—to embody principles of liberalism instead of succumbing to censorship and groupthink

Answer 182

1. 与其对进步的阳光信念，国家保守主义者被衰落主义所占据。
2. 如今，唐纳德·特朗普、维克托·欧尔班和一群五花八门的西方政治家已经摧毁了那一正统观念，取而代之的是一种国家主义的、“反觉醒”的保守主义，它将国家主权置于个人之前。
3. 这些抱怨有其优点，嘲笑它们只会证实精英们变得多么脱节。
4. 封闭的商店需要打破。为了拥有他们所声称想要的真正开放的社会，自由主义者必须推动精英知识机构——顶尖的企业、报纸和大学——体现自由主义原则，而不是屈服于审查和群体思维。

Question 183

1. For all that the illiberal left and the illiberal right are mortal enemies, their high-octane rows over wokeness are mutually sustaining.
2. If liberals are too squeamish to defend principles such as free speech and individual rights against the excesses of the left, they will fatally undermine their ability to defend them against the right.
3. An anti-Davos would be a better description: a place where conservative nationalists from all over the world gather to compare notes on how to defeat international liberalism.
4. At first glance, these powwows seem rather forced: the main thing Mr Orban, Mr Trump and Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, have in common is a tendency to rail against wokery, immigration and international institutions.

Answer 183

1. 尽管不自由的左翼和不自由的右翼是不共戴天的敌人，他们围绕觉醒主义的激烈争吵却是相互维持的。
2. 如果自由主义者对抵抗左翼的过激行为中捍卫自由言论和个人权利过于敏感，他们将严重削弱自己抵御右翼的能力。
3. “反达沃斯”将是一个更合适的描述：一个世界各地的保守民族主义者聚集在一起交流笔记，探讨如何击败国际自由主义的地方。
4. 乍一看，这些私下会议似乎相当牵强：欧尔班先生、特朗普先生和意大利总理乔治娅·梅洛尼共同的主要特点是倾向于猛烈抨击觉醒主义、移民和国际机构。

Question 184

1. Floors bright with lights, where workers potter about, sit sandwiched between swathes of black.
2. Across the pond, the European Central Bank has asked banks to set aside extra reserves to cover loan losses in commercial property.
3. “During cyclical downturns employers can afford to pick and choose, but when workers are really needed, they are penalised for their biases,”
4. For decades the received wisdom was that black Americans would pull closer to white Americans if they had similar academic qualifications

Answer 184

1. 地板灯光明亮，工人们在这里闲逛，被一片片的黑暗所包围。
2. 在大西洋彼岸，欧洲中央银行要求银行留出额外的储备金以覆盖商业地产的贷款损失。
3. “在周期性低迷期间，雇主可以挑挑拣拣，但当真正需要工人时，他们因为偏见而受到惩罚。”
4. 几十年来普遍的看法是，如果黑人美国人拥有与白人美国人相似的学术资格，他们会与白人美国人更加接近。

Question 185

1. A big stumbling block for their careers is the need to raise young children.
2. People have come in, gotten a toehold and built up experience,” he says. With any luck, more black Americans will go from last hired to lastingly hired.

Answer 185

1. 对他们职业生涯来说，一个巨大的障碍是需要抚养年幼的孩子。
2. “人们已经加入进来，获得了立足点并积累了经验，”他说。如果幸运的话，更多的黑人美国人将从最后被雇佣到长久被雇佣。

Question 186

1. With that enticing slogan Temu touted itself to Americans watching the Super Bowl on February 11th. Football fans had been treated to a similar advert from the e-commerce company at last year’s event.
2. Customers are not the only fans of Costco, as the outpouring of affection from Wall Street analysts after Mr Galanti announced his retirement on February 6th made clear.
3. In 2023 fees from its 129m members **netted **$4.6bn, more than half of Costco’s operating profits.
4. One reason for low attrition is pay. Its wages are higher than the industry average and it offers generous medical and retirement benefits.

Answer 186

1. 在诱人的口号下，Temu在2月11日超级碗上向美国人推销自己。足球迷们去年的比赛中也看到了这家电商公司的类似广告。
2. 客户并不是唯一喜欢Costco的人，这一点在加兰蒂先生2月6日宣布退休后，华尔街分析师们表达的深情就表明了。
3. 在2023年，来自其1.29亿会员的费用净额达到46亿美元，超过了Costco营业利润的一半。
4. 低流失率的一个原因是薪酬。它的工资高于行业平均水平，并提供慷慨的医疗和退休福利。

Question 187

1. That has been the source of much anxiety among its political and business elites in recent years. America’s decision in 2022 to halt exports to the country of its whizziest chips and chipmaking tools brought into stark relief the chokehold of China’s geopolitical rivals over the industry.
2. China’s chip industry operates under a shroud of secrecy
3. The company is now rumoured to be on the cusp of creating chips as small as 5nm, in partnership with smic, China’s largest foundry.
4. The injury not only soured the football game; it also ignited a nationalist firestorm.

Answer 187

1. 近年来，这一直是该国政商精英们的许多焦虑的源头。美国在2022年决定停止向该国出口其顶尖芯片和芯片制造工具，鲜明地突显了中国地缘政治对手对该行业的控制。
2. 中国的芯片行业笼罩在一层神秘的面纱之下。
3. 据传闻，该公司现在正在与中国最大的晶圆厂合作，即中芯国际，即将推出尺寸为5纳米的芯片。
4. 这一伤害不仅让足球比赛变得不愉快；它还引发了一场民族主义的风暴。

Question 188

1. An editorial in the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, speculated that foreign powers were trying to undermine Hong Kong’s economy.
2. All of this has made Hong Kong look worryingly like the mainland, where brands and celebrities are wary of offending thin-skinned nationalists.
3. She was there to learn about America’s court system. Others are there to gawk, looking for gritty entertainment.
4. One defence lawyer said seeing tourists, who tend to be white Europeans, leaves a bad taste in her mouth and unsettles her clients, who are mostly African-American or Hispanic.
5. Many Americans learned about Night Court from an eponymous sitcom that ran from 1984 until 1992.

Answer 188

1. 《环球时报》的社论，一家国有的小报，推测外国势力正在试图破坏香港的经济。
2. 所有这一切让香港看起来令人担忧地像大陆，那里的品牌和名人都在小心翼翼地避免冒犯薄皮民族主义者。
3. 她去那里是为了了解美国的法庭系统。其他人去那里是为了好奇地观看，寻找扣人心弦的娱乐。
4. 一名辩护律师说，看到游客，他们通常是白人欧洲人，让她觉得很不舒服，并使她的客户感到不安，因为他们大多是非裔美国人或西班牙裔。
5. 许多美国人通过1984年至1992年播出的同名情景喜剧了解到《夜间法庭》。

Question 189

1. The ruling from Judge Arthur Engoron was blistering, and followed an 11-week trial that began in October.
2. Mr Trump’s repeated refusal to admit wrongdoing turned a “venial sin” into something more nefarious, wrote the judge.
3. Yet the ruling also contained a reprieve from one of Judge Engoron’s previous decisions.
4. In September, in a pre-trial order, he demanded the cancellation of corporate charters that allow the firm to operate in New York. That was a death knell, since it would have meant the liquidation of the business. After Mr Trump’s lawyer asked Judge Engoron whether that was truly his intention the judge said he would think about it, and on February 16th he walked it back, calling the termination of the business licences “no longer necessary”.

Answer 189

1. 亚瑟·恩戈龙法官的裁决严厉批评，并且是在从十月开始的为期11周的审判之后做出的。
2. 法官写道，特朗普先生一再拒绝承认错误将“轻微的罪过”变成了更为邪恶的事情。
3. 然而，裁决也包含了对恩戈龙法官之前裁决的暂缓执行。
4. 在九月份的一项审前命令中，他要求取消允许该公司在纽约运营的公司章程。这是一个丧钟，因为这意味着将会清算该业务。在特朗普先生的律师询问恩戈龙法官是否真的有这样的意图后，法官表示他会考虑一下，于2月16日撤回了这一要求，称终止营业执照“不再必要”。

Question 190

1. Although buying inflation-protected bonds to protect against inflation does not seem unreasonable, it would have been a spectacularly unprofitable move during the latest bout of inflation. One hundred dollars put into inflation-protected Treasuries in December 2021, when investors first saw American core inflation reach 5%, would have been worth just $88 a year later. Even cash under the mattress would have done better.
2. Likewise, the gap in yields between a nominal bond and an inflation-linked one gives the market’s pricing of expected inflation, known as “breakeven inflation
3. They can outperform if inflation rises and central banks fail to raise rates in response, as in 2021 when most central bankers valiantly insisted that inflation was transitory.
4. The empirical evidence on which effect dominates is spotty at best. 寥寥无几

Answer 190

1. 虽然购买通胀保护债券以防止通货膨胀似乎并不不合理，但在最近一轮通货膨胀期间，这将是一个极其不赚钱的举动。在2021年12月，当投资者首次看到美国核心通货膨胀率达到5%时，投入通胀保护国债的一百美元一年后只值88美元。即使是放在床垫下的现金也会表现得更好。
2. 同样，名义债券和通胀联动债券之间的收益率差距反映了市场对预期通货膨胀的定价，即所谓的“通胀预期”。
3. 如果通货膨胀上升而央行未能及时提高利率，它们可能表现出色，就像2021年大多数央行行长英勇地坚称通货膨胀是暂时的一样。
4. 关于哪种效应占主导地位的经验证据最多也是非常有限的。

Question 191

1. Moreover, it is risk that governments are well-placed to assume: high inflation tends to mean a higher nominal tax take, and more money to pay down debt.
2. The deadlock in Congress reflects the baleful influence of Donald Trump, whose fierce opposition to aid for Ukraine has cowed Republicans into submission.
3. But the spectre of Mr Trump’s return to office in November’s presidential election cast an even darker pall over Munich.
4. The confluence of Russia’s rearmament, Ukraine’s deteriorating position and Mr Trump’s possible return to the White House has brought Europe to its most dangerous juncture in decades.

Answer 191

1. 此外，这是政府很适合承担的风险：高通货膨胀往往意味着更高的名义税收，以及更多的偿还债务的资金。
2. 国会的僵局反映了唐纳德·特朗普的恶劣影响，他对乌克兰援助的强烈反对已经使共和党人屈服。
3. 但是特朗普先生11月总统选举回归的幽灵在慕尼黑投下了更加阴暗的阴影。
4. 俄罗斯的重新武装、乌克兰的地位恶化以及特朗普可能重返白宫的情况汇集在一起，使欧洲面临几十年来最危险的关头。

Question 192

1. Only America, Poland and Greece, the latter flattered by bloated military pensions, reach that level today.

Answer 192

1. 今天，只有美国、波兰和希腊达到了那个水平，后者因为过高的军事退休金而受到恭维。

Question 193

1. Even when Europe can produce combat forces, they often lack the things needed to fight effectively and for long enough: command-and-control capabilities, such as staff officers trained to run large headquarters; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, such as drones and satellites; logistics capabilities, including airlift; and ammunition to last for longer than a week or so.
2. But under the previous government, says Konrad Muzyka, a defence analyst, it did so with little coherent planning and utter neglect of how to crew and sustain that equipment, with personnel numbers falling.
3. Europe’s manpower shortages are driving similarly weighty discussions.
4. Analysts of a more macabre bent think such lopsided megatonnage, and the disproportionate damage which Britain and France would suffer, give Mr Putin an advantage

Answer 193

1. 即使欧洲能够产生作战部队，它们往往缺乏有效作战和持久作战所需的东西：如训练有素的参谋官员运行大型指挥部所需的指挥与控制能力；情报、监视和侦察能力，如无人机和卫星；后勤能力，包括空中运输；以及足够持续超过一周的弹药。
2. 但是，防务分析师Konrad Muzyka表示，在前任政府领导下，尽管人员数量在减少，但在几乎没有连贯计划和完全忽视如何配备并维护那些装备的情况下，还是这样做了。
3. 欧洲的人力短缺正推动类似的重要讨论。
4. 一些更具恐怖倾向的分析师认为，这种不对等的巨量核弹头，以及英国和法国将遭受的不成比例的损害，给了普京先生一个优势。

Question 194

1. Such musings have a long history. In the 1960s America and Europe pondered a “multilateral” nuclear force under joint control
2. At the tame end, France could simply promise to consult on nuclear use with its partners, time permitting.
3. The seemingly dry question of military command and control brings such issues to the fore.
4. That epitomises how American dominance in Europe has suppressed intra-European disputes for decades, as captured in the cold-war ditty that nato’s purpose was to keep “the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”.

Answer 194

1. 这样的思考有着悠久的历史。在1960年代，美国和欧洲考虑了一个在联合控制下的“多边”核力量。
2. 在温和的一端，法国可以简单地承诺在时间允许的情况下与其伙伴就核使用进行咨询。
3. 军事指挥和控制的看似枯燥问题将此类问题推到了前台。
4. 这体现了美国在欧洲的主导地位如何压制了欧洲内部的争议数十年，正如冷战时期的小调所捕捉到的那样，北约的目的是为了让美国人留在内部，俄罗斯人被排除在外，而德国人被压制住。

Question 195

1. Some European officials even muse that Mr Trump, who is fond of nuclear weapons, might take drastic steps such as meeting Poland’s demand to be included in nuclear-sharing arrangements.
2. Europe is committed to share the burden of collective defence and, if necessary, lays the groundwork in case of a future rupture. Higher defence spending, more arms production and more combat-capable forces would be necessary even if America remained in the alliance and under the current war plans.
3. Moreover, even the most Europhile of presidents could be forced to divert forces away from Europe if, for instance, America were to be pulled into a major war in Asia.
4. Such notions still seem otherworldly. But less so with every passing week

Answer 195

1. 一些欧洲官员甚至暗示，喜欢核武器的特朗普可能采取激进措施，比如满足波兰加入核共享安排的要求。
2. 欧洲致力于分享集体防御的负担，并在必要时为未来的断裂奠定基础。即使美国留在联盟中，并且在当前的战争计划下，更高的国防开支、更多的武器生产和更多的具备战斗能力的军队也是必需的。
3. 此外，即使是最亲欧的总统也可能被迫将军队从欧洲转移出去，例如，如果美国被拉入亚洲的一场大战。
4. 这样的想法仍然显得有些超凡脱俗。但随着每一周的过去，它们似乎变得不那么遥不可及。

Question 196

1. You might imagine that after four years in office, the maga appetite to confront China would be sated
2. During negotiations with China, Mr Trump liked to be both the arsonist and the firefighter, as one observer put it, starting conflagrations with angry tweets then dousing them with diplomatic dinners.
3. Mr Trump’s tempestuous relationship with America’s allies in Europe and Asia may undermine cohesion with them on China policy should he be elected again.
4. His contemptuous remarks about nato, including his recent suggestion that he would not offer American protection to allies who fail to spend enough on defence, are music to China’s ears

Answer 196

1. 你可能会想象，在任职四年后，对抗中国的MAGA（让美国再次伟大）热情会得到满足。
2. 在与中国的谈判中，正如一位观察家所说，特朗普喜欢同时扮演纵火犯和消防员的角色，先是通过愤怒的推文引发火灾，然后通过外交晚宴扑灭它们。
3. 特朗普与美国在欧洲和亚洲的盟友的动荡关系可能会在他再次当选的情况下，削弱与他们在中国政策上的团结。
4. 他对北约的轻蔑言论，包括他最近的建议，即如果盟友在国防开支上不达标，他不会提供美国的保护，这对中国来说是乐音。

Question 197

1. To China’s chagrin, he created a new grouping, known as aukus, aimed at strengthening co-operation with Australia and Britain in responding to the security challenge posed by China’s navy in the Indian Ocean and Pacific.
2. Mr Trump was “dyspeptic” about Taiwan, Mr Bolton said, suggesting his boss lacked commitment to a “democratic ally”.
3. Above all else, Mr Xi wants stability. The views of Chinese scholars probably echo official thinking.
4. Yet amid a military build-up and fraying trade ties such optimism is rare. Mr Xi will be watching the vote counts in November closely: the two likely candidates present China with very different challenges.

Answer 197

1. 令中国感到不快的是，他创建了一个新的集团，被称为AUKUS，旨在加强与澳大利亚和英国的合作，以应对中国海军在印度洋和太平洋提出的安全挑战。
2. 博尔顿先生说，特朗普对台湾感到不满，这表明他的上司对一个“民主盟友”缺乏承诺。
3. 最重要的是，习先生希望稳定。中国学者的观点可能反映了官方思想。
4. 然而，在军事建设和贸易关系破裂的背景下，这种乐观是罕见的。习先生将会密切关注11月的投票计数：两位可能的候选人给中国带来了非常不同的挑战。

Question 198

1. It is unusual for spymasters to taunt their rivals openly. But last month Bill Burns, the director of the cia, could not resist observing that the war in Ukraine had been a boon for his agency.
2. “The undercurrent of disaffection [among Russians] is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the cia,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “We’re not letting it go to waste.”
3. Russian spies botched preparations for the war and were then expelled from Europe en masse.

In 2020 operatives from the fsb, Russia’s security service, botched the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the recently deceased opposition activist. He mocked them for spreading Novichok on his underwear.

4. The past few years were torrid for Russian spies.

Answer 198

1. 对于间谍首脑来说，公开嘲讽对手是不寻常的。但上个月，中央情报局局长比尔·伯恩斯无法抵挡不观察乌克兰战争给他的机构带来的好处。
2. “俄罗斯人中的不满暗流为中央情报局创造了一次千载难逢的招募机会，”他在《外交事务》上写道。“我们不会让这个机会白白浪费。”
3. 俄罗斯间谍搞砸了战争的准备工作，然后被大规模驱逐出欧洲。

2020年，俄罗斯联邦安全局的特工搞砸了对最近去世的反对派活动家阿列克谢·纳瓦尔尼的毒杀。他嘲笑他们在他的内衣上涂抹诺维乔克。

4. 过去几年对于俄罗斯间谍来说是艰难的。

Question 199

1. In Moldova, for instance, a once-scattershot disinformation effort against the country’s bid for European Union membership grew more consistent and focused last year.
2. It tied the accession bid to the president personally, all the while blaming her for Moldova’s economic woes.
3. Meanwhile the gru, Russia’s military intelligence agency, has also been re-evaluating its tradecraft.
4. Mr Prigozhin is dead; his malevolent influence lives on.

Answer 199

1. 例如，在摩尔多瓦，一度对该国加入欧盟申请的零散的虚假信息努力在去年变得更加一致和聚焦。
2. 它将加入申请与总统个人联系起来，同时还因摩尔多瓦的经济困境责备她。
3. 与此同时，俄罗斯的军事情报机构GRU也在重新评估其间谍技巧。
4. 普里戈津已经去世；他的恶毒影响仍在继续。

Question 200

1. The roaring start to the year has revived an old debate: should investors go all in on equities?
2. Why stop there? Although the idea might sound absurd, the notion of ordinary investors levering up to buy assets is considered normal in the housing market.
3. Although that may sound like a long time, it is an unsatisfyingly thin amount of data for a young investor thinking about how to invest for the rest of their working life, a period of perhaps half a century.
4. To address this problem, most investigations use rolling periods that overlap with one another in order to create hundreds or thousands of data points.

Answer 200

1. 年初的强劲开局重新激活了一个老话题：投资者是否应该全力投资于股票？
2. 为什么要止步于此呢？尽管这个想法听起来可能很荒谬，但普通投资者加杠杆购买资产的概念在房地产市场被视为正常。
3. 虽然这听起来像是很长一段时间，但对于一个年轻的投资者来说，考虑如何投资他们余下的工作生涯——可能是半个世纪的时间，这是一笔不够充分的数据量。
4. 为了解决这个问题，大多数研究使用滚动周期，这些周期彼此重叠，以此创造数百或数千个数据点。

Question 201

1. The issue has already boiled over in Britain, where this month talks between the ai industry and creative organisations over a new code of practice broke down.

boiled over Internet

2. If this argument prevails, the industry will receive carte blanche to exploit copyrighted works without compensating authors—all while the law continues to stifle humans’ access to those works.
3. ai will “learn” from pirated textbooks free of charge, while students pay extravagant prices. How perverse.
4. Germany is wilting. Last year its economy shrank by 0.3%, the worst result in the g7 group of rich countries.

Answer 201

1. 这个问题已经在英国引发了激烈的争论，本月，人工智能行业和创意组织关于新实践准则的谈判破裂。
2. 如果这一论点占上风，那么该行业将获得完全自由来利用受版权保护的作品，而不用向作者支付报酬——同时法律继续限制人们获取这些作品的权限。
3. 人工智能将从免费的盗版教科书中“学习”，而学生们却要支付高昂的价格。多么荒谬。
4. 德国正变得萎靡不振。去年，其经济收缩了0.3%，在七国集团中是最糟糕的结果。

Question 202

1. With 5.1m people in a cluster of some 50 towns, it contains Germany’s biggest conurbation.
2. The Ruhr has long since scrubbed its air and rivers, tidied slag heaps into forested hills and converted hulking factories into quirky museums.
3. The Ruhr is, in short, a much nicer place to live than the chimney-studded powerhouse of old.
4. Once a slurry pit, a huge artificial lake is now ringed with fancy apartments and offices.

Answer 202

1. 拥有510万人口，聚集了大约50个城镇，这里包含了德国最大的城市群。
2. 鲁尔区早已清洁了空气和河流，将矿渣堆整理成了林木茂盛的小山，把庞大的工厂改造成了独特的博物馆。
3. 简而言之，鲁尔区比过去那个烟囱林立的工业中心要宜居得多。
4. 曾经的泥浆坑，现在一个巨大的人造湖周围环绕着豪华公寓和办公室。

Question 203

1. Arturo de la Vega of the city’s planning department is ebullient. ”Our plan is for growth,” he enthuses.
2. This “centipede strategy” has paid off. Not only has the local economy weathered recent shocks, the city’s coffers are full. Its latest project is a new startup campus to revive a canalside district.
3. America’s congress does not have a reputation for productivity, but its failure to authorise more aid for Ukraine is unusual even for the underachievers on Capitol Hill.
4. Yet a lapse in government funding looks increasingly likely: House Republicans have shown themselves to be as feckless on setting a budget as they have been on helping allies.

Answer 203

1. 城市规划部门的阿图罗·德拉维加兴高采烈。“我们的计划是为了增长，”他热情地说。
2. 这种“蜈蚣战略”已经得到了回报。不仅本地经济承受了最近的冲击，城市的金库充满了。它的最新项目是一个新的创业园区，以复兴一个河畔区域。
3. 美国国会并不以生产力著称，但它未能授权更多对乌克兰的援助，即便对于国会山上的低效能者来说也是不同寻常的。
4. 然而，政府资金中断看起来越来越有可能：众议院的共和党人在制定预算上表现得和在帮助盟友上一样无能。

Question 204

1. Though sometimes compared to America’s “Saturday Night Live”, the humour in “A Wonderful Country” is more biting.
2. The sketches often skewer Israeli politicians and public figures. But since the outbreak of war the show has also looked outward, lampooning a supposed pro-Palestinian bias among liberals in the West.
3. One recent sketch lambasts the bbc’s coverage of the war Announcing Israel’s bombing of a hospital in Gaza, a news anchor urges her producer to increase the number of casualties displayed on screen (“More, more!”).
4. he is reporting from the “illegal colony of Tel Aviv” and describes Hamas as “the most credible not-terrorist organisation in the world”, **a swipe at **the bbc’s reluctance to refer to Hamas as “terrorists”.

Answer 204

1. 虽然有时被比作美国的《周六夜现场》，但《美妙的国度》的幽默更尖刻。
2. 这些小品经常讽刺以色列的政治家和公众人物。但自战争爆发以来，该节目也开始向外看，嘲笑西方自由派中假定的亲巴勒斯坦偏见。
3. 一个最近的小品抨击了BBC对战争的报道。报道以色列轰炸加沙的一家医院时，一名新闻主播敦促她的制作人增加屏幕上显示的伤亡数字（“更多，更多！”）。
4. 他从“非法殖民地特拉维夫”报道，并将哈马斯描述为“世界上最可信的非恐怖组织”，这是对BBC不愿将哈马斯称为“恐怖分子”的一次挑衅。

Question 205

1. “A Wonderful Country” has not touched on the death and destruction Israel has caused in Gaza, which is no laughing matter.
2. Car drivers, financial traders and air-traffic controllers already routinely see their decisions overruled by ai systems put in place to rapidly correct poor judgment.
3. The umpires and line judges, it turned out, had switched strategy. Before Hawk-Eye, they were more likely to call a serve out when it was in. But afterwards, they were even more likely to wave through balls that were actually out.
4. Most important, perhaps, is the social cost of getting an important call wrong, which will vary between disciplines, and could distort decision-making in different ways. Judges, for example, may prefer to under-convict. Doctors, on the other hand, might over-diagnose. Stay tuned.

Answer 205

1. 《美妙的国度》并没有触及以色列在加沙造成的死亡和破坏，这是不值得笑话的事情。
2. 汽车驾驶员、金融交易员和空中交通管制员已经习惯性地看到他们的决定被置于以快速纠正错误判断为目的的人工智能系统所推翻。
3. 结果显示，裁判和线判已经改变了策略。在有鹰眼系统之前，他们更可能在球实际上是进的时候判球出界。但之后，他们更有可能让实际上是出界的球通过。
4. 也许最重要的是，做出重要错误判断的社会成本，这在不同的学科之间会有所不同，并且可能以不同的方式扭曲决策。例如，法官可能偏向于少定罪。另一方面，医生可能过度诊断。敬请关注。

Question 206

1. Fillip Kirkorov, Russia’s highest-paid pop star, long loyal to the Kremlin, was banned from state television and was sent to redeem his sins by performing in a military hospital in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.
2. He deplores the way masks became political badges in America, with Republicans shunning them and Democrats sporting them even when cycling outdoors without helmets. Tribalism makes for poor risk assessment.
3. But overall, this is a fascinating, ferocious fusillade against humanity’s two deadliest enemies: disease and itself.
4. But he is turning a democratic alliance into a mobster’s racket: no money, no protection.

Answer 206

1. 菲利普·柯科洛夫，俄罗斯收入最高的流行歌星，长期忠于克里姆林宫，被禁止出现在国家电视上，并被派去通过在俄罗斯占领的乌克兰东部的一家军事医院表演来赎罪。
2. 他谴责口罩在美国变成了政治标志的方式，共和党人避之不及，而民主党人即使在没有戴头盔的情况下户外骑行时也佩戴它们。部落主义导致了糟糕的风险评估。
3. 但总的来说，这是一场迷人的、猛烈的对人类两大致命敌人：疾病和人类自身的攻击。
4. 但他正在将一个民主联盟变成一个黑手党式的勒索：没有钱，就没有保护。

Question 207

1. Featuring on a criminal “wanted” list usually crimps one’s options for future employment.
2. she is positioning herself as a safe pair of hands in a potentially unsafe Trumpian world.
3. But the incumbent, Charles Michel, has embraced the job’s sideline as a ceremonial representative of the union, schmoozing the Xi Jinpings and Narendra Modis of the world.
4. Second, Brussels must avoid being drawn into the pointless constitutional bickering that recurs each time the top jobs are refreshed, as Euro-federalist types see an opportunity for the European Parliament to leach more power away from member states.

Answer 207

1. 出现在犯罪“通缉”名单上通常会限制未来就业的选择。
2. 她正将自己定位为在一个潜在的不安全的特朗普世界中的可靠人选。
3. 但现任的查尔斯·米歇尔已经拥抱了这份工作作为欧盟的典礼代表的副业，与世界上的习近平和纳伦德拉·莫迪等人拉关系。
4. 其次，布鲁塞尔必须避免被卷入每次顶级职位更新时都会重现的无意义的宪法争论中，因为欧洲联邦主义者类型看到了一个机会，让欧洲议会从成员国那里夺取更多的权力。

Question 208

1. once back in the White House, he would be able to squelch or pause the four criminal cases lodged against him.
2. The 91 felony charges against Mr Trump are both serious and picaresque.
3. Mr Trump insists he has done nothing wrong in any of the cases discussed in this article, and has so far incorporated all of them deftly into his restoration narrative of victimhood and revenge-seeking.
4. The carnivalesque nature of the trial—a former tabloid publisher and a former Playboy model will probably testify—will play to Mr Trump’s advantage, making the case seem like reality tv, a format in which he is highly practised.

Answer 208

1. 一旦回到白宫，他将能够压制或暂停对他提起的四个刑事案件。
2. 对特朗普先生的91项重罪指控既是严重的，也是奇异的。
3. 特朗普坚称在本文讨论的任何案件中他都没有做错任何事，并且到目前为止已经巧妙地将它们全部纳入他的恢复受害者身份和寻求复仇的叙事中。
4. 试验的狂欢节性质——一位前小报出版商和一位前《花花公子》模特很可能会作证——将对特朗普有利，使这个案件看起来像真人秀，这是他高度熟练的一种形式。

Question 209

1. There was a strut in the step of the propaganda chief of Ningdu county, in the orange-growing hills of Jiangxi province, as he welcomed 66 couples to a collective marriage ceremony on February 17th.
2. Standing in Ningdu’s main square, watched by their families and a throng of curious locals, the couples read a wedding oath from a large video screen.
3. In a war of attrition, that counts.
4. Artillery devastates infantry and armour well before they can get within sight of the enemy.

Answer 209

1. 2月17日，在江西省种橘子的山丘上的宁都县，宣传部长迎接66对夫妇参加集体婚礼时，步伐中带有一种昂扬。
2. 站在宁都的主广场上，在他们的家人和一群好奇的当地人的注视下，这些夫妇从一个大屏幕上朗读婚礼誓言。
3. 在消耗战中，这是重要的。
4. 大炮在步兵和装甲部队能够看到敌人之前，就已经对它们造成了毁灭性的打击。

Question 210

1. The navy has a stranglehold on the leadership of Indo-Pacific Command,
2. China-watchers debate the extent to which Mr Wang’s American sojourn influenced the course of China’s modernisation.
3. Mr Wang was impressed by the pageantry, by the creation of a tradition strong enough to guarantee the transfer of authority.
4. But Mr Wang did not think America’s unifying forces and traditions could withstand its **centrifugal forces. **

Answer 210

1. The navy has a stranglehold on the leadership of Indo-Pacific Command,
2. China-watchers debate the extent to which Mr Wang’s American sojourn influenced the course of China’s modernisation.
3. Mr Wang was impressed by the pageantry, by the creation of a tradition strong enough to guarantee the transfer of authority.
4. But Mr Wang did not think America’s unifying forces and traditions could withstand its **centrifugal forces. **

Question 211

1. Mr Kerr’s summation points to a deeper truth—that a university president’s job is mainly about keeping a motley crew of interested parties happy.
2. Some may consider a business leader an attractive choice, particularly to deal with the administrative bloat that now afflicts many universities. After all, the operating budgets of America’s largest universities are now similar to those of a Fortune 500 company.
3. A former politician, another possibility, may know how to gladhand donors and schmooze with journalists, but would be a lightning rod for criticism from supporters of whichever party they did not represent.
4. Institutions unmoored from a clear purpose, whether that is knowledge-seeking or profit-seeking, are destined for crises. Even the cleverest captain would struggle to steer such a ship.

Answer 211

1. 凯尔先生的总结指向了一个更深层的真相——大学校长的工作主要是关于让一群杂乱无章的利益方满意。
2. 有些人可能会认为商界领袖是一个吸引人的选择，特别是为了处理现在困扰许多大学的行政臃肿。毕竟，美国最大的一些大学的运营预算现在与一家财富500强公司的预算相似。
3. 一位前政治家，另一个可能性，可能知道如何巧妙地与捐赠者打交道并与记者闲聊，但会成为来自他们未代表的任何党派支持者的批评的引雷针。
4. 脱离清晰目标的机构，无论是寻求知识还是寻求利润，都注定会遇到危机。即便是最聪明的船长也难以驾驭这样的船。

Question 212

1. Despite middling economic growth and the covid-19 pandemic, stockmarkets have offered annual returns, after inflation, of more than 8% a year since 2010, including dividends (cash payments to shareholders, funded by company profits) and capital gains (when the price of a share increases).
2. However you measure them, American returns have outclassed those elsewhere.
3. Many investors hope that ai will ride to the rescue.
4. If deployed more widely, the tools may allow companies to cut costs and produce more value, juicing economic growth and corporate profits.

Answer 212

1. 尽管面临平平的经济增长和新冠疫情，自2010年以来，股市在扣除通货膨胀后的年回报率超过了8%，包括红利（公司利润资助的股东现金支付）和资本增值（股票价格上涨时）。
2. 无论你如何衡量，美国的回报率都超过了其他地方的回报率。
3. 许多投资者希望人工智能能够成为救星。
4. 如果更广泛地部署这些工具，可能会让公司削减成本并创造更多价值，促进经济增长和公司利润。

Question 213

1. Examples of that include landmark rulings which decriminalised gay sex (though stopped short of legalising same-sex marriage) and advanced citizens’ rights to privacy.
2. On occasion, the court has used these powers to advance an agenda at odds with the aims of Mr Modi’s government.
3. In 2022 it cleared the prime minister of complicity in deadly sectarian riots in Gujarat in 2002, when he was the state’s chief minister.
4. According to a Gallup poll released this month, 43% call themselves independent, tying a record set in 2014.

Answer 213

1. 其中的例子包括具有里程碑意义的裁决，这些裁决使同性恋性行为非刑事化（尽管没有将同性婚姻合法化）并推进了公民的隐私权。
2. 有时，法院利用这些权力推进一个与莫迪政府的目标相冲突的议程。
3. 2022年，它清除了总理在2002年古吉拉特邦发生的致命宗教骚乱中的共谋责任，当时他是邦的首席部长。
4. 根据本月发布的盖洛普民意调查，43%的人自称是独立人士，这与2014年创下的记录持平。

Question 214

1. As Mr Trump demonstrated in 2016, and Barack Obama did before him, political parties do not plot or strategise anymore to anoint a candidate, at least not with much effect; they have instead become vehicles idling by the curbs of American life until the primaries approach, waiting for successful candidates to commandeer them.
2. Encouraging these voters, as well as less politically active party members, to see the opposing party as demonic is a reliable means of getting them to vote your way.

Answer 214

1. 正如特朗普先生在2016年所展示的，以及在他之前的巴拉克·奥巴马所做的那样，政党不再策划或制定策略来指定候选人，至少效果不大；相反，它们已变成在美国生活的路边怠速的车辆，直到初选临近时，等待成功的候选人来指挥它们。
2. 鼓励这些选民，以及不那么积极的党员，将对方党派视为恶魔，是让他们按照你的方式投票的可靠手段。

Question 215

1. Free newspapers in Europe run articles that intersperse praise for the party with information on local life.
2. Instead, the party’s effort to control them may be stunting their opportunities in the West.
3. Her dowry included a casket of Chinese tea and some small islands off India’s west coast.
4. they expanded modest local practices into a rapacious global enterprise.

Answer 215

1. 欧洲的免费报纸刊登的文章将对党的赞扬和当地生活信息穿插在一起。
2. 相反，党试图控制他们可能正阻碍他们在西方的机会。
3. 她的嫁妆包括一箱中国茶和印度西海岸外的一些小岛。
4. 他们将谦逊的本地实践扩展成一个贪婪的全球企业。

Question 216

1. Most of the characters he depicts are venal.
2. The largesse resembles that of the Sackler family, whose company, Purdue Pharma, has done much to fuel the present century’s epidemic of opioids (a class of painkillers that can be derived from or simulate opium).
3. But he tells his intricate story with verve.
4. Today activists and courts are taking opioid merchants to task, demanding tens of billions of dollars in damages.

Answer 216

1. 他描绘的大多数角色都是贪婪的。
2. 这种慷慨类似于萨克勒家族的，他们的公司普渡制药极大地助长了本世纪初阶段的阿片类药物（一类可以从鸦片提取或模拟鸦片的止痛药）流行病。
3. 但他充满活力地讲述了他复杂的故事。
4. 如今，活动人士和法院正严厉对待阿片类药物商人，要求数百亿美元的赔偿。

Question 217

1. Mr Putin’s depredations make it a declining power.
2. The technology has also propelled others into the industry’s upper echelons.
3. Openai, the maker of Chatgpt, and other ai builders such as Anthropic have shot to fame, scooping up billions of dollars in funding.
4. Bar a few high-profile exceptions, such as Openai, investors have been especially wary of signing cheques at lofty valuations.

Answer 217

1. 普京先生的掠夺行为使其成为一个衰落的大国。
2. 这项技术也推动了其他公司进入行业的上层阶级。
3. OpenAI（ChatGPT的开发者）和Anthropic等其他AI构建者声名鹊起，筹集了数十亿美元的资金。
4. 除了少数几个备受瞩目的例外，如OpenAI，投资者在高估值时签署支票时尤其谨慎。

Question 218

1. The end of the era of cheap money is largely to blame. In the go-go years, as investors raced to get a piece of the buzziest startups, tech firms had little need to tap public markets for capital.
2. Crossover investors such as Tiger Global and Coatue, which operate in both public and private markets, flooded into Silicon Valley.
3. Now investors are mulling how to sell their stakes in the unicorns of yesteryear.
4. Most vc funds operate on a ten-year clock, backing startups in the first five and cashing out in the second.

Answer 218

1. 廉价资金时代的结束在很大程度上是罪魁祸首。在黄金年代，当投资者争相获得最热门创业公司的一部分时，科技公司几乎不需要借助公开市场来筹集资金。
2. 像Tiger Global和Coatue这样在公开和私人市场都运作的交叉投资者，涌入了硅谷。
3. 现在投资者正在考虑如何出售他们在昨年独角兽公司中的股份。
4. 大多数风投基金遵循十年周期，在前五年支持创业公司，后五年则变现。

Question 219

1. Trustbusters have kept big tech, once a serial acquirer, on the sidelines.
2. That is a sad fate for the founders, employees and investors of those once-promising firms.
3. Tom Tunguz of Theory Ventures, another vc firm, reckons the drop in funding since 2021 is merely a return to a long-run trend that was thrown off course by the pandemic.

Answer 219

1. 反托拉斯机构已经让大型科技公司，这个曾经的连续收购者，处于旁观的位置。
2. 对于那些曾经前途无量的公司的创始人、员工和投资者来说，这是一个悲哀的结局。
3. 另一家风险投资公司Theory Ventures的Tom Tunguz认为，自2021年以来融资的下降仅仅是回归到一个长期趋势，这个趋势因为大流行而偏离了轨道。

Question 220

1. And there is plenty to celebrate in the newfound sobriety of Silicon Valley.
2. It helps that the industry’s giants have flooded the market with thousands of techies following a bout of layoffs.
3. Certain infections have a second act, brought about by some consequence of the pathogen’s visit.
4. However, a suggestion that Epstein-Barr virus is the trigger has never been nailed down.

Answer 220

1. 硅谷新发现的清醒有很多值得庆祝的地方。
2. 行业巨头们在一轮裁员潮之后，向市场涌入了成千上万的技术人员，这一点很有帮助。
3. 某些感染有第二幕，由病原体访问的某些后果引起。
4. 然而，有建议说Epstein-Barr病毒是触发因素从未被确凿证明。

Question 221

1. But, to the extent that these disparate conditions do share mechanisms, they might share any eventual treatment, too.
2. The reality has proved drastically different. Russia’s economy has been more resilient, and the sanctions effort much leakier, than was hoped.
3. Mocktails are having a moment around the world, as health-crazed young people shun old-fashioned old fashioneds.
4. It looks and tastes like a negroni, ruby red and bittersweet with a herbal finish.

Answer 221

1. 但是，这些各异的状况在某种程度上如果确实有共同的机制，它们可能也会共享任何最终的治疗方法。
2. 现实情况证明与预期大相径庭。俄罗斯的经济表现得更为韧性，而制裁努力比人们所希望的要漏洞百出得多。
3. 随着痴迷健康的年轻人避开传统的老式鸡尾酒，无酒精鸡尾酒在全世界都流行起来。
4. 它看起来并且尝起来像尼格罗尼，宝石红色且苦甜相间，带有草本的尾味。

Question 222

1. India appears to be more of a mobile-phone go-between than it does a smartphone powerhouse.
2. In his place, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, planned to install his crony, Viktor Medvedchuk, at the head of a puppet government.
3. Quarry-owners in Voznesensk brought granite to form roadblocks against advancing Russian armour.
4. That is wrong-headed. If Mr Putin is not stopped in Ukraine he will threaten the rest of Europe. Ukraine’s fight is the West’s fight, too.

Answer 222

1. 印度看起来更像是一个手机中转站，而不是智能手机强国。
2. 代替他的是，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京计划安插他的亲信，维克托·梅德韦丘克，作为傀儡政府的领导。
3. 沃兹涅森斯克的采石场主带来了花岗岩来形成路障，以阻挡前进的俄罗斯装甲部队。
4. 那是思路错误的。如果普京在乌克兰未被阻止，他将威胁欧洲其他地区。乌克兰的战斗也是西方的战斗。

Question 223

1. Fixed warfare suits the side with more men and munitions.
2. As politics returns, Ukraine risks becoming prey to all the old infighting and divisions.
3. Where there was once a largely vacant car park, there is now an indoor playground with a roller rink, ball pits and bumper cars.
4. The Waitrose supermarket in Canary Wharf has long been the upmarket chain’s best performer by revenue.

Answer 223

1. 固定的战争更有利于人数多且弹药充足的一方。
2. 随着政治的回归，乌克兰面临着成为所有旧有内斗和分裂的猎物的风险。
3. 曾经几乎空无一人的停车场，现在变成了一个室内游乐场，里面有滑轮溜冰场、球池和碰碰车。
4. 位于金丝雀码头的Waitrose超市长期以来一直是该高端连锁品牌收入表现最好的门店。

Question 224

1. But the office workers still toiling in the sleek towers above the dog-walkers, pram-pushers and joggers lining the riverside paths have not been forgotten.
2. The injured lie over hospital floors, blood bubbling from untreated wounds. Doctors perform amputations without anaesthetic. For want of gauze, they rip up their gowns.
3. Its goal is to mass-produce bleeding-edge 2nm chips by 2027.

(The most cutting-edge)

Answer 224

1. 但那些仍在河边小道上的遛狗人、推婴儿车的人和慢跑者上方光鲜亮丽的大楼里辛勤工作的办公室员工并没有被遗忘。
2. 受伤的人躺在医院的地板上，未经治疗的伤口冒着血泡。医生在没有麻醉的情况下进行截肢。因为缺少纱布，他们撕开自己的手术服。
3. 其目标是到2027年大规模生产最前沿的2纳米芯片。

Question 225

1. But a French startup called Mistral is trying to throw a spanner in this ai flywheel.

Answer 225

1. 但是，一个叫做Mistral的法国创业公司正试图向这个人工智能的快速发展中扔进一把扳手。

搅局

Question 226

1. American stocks are up by 21% since the end of October and stand roughly 5% above their vertiginous peak in January 2022.
2. The economy continues to defy gravity.
3. A popular regular forecast of annualised American economic growth, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, stands at 3.2% for the first quarter of this year.
4. Despite a slowdown in China—whose sagging markets are an exception to the global trend—the imf has been nudging up its global growth forecasts, too.

Answer 226

1. 自10月底以来，美国股市上涨了21%，大约比2022年1月的令人眩晕的高峰高出5%。
2. 经济继续逆流而上。
3. 由亚特兰大联邦储备银行发布的一项受欢迎的美国年化经济增长定期预测，目前为今年第一季度的3.2%。
4. 尽管中国经济放缓——其下滑的市场是全球趋势的一个例外——国际货币基金组织也一直在上调其全球增长预测。

Question 227

1. The event that propelled stocks into the stratosphere was the publication on February 22nd of earnings by Nvidia, which has an iron grip on the market for chips that are critical for training ai models.
2. Believers in the dotcom boom were not wrong about the transformative power of the internet—but they still lost their shirts.
3. The trend of rising profits, as a share of the economy, also looks spent.
4. Fentanyl and its analogues are a near-perfect product: so cheap to make that even sold for 50 cents a pill, it is still hugely profitable; so powerful and addictive that a captive market is almost guaranteed; so easy to make, with such a variety of common chemicals, that it can be produced more or less anywhere; so concentrated that it is easy to hide and smuggle.

Answer 227

1. 2月22日，Nvidia公布的财报将股市推向了高空，Nvidia牢牢掌握着对于训练AI模型至关重要的芯片市场。
2. 相信互联网热潮的人并没有错，互联网的变革力量是真实的——但他们还是血本无归。
3. 作为经济份额的利润上升趋势也看起来已经耗尽。
4. 芬太尼及其类似物是几乎完美的产品：制造成本如此之低，以至于即使每片药物仅售50美分，仍然能带来巨大的利润；它的强效性和成瘾性几乎可以保证一个固定的市场；它的制作简单，用到的化学物质种类繁多，几乎可以在任何地方生产；它的浓缩性使得它易于隐藏和走私。

Question 228

1. Pacific. Mindful of how mutable supply chains are, it is trying to build a global coalition to keep better track of chemicals.
2. they should revamp drug education, which is woeful.
3. And they should decriminalise less lethal drugs, such as cocaine, so as to free time and scarce funds to focus on the one that is killing Americans in droves.
4. Politicians of all stripes dislike such ideas, since they appear to condone taking drugs.

Answer 228

1. 太平洋地区。考虑到供应链的多变性，该地区正试图建立一个全球联盟，以更好地追踪化学品。
2. 他们应该改革药物教育，这方面目前做得很糟糕。
3. 并且他们应该将诸如可卡因这样的较不致命的药物非刑事化，以便释放时间和稀缺的资金，专注于那些成群结队地杀害美国人的药物。
4. 各种政治派别的政治家都不喜欢这样的想法，因为它们似乎纵容了吸毒。

Question 229

1. Global companies for which Russia was a marginal market, such as McDonald’s and Starbucks, packed their bags quickly.
2. Nestlé, a Swiss coffee-and-confectionary giant, remains in Russia but says that it has cut down its Russian assortment to basic brands (Nescafé is available but Nespresso is not, for example).
3. When spain first surrounded Ceuta and Melilla, its North African exclaves, in barbed wire in 1993 and 1996, few suspected the practice would catch on.
4. Now, with pandemic-era restrictions gone, illegal migration is back in full spate.

Answer 229

1. 对于俄罗斯市场边缘化的全球公司，如麦当劳和星巴克，迅速打包离开。
2. 瑞士的咖啡和糖果巨头雀巢仍然留在俄罗斯，但表示已经将其在俄罗斯的产品线缩减到基本品牌（例如，雀巢咖啡可买到，但Nespresso则不行）。
3. 当西班牙首次于1993年和1996年用铁丝网包围其北非飞地休达和梅利利亚时，很少有人怀疑这种做法会流行开来。
4. 现在，随着疫情时代的限制措施取消，非法移民全面回潮。

Question 230

1. Europe is turning to fences to stem the tide and confront Russian hostility.
2. Poland, which decided to build a €353m ($407m) electric fence along its border with Belarus in 2021, kitted out its Russian border with state-of-the art cameras and motion detectors for €80m last year.
3. Finland will shell out €380m to fence off just 200km, or 15%, of its 1,340km-long border with Russia by 2026; maintenance costs are on top of that.

Answer 230

1. 欧洲正在转向使用围栏来遏制潮流并对抗俄罗斯的敌意。
2. 波兰在2021年决定沿着与白俄罗斯的边界建造一道价值3.53亿欧元（4.07亿美元）的电子围栏，并在去年为其与俄罗斯的边界配备了价值8000万欧元的最先进摄像头和运动探测器。
3. 芬兰将花费3.8亿欧元仅为其与俄罗斯1340公里长的边界的200公里，即15%，建造围栏；维护成本则是另外计算的，直至2026年。

Question 231

1. For the ai stockmarket boom to endure, these firms will at some point need to make serious money from selling their services to clients.
2. When it comes to real-world adoption of such “generative” ai, companies have trodden gingerly
3. This includes the newfangled generative sort and the older type that companies were using before 2023 for everything from improving online search results to forecasting inventory needs.
4. When the Census Bureau began asking about ai in September 2023, small firms were likelier to use the technology than big ones, perhaps because less form-ticking made adoption easier for minnows.

Answer 231

1. 为了让人工智能股市繁荣持续下去，这些公司迟早需要通过向客户销售服务赚取严肃的钱。
2. 当涉及到这种“生成式”人工智能的现实世界应用时，公司们已经小心翼翼地前行了。
3. 这包括新奇的生成式类型和那些公司在2023年之前使用的旧类型，用于从改善在线搜索结果到预测库存需求的各种事项。
4. 当人口普查局在2023年9月开始询问关于人工智能的问题时，小公司使用这项技术的可能性比大公司要大，或许是因为较少的表格填写使得对于小公司来说采纳更为容易。

Question 232

1. This “use-case sprawl”, as one consultant calls it, can be divided into three big categories: window-dressing, tools for workers with low to middling skills, and those for a firm’s most valuable employees
2. At Nasdaq, a financial-services firm, it helps financial-crime sleuths gather evidence to assess suspicious bank transactions.
3. Others worry that their data is too siloed and complex to be brought together.
4. Recently Air Canada found itself in hot water after its ai chatbot gave a passenger incorrect information about the airline’s refund policy.

Answer 232

1. 一位顾问所说的这种“用例扩散”可以分为三大类：美化，为技能低到中等的工人提供的工具，以及为公司最宝贵的员工提供的工具。
2. 在纳斯达克，一家金融服务公司，它帮助金融犯罪侦探收集证据以评估可疑的银行交易。
3. 其他人担心他们的数据太孤立且复杂，无法整合在一起。
4. 最近，加拿大航空因其AI聊天机器人向乘客提供了关于航空公司退款政策的错误信息而惹了一屁股麻烦。

Question 233

1. Israel says they fired warning shots and most died in a stampede.
2. And another civilian calamity will test America’s appetite for letting the war rumble on
3. America’s red-hot markets have brought similar arguments back to the fore.
4. A short-fused boss is likely to instil fear among employees and to discourage people from speaking up.

Answer 233

1. 以色列表示他们发射了警告射击，大多数人死于一场踩踏事故。
2. 又一场平民灾难将考验美国对于让战争持续下去的胃口。
3. 美国的火热市场已经将类似的争论重新带回了焦点。
4. 一个脾气暴躁的老板很可能会在员工中间播下恐惧，阻止人们发声。

Question 234

1. Anyone who has ever been riled by a rude email or uncivil colleagues knows how in such circumstances suddenly nothing else matters.
2. Every spare bit of cognitive power is redirected to thinking of devastating put-downs from which the offender will never recover; other tasks can wait.
3. That means volcanic people need to find ways to rein themselves in before they spew invective everywhere. It also means that equable people need to learn to let fly occasionally.

Answer 234

1. 任何人如果曾因为一封粗鲁的电子邮件或不文明的同事而感到愤怒，都知道在这种情况下突然间别的什么都不重要了。
2. 所有多余的认知能力都被重新定向到想象那些让冒犯者永远无法恢复的毁灭性的回击上；其他任务可以等待。
3. 这意味着易怒的人需要找到方法在他们到处喷发恶言之前控制自己。这也意味着温和的人需要学会偶尔发泄。

Question 235

1. You might expect such a dramatic development to derail the impeachment. That would betray a touching faith that the truth mattered in the first place.
2. The story of the informant, or misinformant, has the familiar, miasmic qualities of other scandals in the Trump era.
3. No one is said to have peed on anyone, but the tale does involve vivid characters, duplicitous dealings in European capitals, affectionate texts with fbi agents, investigations of investigations, ties to Ukraine and, in the end, benefits to Russia
4. In 2023 Republican congressmen got wind of the form and demanded it, extracting it and publicising it after threatening the fbi director with contempt.

Answer 235

1. 你可能会期待这样一个戏剧性的发展会使弹劾出轨。那将表现出一种感人的信念，即真相在一开始就很重要。
2. 信息员，或误导者的故事，具有特朗普时代其他丑闻熟悉的迷雾般的特质。
3. 没有人说过有人对谁尿尿，但这个故事确实涉及生动的角色，欧洲首都的双面交易，与FBI探员的亲密短信，对调查的调查，与乌克兰的联系，最终，对俄罗斯的利益。
4. 在2023年，共和党国会议员得知了表格的存在并要求提供它，在威胁以藐视FBI局长后，提取并公开了它。

Question 236

1. What seems more probable is that he offered an assist to politicians already more than capable of wasting their chance to do some good while in office.

Answer 236

1. 更有可能的是，他提供了帮助给那些已经非常有能力浪费他们在任职期间做出一些好事的机会的政治家们。

Question 237

1. As streaming services keep audiences glued to the small screen, theatre chains including Cineworld, the world’s second-largest, have entered administration.
2. Western civilisation has always been a bad idea, or at any rate a wrong-headed one.
3. Rather than being prickly and inward-looking, most societies have proved receptive to ideas, fashions and technologies from their neighbours.
4. Atop an ordinary slab of office building in downtown Warsaw juts what at first might look like yet another example of architectural one-upmanship.

Answer 237

1. 随着流媒体服务让观众紧盯着小屏幕，包括世界第二大的Cineworld在内的电影院连锁已经进入了管理程序。
2. 西方文明始终是一个糟糕的主意，或者至少是一个思路错误的主意。
3. 大多数社会证明并不是刺人和内向的，而是对邻国的思想、时尚和技术持开放态度。
4. 在华沙市中心的一座普通办公楼上方凸显出的，乍一看可能像是又一个建筑竞争优势的例子。

Question 238

1. “I like Trump. He’s a badass,” said Eilen Arenas, who runs a café near the highway that bisects the town.
2. Muscular cars and boats abound.
3. Life is less serene in other parts of town. Daniel Crowe, a Florida native, sat in a backyard strewn with bits of bicycles, which he finds, fixes and sells.

Answer 238

1. “我喜欢特朗普。他是个硬汉，”在一家位于横穿小镇的公路附近的咖啡馆工作的艾琳·阿雷纳斯说。
2. 线条感十足的车和船只随处可见。
3. 在镇上的其他地方，生活就不那么宁静了。佛罗里达本地人丹尼尔·克罗坐在一个后院里，周围散落着自行车的零件，他找到这些零件，修理并出售它们。

Question 239

1. “The goal of the penitentiary system…is to break people, to destroy their personality and to vaccinate the population against freedom.”
2. It stages sting operations on social media and prosecutes people at random to create an atmosphere of unpredictability.
3. Despite the barbed-wire fences, the separation between the world inside and outside prison has always been notional.
4. When Putin tortured Navalny, he didn’t want a confession but a plea for mercy, an admission that fear works.

Answer 239

1. “监狱制度的目标……是打破人的意志，摧毁他们的个性，并且向人群注射反对自由的疫苗。”
2. 它在社交媒体上进行诱捕行动，并随机起诉人们，以创造一种不可预测的氛围。
3. 尽管有带刺铁丝网，监狱内外世界之间的分隔一直是名义上的。
4. 当普京折磨纳瓦尔尼时，他不是想要一个认罪，而是想要一个求饶的恳求，一个承认恐惧有效的认 admission。

Question 240

1. The years straight after the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 were a trial by fire.
2. One of Mr Cook’s lieutenants was so miffed at the criticisms that he publicly retorted in 2013: “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!”
3. Competition watchdogs in the eu are demanding compliance by March 7th with rules that for the first time breach the “walled garden” which keeps users and developers bound within Apple‘s playpen
4. In America the doj’s trustbusters may soon launch a case against Apple. In China, Huawei, a domestic mastodon, is seizing market share. Hanging over everything is the nagging concern, amid a levelling off in iPhone sales, that Mr Cook is missing the opportunity to pull another rabbit out of the hat with generative ai

Answer 240

1. 史蒂夫·乔布斯于2011年去世后的几年是一场严峻的考验。
2. 库克先生的一位副手对于批评感到如此恼火，以至于他在2013年公开反驳说：“不能再创新了，我的屁股！”
3. 欧盟的竞争监管机构要求在3月7日前遵守规则，这些规则首次打破了将用户和开发者束缚在苹果围墙花园内的游乐场。
4. 在美国，司法部的反托拉斯人员可能很快会对苹果提起诉讼。在中国，华为这个国内的庞然大物正在夺取市场份额。一切之上的悬念是，由于iPhone销量的停滞，存在一个持续的担忧，即库克错过了利用生成式人工智能再次变戏法的机会。

Question 241

1. So jaded is the narrative that many pay little heed to the buzz about the Vision Pro, Apple’s snazzy—though lavishly priced—mixed-reality headset.
2. What hopes they have are pinned on the company’s annual developer conference in June, when they want Mr Cook to announce whizzy gen-ai upgrades proving that Apple can join the chatbot hypefest.
3. Go back to the threat from Samsung in Mr Cook’s early days. Back then investors pestered Apple to come up with a bigger phone, just as now they want it to match Samsung’s models with gen-ai **bells and whistles. **

off-the-racks/ready-made

4. It wasn’t until the launch of the iPhone 6 in 2014 that it produced a large-screen phone. When it came, it was a smash hit. Its modus operandi remains the same. It is rarely first with a product. It seeks to improve what is already out there, learning from others’ mistakes and eventually trouncing the competition

Answer 241

1. 这个叙述如此陈旧，以至于很多人对于苹果公司那款虽然价格昂贵但时髦的混合现实头盔——Vision Pro的热议几乎不予理睬。
2. 他们的希望都寄托在公司每年一次的开发者大会上，届时他们希望库克先生能宣布令人眼花缭乱的人工智能升级，以证明苹果能加入聊天机器人的炒作狂潮。
3. 回到三星在库克早期时代的威胁。那时，投资者纠缠苹果要求其推出一款更大屏幕的手机，就像现在他们希望它能推出带有人工智能功能和特色的手机以匹配三星的型号。
4. 直到2014年iPhone 6的推出，苹果才生产了一款大屏手机。当它问世时，它是一个巨大的成功。其运作模式仍然如此。它很少是产品的首创者。它寻求改进已有的产品，从他人的错误中学习，并最终击败竞争对手。

Question 242

1. signs of the power balance within the misfiring leadership group itself.
2. Deflation has taken hold: consumer and producer prices fell in January by 0.8% and 2.5% respectively, compared with a year earlier (see chart 1).
3. To reach that it may have to crank up stimulus.
4. Stimulus in China comes in many forms, on the books and off them, but one proxy for it is the fiscal deficit, which was 3.8% in 2023 after the government ramped up spending during the year.

Question 243

1. That scenario would be a “reckoning moment” for investors, says Ms Qiao. It would demonstrate that even amid dire economic news, China is not prepared to gin up the economy, as many fund managers and business people would like it to.
2. : a rare occasion in a country where leaders are intensely media-shy.
3. Taking the money would add to the view, already common in the global south, that America and its allies hew to international law only when it suits them.
4. Because the West’s case against Russia’s invasion is that it is illegal, this smacks of hypocrisy.

Question 244

1. In their view, the five men were excessively bold, deciding “novel constitutional questions” that **rope off future challenges under Section
2. Can American universities, flabby with cash and blighted by groupthink, keep their competitive edge?
3. In it politicians accused three presidents of stellar colleges of failing to stamp out anti-Jewish speech.
4. Plenty of faculty—both at Harvard and at other elite universities that have recently seen their reputations trashed—insist that hard-right Republicans and other rabble-rousers are fabricating controversies.

Question 245

1. oke away from the rest in recent decades. Although America’s elite universities have centuries of prestigious history, much of their modern wealth flows from a bull run that began in the more recent past.
2. The collapsing cost of air fares and phone calls made sharp school-leavers gradually more eager to apply to ritzy colleges far from their homes.
3. All this has opened a chasm between America’s top-ranked colleges and the rest.
4. For all their success, America’s best institutions are now flying into squalls.

Question 246

1. American universities still dominate the top rungs of most international league tables—but their lead is becoming somewhat less secure.
2. Rankings produced by Leiden University in the Netherlands, which scores universities solely on the impact of the papers they produce, now place Chinese universities in pole position for all those subjects (see chart 2).
3. America’s best 50 colleges now have three times as many administrative and professional staff as faculty, according to a report by Paul Weinstein of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank. Some of the increase responds to genuine need, such as extra work created by growing government regulation. A lot of it looks like bloat.
4. In theory the Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw racial preferences last year should encourage posh universities to junk admissions practices that are even more irksome—such as favouring children of alumni.

Question 247

1. Presidents who have not always held firm on free expression now find themselves besieged by censors of all political stripes.
2. But many trustees prefer not to rock the boat; some are hoping that their service will grant children or grandchildren a trump card when it comes to seeking admission.

Question 248

1. For years politicians have accused them of “hoarding” huge endowments while raising prices for students and snaffling government money for research.
2. Tighter rules about speech on campus might deflect brickbats in the short term; in the long term, they would only degrade the quality of teaching and research at American universities.
3. Mr Xi’s visit to Pingyao in January 2022 took him to the handsome, grey-brick courtyards and stone-flagged halls of Rishengchang, a famous Shanxi bank.
4. Visiting party delegations and tourists learn about the bank’s reputation for honesty and integrity, and of the strict rules binding employees, who had to be locally born and to forswear gambling, opium and other sins.

Question 249

1. In real life, Pingyao’s financiers were hidebound conservatives, whose remittance businesses did not survive the advent of modern Chinese capitalism. Propaganda aside, sable-trimmed robes hide as many follies as pinstripe suits.

Question 250

1. The combination of higher rents plus a larger weighting does explain much of the rise in oer.
2. Added to that, though, is the inevitable volatility of extracting prices from the small sample of single-family homes for rent.
3. The details of how to calculate oer can seem abstruse.
4. This raises the possibility that at least some of the high oer reading was a fluke.

Question 251

1. The creation of a bitcoin etf may have set off a frenzy of eye-popping gains—but the future it portends could be slower and steadier.
2. Mr Li also set a de facto ceiling for inflation of 3%, in line with past practice. But unlike before, China now faces a deflationary crisis: consumer prices fell by 0.8% year on year in January. China used to set targets and beat them. Now its targets are semi-detached from reality.
3. Griping at those in power is a lot easier than wielding it.

Question 252

1. For one thing, after centuries of false promises and quackery, these drugs actually work.
2. No wonder enthusiasm for the makers of these drugs, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, is at fever pitch.
3. Add in the limited volumes and high prices for these drugs today, and you might think that this nascent industry is on course to be a price-gouging duopoly. In fact, the market will soon look drastically different from what you see now.
4. In India, with no furlough schemes or stimulus cheques to shield professionals from lay-offs and wage cuts, households were forced to take a hard look at their finances and decide how to make their savings work harder.

Question 253

1. Moreover, investment apps such as Groww and Zerodha made it a cinch to sign up and get started.
2. Could these clip its wings?
3. Even Microsoft is spreading its bets. Last month it announced a partnership with Mistral, whose open-source models will be available on Microsoft’s Azure cloud.
4. He has averted a regional conflagration even as Iran-backed militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen have intensified attacks against Israeli and American targets and disrupted international shipping in the Red Sea.

Question 254

1. As war grinds on in Gaza, the Biden administration has pressed Mr Netanyahu in the West Bank.
2. The freelance diplomacy by Mr Gantz is a warning that Mr Biden may yet put his thumb on the scales of Israel’s unsteady politics.
3. Though opinion is shifting, especially among young Democrats, Americans are still largely sympathetic to Israel.

Question 255

1. The Democrat there, a navy veteran, stressed bread-and-butter issues and protecting the right to abortion, whereas his opponent inveighed against “the woke mob”.
2. Democrats were further heartened by the uproar last month after a teacher in Miami-Dade County sent a permission slip home asking parents to authorise the reading of “a book written by an African-American”, as part of Black History Month. DeSantis testily insisted no such slip was required under his parental-notification law, known as the “Stop woke Act”.
3. When Russia invaded Ukraine it jolted the democracies of East Asia—Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, all allies of America.
4. China has been upping the military tempo with incursions into Taiwan’s air and sea space.

Question 256

1. This steely sense of realism is found elsewhere.
2. One threat is that Congress fails to fund Ukraine, and that Europe fails to make up the difference.
3. America’s main Asian allies might seek to tap into this maga mindset and also raise defence spending further to defuse the charge they are free-riders.
4. Youngsters must swot into the night to enter good schools, but now struggle to find jobs when they graduate.

Question 257

1. They visited scenes of disasters and, on occasion, expressed regret when government policies misfired.
2. Sensing a veiled criticism of Mr Xi’s imperious ways, police cleared away many flowers and candles left as memorials to the former prime minister, and censors deleted online tributes.
3. China is in a funk. Many people lack the confidence to spend or invest, and do not quite understand what has gone wrong.
4. Chinese netizens was harsh when Li Qiang was heard to declare in his work report: “We owe our achievements in 2023 to General Secretary Xi Jinping, who is at the helm charting the course.” In truth, lots of ordinary Chinese worry that the ship of state is drifting, rudderless

Question 258

1. He larded it with references to Mr Xi, whom he credited for China’s “achievements” in 2023 (see chart 1). He told officials at every level to acquire a “deep understanding of the decisive significance of establishing Comrade Xi Jinping’s core position”
2. And the government is reluctant to crank up stimulus, even though the economy faces “many lingering risks and hidden dangers”, says Mr Li.
3. That is putting it mildly. Consumer and producer prices fell in January by 0.8% and 2.5% respectively, compared with a year earlier.
4. China’s stockmarket has lost about $4trn in value since its peak in 2021, despite the government’s recent efforts to arrest its slide.

Question 259

1. That is well over the nominal 7.4% rate of economic growth (ie, real growth plus inflation) that is implied by the government’s fiscal projections, and even greater than the nominal growth that China is likely to achieve with its economy sputtering and prices falling.
2. J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy, an Irish actor) spends his days corralling the finest scientific minds in America to create a nuclear bomb—work a colleague calls “the most important fucking thing to ever happen in the history of the world”.
3. The brouhaha is partly a result of the film-makers
4. Though “Oppenheimer” features stars such as Emily Blunt and Matt Damon, the sombre story is not obviously a crowd-pleaser.

Question 260

1. During the Great Depression, many of the highest-grossing films were musicals or historical epics.
2. The same was true during the second world war. Movies that did broach the subject of conflict, including “Gone with the Wind” and “Sergeant York”, were often set in the past; those that were contemporaneous, such as “Casablanca”, tended to tell love stories rather than tales of grisly combat.
3. David Thomson, another film historian and author, reckons that, at a time of economic strain, war and populism, viewers will not want to see a serious film as much as they will want to see a frivolous one. “Comedies have always done well at the movies,” he says, because they do “something that the movies were made for, which is to reassure people and give them a couple of hours of escape from pretty big problems.” Who wants reality when life in plastic is so fantastic?

Question 261

1. It does not sound like an easy place to live. Scorched cars litter a desolate landscape.
2. “Moses on the Plain”, a novella of 2016 by Shuang Xuetao, offers an unsparing portrait of life in China’s industrial north-east in the 1990s.
3. The region, once known in the West as Manchuria, has become a byword for urban decay.
4. state-run outfits downsized to make way for private firms.

Question 262

1. Mr Shuang, Ban Yu and Zheng Zhi, the genre’s most prominent novelists, all grew up in Liaoning and have chosen disaffected workers as protagonists.
2. Their stories focus on hardscrabble lives shaped by crime, poverty and unrest.
3. The trend echoes the rise of Hollywood noir in the mid-20th century, which evoked Americans’ anxieties in the wake of the Great Depression. As Kevin Grant, a film historian, has noted, the genre was characterised by its “misanthropic ethos and strong sense of fatalism; persistent motifs including entrapment and inescapability, treachery and retribution”.
4. Dongbei fiction also articulates wider concerns about the social and economic malaise that millions of Chinese are experiencing. Characters are listless;some find solace in the bottle.

Question 263

1. In this way, the stories also share themes with “Hillbilly Elegy”, a memoir of growing up in a depressed steel town in Ohio by J.D. Vance, who elegised his way into the us Senate.
2. Yet censors have left books and shows about the travails of Dongbei alone, perhaps because the government has also talked publicly for years about the region’s stagnation.
3. He notes that agglomerations of money and talent make societies richer, smarter and greener.
4. In much of the poor world, land disputes, shantytowns and poor infrastructure choke development.

Question 264

1. California Forever is among a clutch of planned towns that also aim to improve urban living. The developer is promoting high-density neighbourhoods in which residents can reach schools, jobs and shops without a car.
2. Messrs Andreessen, Lore and Thiel are among a crop of wealthy folk with ideas about how to run cities.
3. Muhammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia hopes that several gleaming new metropolises will attract industries that his country lacks, such as financial services, manufacturing and tourism.
4. Egypt’s New Administrative Capital is purpose-built for the state’s bureaucratic machinery; the government hopes it will reduce congestion in Cairo.

Question 265

1. A financial collapse, widely predicted in the spring of 2022, never came to pass.
2. Total government outlays rose by 8% in real terms.
3. Central-bank officials think that their peers in the finance ministry are economic know-nothings who mess with markets at their peril.
4. In recent years corporations and households have built up large cash balances, allowing them to continue spending even in the face of high inflation, and avoid default in the face of high borrowing costs.

Question 266

1. These are serious concerns. Nevertheless, the world’s pariah economy is once again back on track.
2. It turned out it was in fact too much Lion’s mane, a mushroom with supposed nootropic benefits
3. High volatility also raises the chances of getting an extreme result: in investment terms, an enormous gain or a crushing loss.
4. For both countries, the riskiest stocks tended to also be those of corporate minnows, accounting for just 7% of total market value on average.

Question 267

1. This scuppers the chances of pairing a big long position in low-volatility stocks with a matching short position in high-volatility ones, which would be the obvious trading strategy for profiting from the anomaly and arbitraging it away.
2. They might still wish to take another look at the racier bits of their portfolios.
3. Perhaps those are the positions that will lead to a gilded retirement
4. In any case, short positions are inherently riskier than long ones, so shorting the market’s jumpiest stocks would be a tough sell to clients.

Question 268

1. Congress has not passed substantive immigration reform since 1990, leaving presidential administrations to govern by executive fiat. The legality of these orders is increasingly challenged in the court system. The Biden administration has reportedly floated two ideas.
2. Yet Mr Biden implemented a version of that last year, and its effectiveness has been limited because of litigation and a gummed-up immigration-court system.

Question 269

1. Here the film lets the audience off the hook. A Fremen leader, strong-minded in the novel, becomes a clownish fanatic frantic to believe in Paul, in counterpoint to Paul’s Fremen lover, Chani.
2. Contrary to the novel, she emerges as the voice of democratic resistance to Paul’s megalomania.
3. Chani is all too easy for the audience to identify with.

Question 270

1. Donald Trump, who as president almost forced TikTok into a sale in 2020, has changed his tune.
2. Listen closely and you can hear the influencers wail.
3. Lindsey Graham, who is both vociferous in his criticisms of TikTok and sycophantic in his adulation for Mr Trump, said on March 10th that he was unsure how he would vote.
4. The largest amount ever raised in an initial public offering was for a $26bn stake in Saudi Aramco, a state oil leviathan, in 2019.

Question 271

1. Such overtures have helped Chinese state firms gain a hold in the Pacific. China buys or extracts about half of the region’s minerals, timber and seafood. Now another bonanza beckons, for seabed minerals.
2. Late last year the two countries signed a ground-breaking treaty whereby Australia promised to help the atoll nation tackle climate change while offering rights to Tuvalu’s citizens to settle in Australia.
3. Even Mr Marape, a staunch friend of Australia’s, was reluctant in January to invoke png’s security treaty with Australia following deadly riots in the capital, Port Moresby, for fear of looking like Australia’s lapdog.
4. Some Australians wring their hands: China, with its back-room blandishments, navigates such crises with ease.

Question 272

1. Coupled with similar responses elsewhere this led to a glut that almost destroyed opec by heightening the fundamental tension within any such cartel.
2. And because it happened without significant interventions, it suggests that with the right policies the trend could be steepened.
3. On a beautiful summer day last year, dozens of energy ministers, company bosses and international policymakers gathered at a conference a stone’s throw from the palace of Versailles for an energy-efficiency summit hosted by the iea.
4. Yes, sales have been peppy, but their share of the fleet is still only 2% worldwide.

Question 273

1. It used to be quite widely accepted that haulage would not fall to electrification in the way passenger vehicles seem likely to.
2. In “Energy at the Crossroads” (2005) Vaclav Smil, a polymathic Canadian professor who wields what may be the most influential pocket calculator in the world, forswears all attempts at forecasting.
3. The sheer range of scenarios ensures that most of them are not accurate.
4. Patrick Pouyanné, the ceo of France’s TotalEnergies, recalls how that ended the doldrums of the 1990s: “The lesson is that we are quite good planning the supply but always wrong on demand.”
5. Patrick Pouyanné, the ceo of France’s TotalEnergies, recalls how that ended the doldrums of the 1990s: “The lesson is that we are quite good planning the supply but always wrong on demand.”

Question 274

1. the project developers and utilities which dominate the renewables business typically pay less for their capital than oil companies, and so can make do with lower returns
2. Both bp and Shell have been back-peddling on their embrace of green electrons.

Question 275

1. The incident highlighted long-simmering questions about the regime’s control of news.
2. of emergency vehicles and roped off behind police cordons.
3. There is nothing unusual about the sight of Chinese policemen oafishly blocking the lens of a television-news camera, or bundling reporters away from the scene of a big event.
4. Even so, pangs of remorse should trouble party chiefs’ dreams. The one-child policy is not the sole reason for this crisis, but its legacy will make it exceptionally hard for China to escape demographic doom.

Question 276

1. The incident highlighted long-simmering questions about the regime’s control of news.
2. of emergency vehicles and roped off behind police cordons.
3. There is nothing unusual about the sight of Chinese policemen oafishly blocking the lens of a television-news camera, or bundling reporters away from the scene of a big event.
4. Even so, pangs of remorse should trouble party chiefs’ dreams. The one-child policy is not the sole reason for this crisis, but its legacy will make it exceptionally hard for China to escape demographic doom.

Question 277

1. The incident highlighted long-simmering questions about the regime’s control of news.
2. of emergency vehicles and roped off behind police cordons.
3. There is nothing unusual about the sight of Chinese policemen oafishly blocking the lens of a television-news camera, or bundling reporters away from the scene of a big event.
4. Even so, pangs of remorse should trouble party chiefs’ dreams. The one-child policy is not the sole reason for this crisis, but its legacy will make it exceptionally hard for China to escape demographic doom.

Question 278

1. With the prospect of a ban hanging over TikTok, its 170m American users may start looking for an alternative time-sink.
2. ByteDance and Huanju are among dozens of Chinese firms that are thriving on the free-wheeling Western internet, away from China’s censors.
3. A ban on TikTok could open the door to many of these apps being consigned to the digital dustbin.
4. TikTok denies these allegations, points to its efforts to ring-fence its American data and algorithm, and says that the Communist Party holds no sway over it.

Question 279

1. In contrast to mid-range hotels, luxury ones are in the midst of a boom.
2. Corporate road-warriors are tacking a few days of leisure on top of business jaunts.
3. Atlantis The Royal took 14 years to build from start to finish.
4. With stockmarkets on a tear and the global economy surprisingly buoyant, plenty of pundits are regretting gloomy warnings of tough times ahead for businesses and investors.

Question 280

1. Creditors of Spirit Airlines, a budget carrier that is bleeding cash, are reportedly weighing their options after a proposed tie-up with JetBlue Airways, a rival, was quashed by a court on antitrust grounds in January.
2. Private-equity owners and a motley crew of credit investors, including some who specialise in buying dicey debts on the cheap, now go head-to-head in fiery negotiations.

Question 281

1. This week politicians in Parliament tussled over a bill that will make it easier to ship asylum-seekers to Rwanda without hearing their pleas—the latest in a string of illiberal laws designed to “stop the boats”.
2. Truth Social was to be a home for “censored” voices, although it never took off beyond the MAGA crowd. It also loses money hand over fist.

Question 282

1. This week politicians in Parliament tussled over a bill that will make it easier to ship asylum-seekers to Rwanda without hearing their pleas—the latest in a string of illiberal laws designed to “stop the boats”.
2. Truth Social was to be a home for “censored” voices, although it never took off beyond the MAGA crowd. It also loses money hand over fist.

Question 283

1. This week politicians in Parliament tussled over a bill that will make it easier to ship asylum-seekers to Rwanda without hearing their pleas—the latest in a string of illiberal laws designed to “stop the boats”.
2. Truth Social was to be a home for “censored” voices, although it never took off beyond the MAGA crowd. It also loses money hand over fist.

Question 284

1. It has always been hard to focus amid the staccato rhythms of meetings, the relentless accumulation of messages or the simple distraction of colleagues thundering past.
2. Home has become a co-working space but without any of the common courtesies.
3. Even if none of your family or flatmates is at home, they now know you might be. That spells disaster.
4. Before you might have been able to sit in a cubicle, fenced off from other people; now openness is in vogue, which means fewer partitions and greater visibility.

Question 285

1. Home is heaving, the office is off-putting.
2. Young men also seem more anti-feminist than older men, bucking the trend for each generation to be more liberal than its predecessor.
3. A good place to start is to note that young women are soaring ahead of their male peers academically.
4. One consequence is that young women are more likely than men to spend their early adulthood in a cocoon of campus liberalism.
5. Meanwhile, boys outnumber girls at the bottom end of the scholastic scale.

Question 286

1. In Europe, where many countries offer a kaleidoscope of political choices, young male votes have helped fuel the rise of reactionary outfits such as the afd in Germany, Confederation in Poland and Chega, which surged at Portugal’s election on March 10th.
2. Apathy and disenchantment were taking hold, together with criminality.
3. The causes change, the measurements change. What does not change is the absolute certainty with which older adults hold forth on the problems of youth.
4. They do not. And young people who do not attend university, who live far from the most privileged corners of America, are often the ones to worry about.

Question 287

1. He compares cheating in races to “photo-shopping an insta image before posting”: both tweak reality in pursuit of realistic-enough perfection.
2. But it is hard to think of a time when the occupant of the Oval Office has come so close to publicly endorsing the deposing of Israel’s elected leader

Question 288

1. He compares cheating in races to “photo-shopping an insta image before posting”: both tweak reality in pursuit of realistic-enough perfection.
2. But it is hard to think of a time when the occupant of the Oval Office has come so close to publicly endorsing the deposing of Israel’s elected leader
3. As the indictment shows, they are surprisingly devolved. Some of them specialise in spying on different parts of the world
4. I don’t think Beijing is particularly concerned about the political ramifications of getting caught with their fingers in the till any more.

Question 289

1. China is churning out cars, as its leaders funnel cash and loans to high-tech industry in an attempt to revive the country’s moribund economy.
2. Fiscal largesse during the pandemic and energy crisis has since given way to **retrenchment. **
3. Although China is moving towards high-tech manufacturing in response to its economic struggles, Mr Xi is also keen to **wean the country from reliance on Western industry. **
4. A Trump administration might go even further, seeking retaliation against Europe for its digital-services taxes, which target American tech firms, or for refusing to toe the president’s line on China.

Question 290

1. In recent years one of the most important strategic partnerships in the world has done a switcheroo.
2. You would think a new bout of protectionism in America, most recently the bipartisan attempt to block Nippon Steel’s $15bn acquisition of us Steel under the guise of safeguarding American jobs, would elicit a sense of déjà vu in Japan.
3. Fearful of being overtaken by Japan as the world’s economic superpower, America wielded the crowbar.
4. This reveals a lot about the contradictions America faces as it attempts to build global alliances to counter China while pursuing business autarky at home.

Question 291

1. As Japan struggles to offset the economic headwinds of depopulation, things are changing on the ground, too.
2. As a way of leaving scientists gobsmacked it is a hard act to follow.
3. A bevy of cost factors were, it argued, pushing them out: high taxes, high energy prices and high wages.
4. One of the things on the chopping block as California looks to close its budget deficit? About $1bn of funding for affordable housing, including subsidies for developers. California is no failed state. But it certainly is a struggling one.

Question 292

1. Ms Jacobsen conveys the reality of nuclear war in sometimes stomach-churning detail.
2. According to Chinese officials and scholars, shrewd foreign leaders should spurn American calls to join ideological blocs or defence alliances that are meant to contain China’s rise.
3. China is comfortable in a might-makes-right world.
4. Often, though, Chinese arguments sound dismissive or tin-eared.

Question 293

1. Ms Jacobsen conveys the reality of nuclear war in sometimes stomach-churning detail.
2. According to Chinese officials and scholars, shrewd foreign leaders should spurn American calls to join ideological blocs or defence alliances that are meant to contain China’s rise.
3. China is comfortable in a might-makes-right world.
4. Often, though, Chinese arguments sound dismissive or tin-eared.

Question 294

1. Ms Jacobsen conveys the reality of nuclear war in sometimes stomach-churning detail.
2. According to Chinese officials and scholars, shrewd foreign leaders should spurn American calls to join ideological blocs or defence alliances that are meant to contain China’s rise.
3. China is comfortable in a might-makes-right world.
4. Often, though, Chinese arguments sound dismissive or tin-eared.

Question 295

1. Some global investment banks are pruning their Chinese staff.
2. One reason for foreigners’ change of heart is the sorry state of the Chinese economy.
3. The mood at both jamborees was decidedly better than last year, when it was spoiled by a suspected Chinese spy balloon floating above America before being shot down on the orders of President Joe Biden
4. Many Western corporate bigwigs who stayed away were back; more than 80 foreign chief executives turned up in Beijing, including lots of Americans.

Question 296

1. Some global investment banks are pruning their Chinese staff.
2. One reason for foreigners’ change of heart is the sorry state of the Chinese economy.
3. The mood at both jamborees was decidedly better than last year, when it was spoiled by a suspected Chinese spy balloon floating above America before being shot down on the orders of President Joe Biden
4. Many Western corporate bigwigs who stayed away were back; more than 80 foreign chief executives turned up in Beijing, including lots of Americans.

Question 297

1. Some global investment banks are pruning their Chinese staff.
2. One reason for foreigners’ change of heart is the sorry state of the Chinese economy.
3. The mood at both jamborees was decidedly better than last year, when it was spoiled by a suspected Chinese spy balloon floating above America before being shot down on the orders of President Joe Biden
4. Many Western corporate bigwigs who stayed away were back; more than 80 foreign chief executives turned up in Beijing, including lots of Americans.

Question 298

1. Western ones. Apple must contend not just with downbeat consumers but also with a new line of smartphones from Huawei, a Chinese tech champion targeted by American sanctions—and with public servants and employees of state-run firms being told not to buy iPhones, lest they contain backdoors through which the American government can steal information.
2. To ram the point home, days later he told an audience at the cdf in Beijing, “I love China and the people.”
3. Yet to many Western ears, Mr Xi’s commitment to openness rings increasingly hollow.

Question 299

1. Inflation in America is creeping up again. It has overshot expectations for three consecutive months, and would reach 4% in 2024 if current trends were to continue. Medium-term expectations, which had dropped, have begun climbing.

Although that may not sound like much of an overshoot, it was the third straight month of cpi readings exceeding forecasts

2.. As shoppers peruse Costco’s wares, worrying about the cost of living, it is it any wonder they are tempted by a bit of bullion?

3. At a time when most private companies face some form of restructuring, a few state-owned firms are miraculously eking out profits.
4. Don’t-knows and those who did not vote in 2016 now tend to break strongly against Brexit

Question 300

1. Really, though, this is a seedy burlesque, with a bit of farce. The case is about sex, money and blackmail. Mr Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who will testify against him, once described the conduct at issue as the “filth and muck of politics” and, less delicately, a “shit sandwich”.
2. Every trial is part theatre. This one, slated to run for six to eight weeks (beginning with jury selection), will be a sell-out.
3. Still, flawed witnesses are par for the course for prosecutors.
4. Americans are inured to his sex scandals by now

Compared with his other indictments this is small bore.

Question 301

1. The fast adoption of green technologies such as electric vehicles (evs), solar panels and batteries is a vital pillar of efforts to halt climate change.
2. These technologies are also an economic smash hit.

Question 302

1. Chief among the new lenders is China. Even though the country is now the world’s biggest bilateral creditor, it has yet to write down a single loan.
2. In the past the fund, worried about getting its cash back, has lent into arrears sparingly and only with the permission of creditors still tussling over restructuring. Now all it is asking for is a promise from borrowing countries and co-operative creditors that its cash injections will not be used to pay off the holdouts.
3. Unable to find work befitting their degrees, a number of graduates are settling for low-skilled jobs, such as delivering food
4. Whatever their motives, the performance of Mr Trump’s stock so far represents the purest demonstration of his power not just to bend reality, but to convert illusion into reality—and also, maybe, of how Americans are coming to confuse the two.

Question 303

1. Taxpayers in cities or states that shrink end up lumbered with a pension bill from when the population was much larger and so was the number of teachers, firemen and police officers.
2. Of the counties that lost population in the decade to 2020, 90% voted for Donald Trump in 2020. Presumably, his fulminations about American decline resonate.
3. Gen Z seems to have fewer qualms about quitting for a better opportunity, or taking things slowly and enjoying life.
4. Bosses, unused to being on the back foot, complain

Question 304

1. Defendants often try to transfer their cases elsewhere. Yet that is partly because the speedy tempo suits plaintiffs, as deep-pocketed defendants can afford to drag out litigation
2. In 2023 fewer patent cases were filed overall, and Waco saw a steep drop-off.
3. But the felony charges are low-level and the details tawdry.
4. Mr Trump’s principal strategy, then, will be to impugn Mr Cohen’s credibility and paint him as a fabulist
5. Americans are inured to his sex scandals by now. Compared with his other indictments this is small bore.

Question 305

1. A drip of funds would be welcomed by Ukraine, but a big wodge of cash, as promised by America’s proposal, would be better still. European politicians would therefore be wise to sign up to it before there is a new occupant of the White House.
2. The war has left millions struggling economically, but two years after the beginning of the full-scale invasion some are suffering much more than others. The hardest hit are the elderly, the disabled and the displaced.
3. Grinding Ukrainians down on the front and impoverishing them behind it, so that they lose the will to fight on, is clearly part of Vladmir Putin’s plan.
4. He will be lucky to get much more than a polite smile.

Question 306

1. Some of them are criminals, including corrupt officials who want to park their ill-gotten gains somewhere beyond the reach of China’s police. They have reason to be nervous: China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has been waging a ferocious war against graft.
2. The yuan in China may then be used there to buy goods that are shipped to Mexico and sold for pesos that are handed over to the cartels.
3. Underground bankers (often referred to online as chedui, or motorcades) use such internet platforms to recruit people as “money mules”, as those who allow their bank accounts to be used for laundering are known.

Question 307

1. The gulf is so vast that only a logarithmic scale can illustrate it (see charts).
2. But any art about North Korea must glorify the regime and vilify its enemies. This makes for dreary, predictable fare.
3. On their debut song, “Whistle”, they rap in a mix of English and Korean over skittering trap-style hi-hats.
4. Its main virtue is verisimilitude: the streets are as empty as those of the capital, where only the rich own cars.

Question 308

1. Lyrics and videos tend to be less raunchy than their Western counterparts, making them palatable to censors and parents in more of the world.
2. But since then the group has grown more conservative, ditching their risqué outfits for military garb, belting out songs such as “Fly High, Our Party Flag” and offering videos of nuclear missiles destroying America.

3.

Question 309

1. More recently, Belinda Lennox, head of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, has conducted tests on thousands of patients with psychosis
2. America’s stockmarket finished the first quarter of 2024 on an astonishing tear, with its benchmark s&p 500 index having risen in 18 out of the preceding 22 weeks.
3. Nvidia was the poster child of the s&p 500’s winning streak, seeing its share price more than double between October and March. On April 19th it fell by a gut-churning 10% over the course of a single day, wiping more than $200bn from the company’s market value. The awful news that precipitated the plunge? There wasn’t any.
4. If there is a reason for this attack of the vapours, it is that the prospect of cheaper money is receding into the distance.

Question 310

1. As the size of the Nvidia jolt suggests, turning-points have less to do with sober-headed analysis than mob psychology.
2. Jacked-up parking fees and stricter inspection of restaurants have also become municipal money-spinners.
3. But leaders in Beijing have been increasingly open about worries that pickpocketing local governments may be playing a role, too—and hurting public trust in the process.
4. Lots of debt is held by subsidiary financial entities and off official balance-sheets. Victor Shih and Jonathan Elkobi of the University of California, San Diego, estimate that local governments owe 90trn-110trn yuan, or 75-91% of national gdp.

Question 311

1. In February the central government stepped up its campaign against fast-fingered local officials. It punished cadres accused of overreach, issued terse directives through state organs and amended legislation in order to insist on “law-based governance”.
2. It is why the company’s shares trade at a multiple of earnings typical of a zippy software firm, not of a metal-basher.
3. Though investors hope Tesla will one day make money from its snazzy artificial intelligence (ai), for now they want it to restore growth by selling more cars—the cheaper the better
4. This year it is touch and go whether Tesla will sell more than the 1.8m cars it shipped in 2023. So Mr Musk has flipped the script again. Once more he is highlighting fsd, though this time with a twist: the latest version is so good, he told analysts this week, that it is impossible to understand the company without trying it

Question 312

1. It could be the plot of a kitschy tear-jerker: a group of elderly Swiss ladies sue their government in an international court over greenhouse-gas emissions, and win
2. Rishi Sunak, her successor, has suggested he is prepared to countenance leaving.
3. The Labour Party, which is odds-on to win the next general election, has no plans to leave.

Question 313

1. for every shell the Ukrainians have shot at Russian lines, the Russians have rained down 17 in response
2. Kyiv is already suffering from rolling blackouts, which sap morale.
3. But if Ukraine is properly armed in the coming months, any offensive is likely to peter out or make only marginal gains at eye-watering cost in lives and equipment—exactly as happened to Russia in early 2023 and, to a lesser extent, to Ukraine in its own unsuccessful counter-offensive in the summer and autumn of that year.
4. That is far from certain, especially given the vagaries of American politics.

Question 314

1. And even if Mr Biden is re-elected, the next Congress may be even more cantankerous about Ukraine than the current one.
2. He is heeding their advice and hiding.
3. Those who are still in Odessa are mostly hiding. A trip to the philosophers’ bar on a recent Thursday night found only one man present. Female patrons, seated between racy pictures of women aimed at a missing male audience, gossiped about mobilisation.
4. A barwoman admitted business had gone downhill since the men started disappearing

Question 315

1. Why the sudden spate? A previously obscure law, the Congressional Review Act (cra) of 1996, helps explain the rush.
2. Its success depends on reams of rules that will need to be consistently enforced if businesses are to be convinced to plan around clean-energy subsidies.
3. Decarbonisation will also depend on other rules that Mr Biden’s environmental brain trust has spent years crafting: restricting the amount of mercury that coal-fired power stations can belch into the air, or the carbon emissions that new gas-fired power stations may produce.
4. China is not ready to give ground on these points. Its diplomats blame America for instigating tensions in the South China Sea.

Question 316

1. Stephen Follows, a film-data analyst, has examined the 250 highest-grossing movies in America every year since 2000
2. The tents are back and protesters are emboldened: in the early hours of April 30th they occupied a university building, barred its doors and draped a flag reading “intifada” from its façade.
3. Blocking buildings, interrupting lectures, camping overnight and making a racket tend to be banned
4. As a practical question, dealing with these protests is hard. As an intellectual question, the sort debated on college campuses, it really is not. And yet clever people are tying themselves in knots over the rights and wrongs of what is going on.

Question 317

1. You waste the first hour of the flight just faffing about.
2. They are both nice about it, but a palpable air of disgrace now hangs over seat 42H.
3. You carefully pull back the seat pocket with your left hand as far as you can, and manage to lever the laptop out.
4. You retrace your movements, closing the laptop, folding the table, putting things away.

Question 318

1. Neither candidate dares breathe a word about trimming spending on health care and pensions for the elderly, which account for the biggest share of the federal budget and are set to grow still bigger as the population ages.
2. At the same time the government reaped a peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, allowing it to slash defence spending, a relatively painless form of belt-tightening
3. Cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and catering to an ageing population will also strain the budget.
4. Democrats reluctantly accepted the spending cuts of the 1990s, only to see Mr Clinton’s successor and Mr Bush’s son, George W. Bush, fritter away the resulting surplus with a big tax cut.

Question 319

1. Neither candidate dares breathe a word about trimming spending on health care and pensions for the elderly, which account for the biggest share of the federal budget and are set to grow still bigger as the population ages.
2. At the same time the government reaped a peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, allowing it to slash defence spending, a relatively painless form of belt-tightening
3. Cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and catering to an ageing population will also strain the budget.
4. Democrats reluctantly accepted the spending cuts of the 1990s, only to see Mr Clinton’s successor and Mr Bush’s son, George W. Bush, fritter away the resulting surplus with a big tax cut.

Question 320

1. Neither candidate dares breathe a word about trimming spending on health care and pensions for the elderly, which account for the biggest share of the federal budget and are set to grow still bigger as the population ages.
2. At the same time the government reaped a peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, allowing it to slash defence spending, a relatively painless form of belt-tightening
3. Cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and catering to an ageing population will also strain the budget.
4. Democrats reluctantly accepted the spending cuts of the 1990s, only to see Mr Clinton’s successor and Mr Bush’s son, George W. Bush, fritter away the resulting surplus with a big tax cut.

Question 321

1. “We used to have a healthy fear of debt, and we’ve lost that,” says Keith Hall, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office (cbo), a non-partisan fiscal scorekeeper.
2. As inhibitions have melted away, America’s fiscal laxity has grown ever more extreme.
3. This extravagance has undoubtedly contributed to the economy’s relative strength today.
4. Democrats are unapologetic about this, especially in the wake of the covid downturn.

Question 322

1. The frenetic expansion of America’s debts is now being reinforced by rising interest rates.
2. As alarming as that sounds, it is hard to judge when a crisis will strike. Japan’s net debt is about 155% of gdp, yet it has no trouble issuing new bonds.
3. And America’s public finances are fraying quickly: to stabilise its debt-to-gdp ratio by 2029, the imf reckons that it needs to trim its primary deficit (ie, before interest payments) by about 4% of gdp—more than any other big wealthy economy. Bond markets have started to get skittish.
4. Even by the spendthrift standards of Washington, that is a huge amount—about double federal spending on transport.

Question 323

1. Both candidates pay lip-service to fiscal rectitude.
2. Mr Biden’s fiscal ideas are more credible. As well as lowering drug costs and giving the Internal Revenue Service more funding to chase tax cheats, he has proposed a bevy of taxes on the rich and powerful, including higher corporate taxes.
3. Neither party is willing to cut Social Security (the state pension) and Medicare (government-funded health care for the elderly), which together will hoover up some 60% of all federal spending excluding interest payments by the end of the decade.
4. Any efforts to engineer a weak dollar or to check the Fed’s hard-earned independence would raise alarm bells in global markets, making America look like a banana republic. That could set off a vicious cycle: investors may start to demand higher returns on American bonds, which would drive up the government’s interest bill and, in turn, aggravate its debt woes.

Question 324

1. Another crunch could stem from America’s gargantuan borrowing needs. In 2024 alone it must roll over about a third of its existing debt and also finance its growing deficit. To do so, the government needs to find buyers for about $10trn of bonds this year, according to Torsten Slok of Apollo, a fund manager. The scale of borrowing will increase with each passing year.
2. Matt Eagan of Loomis Sayles, an investment manager, thinks of it as the return of what political types used to call “bond vigilantes”: twitchy markets that force fiscal prudence on politicians.
3. There is no way of knowing if or when any of this will come to pass. But the likelihood of such harrowing scenarios is growing. For the past decade America’s politicians have got away with ignoring budgetary constraints and would like to continue.
4. But fiscal arithmetic and jittery investors will eventually put a halt to the party.

Question 325

1. An erratic Washington has turned forecasting long-run economic policy—and thus the dollar’s value—into a mug’s game

Question 326

1. For its part, the global economy was in a stupor, having been tranquillised by low interest rates.
2. Markets moved linearly, with equities drifting up and bond yields slipping down.
3. Revenues were slim; returns sagged. Drama on trading floors featured lay-offs, rather than market moves.
4. Until recently, bankers hemmed and hawed about this bonanza. Was it too good to be true? Mediocre returns had endured for such a long time that they had grown cautious about extrapolating from a good quarter, or even a good year.

Question 327

1. For its part, the global economy was in a stupor, having been tranquillised by low interest rates.
2. Markets moved linearly, with equities drifting up and bond yields slipping down.
3. Revenues were slim; returns sagged. Drama on trading floors featured lay-offs, rather than market moves.
4. Until recently, bankers hemmed and hawed about this bonanza. Was it too good to be true? Mediocre returns had endured for such a long time that they had grown cautious about extrapolating from a good quarter, or even a good year.

Question 328

1. For its part, the global economy was in a stupor, having been tranquillised by low interest rates.
2. Markets moved linearly, with equities drifting up and bond yields slipping down.
3. Revenues were slim; returns sagged. Drama on trading floors featured lay-offs, rather than market moves.
4. Until recently, bankers hemmed and hawed about this bonanza. Was it too good to be true? Mediocre returns had endured for such a long time that they had grown cautious about extrapolating from a good quarter, or even a good year.

Question 329

1. That rates have climbed sharply, after the stasis of the previous decade, has been “a recipe for volatility”, he says.
2. Thousands, some having travelled hundreds of kilometres, arrive before dawn to take their place in a queue that snakes back and forth in front of the store’s entrance.
3. At a time when China’s ritziest shopping centres are often desolate, and the country’s economy is struggling, the success of Pangdonglai’s 13 outlets is captivating executives who want to understand consumer sentiment.
4. Shoppers clamber to fill trolleys with regular goods: fresh produce, pastries and local specialities, such as menzi, a steamed tapioca dish.

Question 330

1. Until recently Xuchang was mainly known for the production of wigs made from human hair. Now it has a better claim to fame.
2. But its expected push to include damage caused by Russia in the rest of Ukraine may discomfit some European allies that also fight abroad.
3. Moves from left and right suggest a new mood is emerging that courts need to be unrigged. It is no longer just fans of the opposing team who are shouting at the referees.
4. After the coup there an American delegation led by Molly Phee, the state department’s hapless Africa chief, was given short shrift by the generals.

Question 331

1. Mr Biden’s Africa team gushes about a plan under way to revamp a railway from Zambia and Congo to the Angolan port of Lobito.
2. Kenya has won American plaudits for its role as east Africa’s diplomatic and business hub, and as a bridgehead for humanitarian supplies to the troubled parts of the wider region, including Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and eastern Congo.

Question 332

1. Earlier this month Qu Jing, the head of communications at Baidu, a local tech giant, took to social media to defend the company’s gruelling culture. The resulting firestorm has highlighted the growing dissatisfaction among China’s young white-collar workers with the punishing hours common in the country.
2. In exchange for their fees, Apple and Alphabet also provide important services to developers, especially smaller ones. That includes vetting new apps for bugs and malicious software, which gives consumers the confidence to use apps without fear of being fleeced.
3. Unlike with Mr Trump’s initial salvo of tariffs, criticism from American businesses has been muted.
4. Lower prices for evs, solar panels and batteries would have boosted their appeal to consumers, as is essential if America is to green its economy.

Question 333

1. Domestic producers are likely to be more insulated from their fiercest foreign competitors than during past bouts of protectionism.
2. In the 1980s, when it was Japanese cars that provoked angst, Japanese automakers agreed to restrain exports in order to stave off a trade war.
3. But officials increasingly mention China in the same breath as Russia, Iran and North Korea.
4. China has become Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner (see chart); it is enmeshed in supply chains. Unpicking this relationship involves big trade-offs.

Question 334

1. Vanke has been forced to flog its assets to pay its mounting debts.
2. And as November’s election nears, he will spend lots of time looking at lines on charts.
3. The American president and swashbuckling oil traders, it turns out, have a lot in common.
4. Back then, dwindling stocks left observers twitchy.

Question 335

1. China is pressing forcefully into Taiwan’s air and maritime boundaries, seeking to efface them.
2. Yet the foreign influx has also attracted brickbats. Swelling student numbers have pushed up Britain’s much-watched net-migration figures.
3. In some cities a jump in foreign enrolment has made it even harder for British students to find decent digs.
4. M my

Question 336

1. Alcohol consumption is falling among young, affluent and health-conscious consumers.
2. Any firm that can mount a credible threat to the reigning champion will have no shortage of customers, who dislike its lofty prices and limited supplies.
3. Its cs-3 chip is the largest in the world by a factor of 50.
4. Yet the margins on advertising are so fat, and those on groceries so thin, that ads contribute an outsized share of profit. （disproportionate）

Question 337

1. The size of the hit will also depend on how economies adapt to a decrepit world.
2. Most foreign firms setting up these offices also plump for premium buildings with cafés and other amenities.
3. Plenty of other countries are vying to steal China’s title as the world’s factory. None, however, has as good a shot as India at becoming the world’s office.

Question 338

1. Yet they face a practical problem, because government incentives do not seem to bring lots of extra babies even as spending mounts.
2. Most economies will therefore have to adapt to social change, and it falls to governments to smooth the way.
3. Baby-boosting policies, by comparison, are a costly and socially retrograde mistake.

Question 339

1. Like Russia, China has set up its own payments networks that are shut off from the West, in part to defang any future sanctions levelled against it.
2. The question for China is whether any workaround is even possible to parry the sort of sanction America imposed on Russia in 2022, immobilising a central bank’s foreign-exchange reserves
3. But for the more wide-ranging impact of Sino-American sabre-rattling, look to its effects on capital flows around the world.
4. More novel is America’s approach to outbound investment, which is to crimp citizens’ ability to adventure their wealth in new enterprises in at least one of the world’s quarters.

Question 340

1. Like Russia, China has set up its own payments networks that are shut off from the West, in part to defang any future sanctions levelled against it.
2. The question for China is whether any workaround is even possible to parry the sort of sanction America imposed on Russia in 2022, immobilising a central bank’s foreign-exchange reserves
3. But for the more wide-ranging impact of Sino-American sabre-rattling, look to its effects on capital flows around the world.
4. More novel is America’s approach to outbound investment, which is to crimp citizens’ ability to adventure their wealth in new enterprises in at least one of the world’s quarters.

Question 341

1. This special report will argue that an array of forces—some long-gestating, others newer—have combined to reduce the system’s dependence on Western capital, institutions and payment networks, and on America in particular.
2. The financial centres of Asian stalwarts like Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as upstarts Shanghai, Beijing and Dubai, are catching up with New York and London
3. Whereas hefty stockmarkets were once the preserve of advanced economies, with businesses elsewhere having to look abroad for equity capital, plenty of emerging markets now have thriving bourses of their own.
4. In the old hub-and-spoke era of global finance, America’s monetary policy, flighty investors and general mismanagement of banks exported crises around the world (with some help from Europe).

Question 342

1. . “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges,” he groused before it came.
2. There are three reasons to think that the verdict’s damage to Mr Trump will be limited and that he will weather it as he has so much else.
3. Here they cited a capacious state law that criminalises conspiring to influence an election through unlawful means.

Question 343

1. Seen against fresh threats, the $20bn-worth of long-term bonds China sold in March might seem a shot across the bow.
2. Yet China’s bond pile is more blunderbuss than laser-guided missile.
3. America’s hefty government debt needs continuous rolling over, and its stonking deficits add to the pile at a pace of about $1trn per year. Investors, for now, keep buying.
4. But China, by selling Treasuries, might ply the market with more bonds than it can easily digest.

Question 344

1. The always-healthy appetite for American debt grows in times of economic uncertainty—even when America itself is the cause of the trouble. If Chinese bond sales rattle global markets, the flight to safety might well sop up the new Treasury supply.
2. Were it to sell them and convert the proceeds back into yuan, its currency would rise, hurting its already-beleaguered exporters and delighting Mr Trump.
3. China might like to discomfit America by becoming a credible alternative hegemon: if investors could flee American assets in response to bad behaviour, America might behave better.

Question 345

1. The short book, long underestimated, has a lot going for it.
2. For indecisive ones it can make a bookshop’s universe of possibilities feel less daunting: just scour the shelves for slim spines.
3. He was a civil servant who, though highly educated for his time, did not manage to rise up the ranks
4. passion is intercut with bloodshed

Question 346

1. . Much less successful is the choice to have many lines declaimed into standing microphones, as if in a slam-poetry contest. Weakening the links between characters, this trick frays their bond with the audience.
2. But gender is not the main flashpoint.
3. the focus is on the play’s deep seam of misogyny. An able-bodied Richard glories in forcing the widow of a man he killed to marry him—then murders her

Question 347

1. But the king is less a demagogue than a machinator. He is funnier than Mr Trump—and has a glimmer of conscience.
2. Making art involves much more than causing a stir
3. Plainly, there is no stretch of the imagination by which these payouts explain the stocks’ spectacular returns
4. Reams of academic research suggest that, historically and for the stockmarket as a whole, they have portended poor returns.

Question 348

1. But it does mean taking a clear-eyed view of China’s long-term disadvantages, such as a precipitously declining population, lack of natural allies, constraints of its political system and dependence on imported energy and food.
2. than twice as fast as its manufacturing ones. It is a showcase for how China’s cities can build a more balanced economy, says Robin Xing of Morgan Stanley, a bank.
3. China’s university-entrance exam, known as the gaokao, is punishingly difficult.
4. The eu calls China “a partner for co-operation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival”. It matters greatly that this tripod has now gained a fourth leg, with several Europeans in Stockholm declaring China a full-blown security threat.

Question 349

1. They include smic, China’s biggest foundry (as contract manufacturers that make chips based on their customers’ blueprint are known).
2. Since American export controls bar the most sophisticated equipment from reaching China, the bulk of those imports are likely to consist of kit used to make lagging-edge chips, not leading-edge ones.
3. Today China is home to 10,000 kfcs (whose owner, Yum China, was spun off from its American parent in 2016), more than twice the number in America. Starbucks has 7,000 coffee shops and McDonald’s boasts 6,000 burger joints. The foreigners’ cash and cachet made it hard for locals to compete.
4. Many homegrown chains come from places other than China’s rich megalopolises such as Shanghai.

ubs, a bank, recently found that residents of smaller cities intended to spend more on dining, cosmetics and sportswear than those in larger conurbations

Question 350

1. Despite its piping-hot growth, and a near-tripling of pre-tax profit last year to 3.1bn yuan, Luckin’s shares have lost half their value since October.
2. Moreover, tax cuts would strain the already parlous public finances.
3. Meanwhile millions of straphangers have no choice but to take public transport.
4. Viewers have their owngag: isn’t he trying to ban this app?

Question 351

1. In the meantime, the ramifications of the tussle are becoming clearer.They go well beyond TikTok.

Question 352

1. Regular matter, which constitutes stars and galaxies, accounts for a measly 5%.
2. This is not the first time that influencers have found themselves in the government’s cross-hairs. They were also targeted in 2021, when China’s leader, Xi Jinping, launched his “common prosperity” campaign. That effort aimed to chasten the ultra-rich and reduce inequality.
3. The slapping down of Jack Ma, China’s best-known billionaire, was seen as a warning to the country’s other plutocrats.

Question 353

1. Today’s rapid change has several causes. One is the crucible of war itself, most notably in Ukraine.
2. Just as the civilian world is witnessing rapid progress in the power and spread of artificial intelligence (ai), so too must the military world prepare for an onrush of innovation.
3. A second is the recent exponential advance of ai, enabling astonishing feats of object recognition and higher-order problem solving.
4. As the models hand down increasingly oracular judgments, their output will become ever harder to scrutinise without ceding the enemy a lethal advantage.

Question 354

1. If, tragically, the first ai-powered war does break out, international law is likely to be pushed to the margins. All the more reason to think today about how to limit the destruction. China should heed America’s call to rule out ai control over nuclear weapons, for instance.

Question 355

蛋黄流出来

Answer 355

The egg yolk oozed onto the bread

Question 356

1. The pendulum has swung back towards vertical integration.
2. The megamerger trend, too, has had chequered results.
3. gerontocracy.
4. Boeing’s travails have torched around $100bn of that shareholder value.

Question 357

1. The pendulum has swung back towards vertical integration.
2. The megamerger trend, too, has had chequered results.
3. gerontocracy.
4. Boeing’s travails have torched around $100bn of that shareholder value.

Question 358

1. The 737 max, a short-haul workhorse whose faulty software caused the catastrophic crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, was a souped-up existing model rather than an all-new aircraft. In this narrowbody category, Boeing’s market share has plunged from 48% to 38% in a decade, putting it far behind its European arch-rival, Airbus.

narrow-body = single-aisle

all-new 全新的
brand-new 崭新的

2. And like all rehabilitation, this must start with self-reflection: in Boeing’s case, realising that efficiency is all well and good, but being too lean and too mean can come at a grave cost.
3. This order has no patience with hand-wringing talk about values or freedom, or about individual rights and wrongs. What counts is preserving stability, order and economic opportunity for the many.
4. In private, they have told Western counterparts that China favours an early peace in Ukraine but has few hopes of one, and is not greatly fussed about where Ukraine’s borders end up.

Question 359

1. The 737 max, a short-haul workhorse whose faulty software caused the catastrophic crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, was a souped-up existing model rather than an all-new aircraft. In this narrowbody category, Boeing’s market share has plunged from 48% to 38% in a decade, putting it far behind its European arch-rival, Airbus.

narrow-body = single-aisle

all-new 全新的
brand-new 崭新的

2. And like all rehabilitation, this must start with self-reflection: in Boeing’s case, realising that efficiency is all well and good, but being too lean and too mean can come at a grave cost.
3. This order has no patience with hand-wringing talk about values or freedom, or about individual rights and wrongs. What counts is preserving stability, order and economic opportunity for the many.
4. In private, they have told Western counterparts that China favours an early peace in Ukraine but has few hopes of one, and is not greatly fussed about where Ukraine’s borders end up.

Question 360

1. Chinese officials and scholars elaborated on Mr Xi’s pitch at the World Peace Forum, a geopolitics talkfest held each summer at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
2. Faddish thinking is the enemy of rigour.
3. They should pay competitive wages to hire the best teachers and defy unions to sack underperformers. This need not bust budgets, since small classes matter less than parents imagine. Fewer, better teachers can produce stronger results than lots of mediocre ones. Japanese pupils thrash their American peers in tests, even though their average secondary classroom contains an extra ten desks.

Question 361

1. The Chinese boffins are certainly quite a catch. They are no less talented than their counterparts in the West, where many of them studied and worked, but still command considerably lower pay.
2. The average monthly salary for a newly minted phd at a foreign company in China is around 13,000 yuan, a third of what they would make in America.
3. Now the unloved miniatures of America’s stockmarket are having their day in the sun.
4. Until the past week, that is, when the Russell 2000 was hurled forward as if by both of the market’s charging horns.

Question 362

1. And there remains plenty that could go wrong for the tiddlers. Max Grinacoff at ubs says that there is “rampant” call option activity relating to the Russell 2000 index, which he sees as investors “renting upside” rather than going all in.
2. Indeed, the Russell 2000, with its domestic focus, could be a safe haven from Mr Trump’s blunders abroad, while benefiting from reshoring efforts and lower corporate tax at home.

Question 363

1. Capital markets are twitchy.
2. Tin-eared
3. Sharp-suited bankers suddenly found their calls going unanswered.
4. There is a bright side, though. If the economic picture remains rosy—with decent jobs growth, falling inflation and declining interest rates—then Main Street should feel the balm of lower rates soon enough.

Question 364

1. After months of desultory campaigning, Americans have a race on their hands, and a good thing too. At a perilous time for their country and the world, they deserve a real contest.

2.

Question 365

1. Accordingly, traders began placing bets that the Fed would cut rates by half a percentage point at the central bank’s next meeting in September, to stave off such a slowdown.
2. A rising yen automatically depresses Japanese share prices, as many of the country’s largest globetrotting firms, such as Hitachi, Sony and Toyota, make their earnings overseas in foreign currencies.
3. The violent moves of the past few weeks will have forced many investors to close their positions, and possibly also to fire-sell other assets, adding to instability in both domestic and global stocks.
4. But the latest earnings are a reminder of just how woefully the firm lags behind the likes of Nvidia and tsmc, and how long it can take to catch up in an industry that operates on lengthy investment timescales.

Question 366

1. In the mid-2010s repeated manufacturing slip-ups delayed the launch of its processors, leading to a steady loss of share to amd, an American chip designer, in its core business of central processing units.
2. Mr Gelsinger wants Intel’s manufacturing to progress rapidly, leapfrogging the other foundries
3. The problem, though, is that with revenue from the foundry business still low, and with demand for its core products barely growing, Intel will need to keep finding new sources of capital—or require yet more handouts.
4. The company and the government alike have a hard slog ahead.

Question 367

1. People are living longer than they did in Schopenhauer’s day, but the number of books has increased by a much bigger factor. So his dictum ought to carry even more weight now than it did then.
2. The idea of a literary canon has come under attack. Some readers would pry it open to admit more works by women and non-white authors; others would just sink it. Critics have lost cultural clout. The number of newspapers with book-review sections has dwindled. These days, it seems, everyone has their own personal canon.
3. One way to prune is to see where best-book lists overlap, on the theory that books that appear most often must be really worth your while.
4. After months of rising at a breakneck pace, stockmarkets around the world have been knocked off-kilter

Question 368

1. Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, the vix index, which measures expected stockmarket volatility through the prices traders pay to protect themselves from it, has leapt up after months in the doldrums.
2. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen, an erstwhile safe-haven currency, has rallied at close to its fastest rate in two decades. It is almost enough to rouse a senior trader from his sunbed.
3. What is more, the rumpus may be only getting started. One reason is that stockmarkets have become eye-poppingly concentrated.
4. So much hinges on investors’ attitudes towards such companies that it is easy to envisage further ructions ahead

Question 369

1. At the same time, those attitudes appear to be shifting from euphoria to something a little more mercurial.
2. The share price of Nvidia, the darling of the previous bull run, has fallen by 14% since a peak in June, while gyrating madly along the way
3. Tesla’s results, which undershot expectations, led to a one-day drop of 12%.
4. Such schemes aim to prise open wallets. Another approach to raising consumption is to fatten those wallets.

Question 370

1. Chaguan did not travel to Guangxi to gawp at a disaster scene.
2. His aim was to explore how officially mandated amnesia works on the ground.
3. The question is worth asking because imposed forgetting is becoming more brazen in Xi Jinping’s China
4. Under Mr Xi, though, state media face far harsher political controls and censorship, and the party dares to consign even large catastrophes to a memory hole.

Question 371

1. These include Home Depot and Walmart, barometers of American consumer sentiment, and Nvidia, on which the fortunes of ai investors everywhere depend.
2. Inflation data released on August 14th will hint at whether the Fed can indeed cut rates by 0.5 percentage points in September, which many are convinced it must in order to stave off a recession.
3. Given the carnage that followed the most recent jobs report, the next, on September 6th, is another obvious catalyst.

Question 372

1. Siri, its dimwitted voice assistant, currently functions as little more than a glorified egg-timer. But in the next few months it is due to get an ai-powered makeover designed to help users with the kinds of tasks for which they might previously have scoured the web

Question 373

1. They are merely elaborate pieces of software, not sentient or autonomous.
2. In time, it may be possible to make entire films using ai-driven simulacra of human actors—or entirely artificial ones.
3. Preparing for a nuclear free-for-all, says Mr Narang, may yet “help incentivise our adversaries to engage in strategic arms-control discussions”; if not, America is “prepared to do what is necessary” to deter rivals and assure allies.

Question 374

1. Listen to the two men’s unscripted blatherings on X, Mr Musk’s platform, on August 12th, and the power imbalance between America’s richest man and an ex-president running again for office is toe-curlingly clear.
2. Once the glitches were sorted out, Mr Trump was in full control. When Mr Musk tried to get a word in edgeways, he mostly failed.

Question 375

1. For much of this year the Biden-Trump contest was a boon for Chinese propagandists, allowing them to portray American democracy as a fight between two men past their cognitive prime, whose attacks were redolent of playground bickering.
2. Last month a blogger on Netease, a Chinese internet platform, wrote “for some people, the greatest contribution they can make to the party, the country and the people is to hand over power, step down from the stage and go home to play with their grandchildren”. The next sentence—“That’s right, I’m talking about you, Biden”—did not calm China’s censors, who scrubbed the post.
3. Complicating China’s assessment is the potential role of Mr Walz as Ms Harris’s consigliere on China.

Question 376

1. For much of this year the Biden-Trump contest was a boon for Chinese propagandists, allowing them to portray American democracy as a fight between two men past their cognitive prime, whose attacks were redolent of playground bickering.
2. Last month a blogger on Netease, a Chinese internet platform, wrote “for some people, the greatest contribution they can make to the party, the country and the people is to hand over power, step down from the stage and go home to play with their grandchildren”. The next sentence—“That’s right, I’m talking about you, Biden”—did not calm China’s censors, who scrubbed the post.
3. Complicating China’s assessment is the potential role of Mr Walz as Ms Harris’s consigliere on China.

Question 377

1. In September 2022, Pinduoduo’s parent company, pdd, launched Temu, an online marketplace, in America, to connect sellers in China with inflation-weary American consumers.
2. But the company faces challenges: it is still loss-making, and many of its sellers in China are unhappy about what they claim is a rise in recent months of the penalties Temu charges for late delivery or other failings.

Question 378

1. An anti-drone gun cannot take down a ballistic missile; an interceptor designed to destroy nuclear-armed intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (icbms) in space would not tackle a piddling drone.
2. It is easier to hit “midcourse” but by then it has cooled down as it hurtles through space without boosters, making it hard to track with infra-red sensors.

Question 379

1. This is not the first English-language history of the city, but in a curiously thin field, it is the most ambitious chronicle of a city elbowing its way to Europe’s front rank.
2. Madrid was not quite a backwater village, as is sometimes said, but it is the only European capital with an Islamic foundation.
3. Meanwhile, migrants from the rest of Spain continue streaming in thanks to the capital’s increasingly dominant economy.

Question 380

1. Consumers are gradually cottoning on to the appeal of Chinese evs. Seeing an Ora, Maxus, mg or byd marque on the road in Britain still feels noteworthy.
2. For cameras, smart toasters and more, Chinese manufacturers have an incentive to behave well because any whiff of association with spying would be commercially harmful.

Question 381

1. Wobbles in its alliance with Nissan, a Japanese carmaker, and an aborted attempt to merge with Fiat Chrysler, an Italian-American one, had left the firm in a parlous state.
2. You must be wily, not to mention nimble: Erlang’s axe can cleave entire mountains in two. (And you thought your day job was stressful.)
3. In industry lingo, “Black Myth” is a “aaa” game—a label that denotes big budgets and high production values.
4. China made four of the ten highest-grossing mobile games of 2023,

Question 382

1. Some Chinese netizens were nonplussed when the pricing for “Black Myth” was announced at 268 yuan ($38).
2. In the week after its release, it has been the top-selling game on Steam in America, Germany and Japan.
3. 杞人忧天 a person or animal that tends to be timid or anxious. She is a world-class worrier, a change-avoider and, by her own admission, a bit of a nervous Nellie.
4. It is all too easy for the weeks to whizz past; suddenly it is September and the northern-hemisphere nights are drawing in again
5. But it is possible for even harried managers to ask themselves questions that force useful moments of reflection.

Question 383

1. In 1992 Mike Jeffries, a retail executive, was tasked with turning around what was then a faded sporting-goods seller, which he did by targeting teenagers with preppy, tight and low-cut clothing. In 2006 Mr Jeffries summed up its strategy in an interview: “Candidly, we go after the cool kids…Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
2. That attitude gradually came to grate on shoppers.
3. She talks up Abercrombie’s “chase capabilities”—industry-speak for keeping inventory low and pouncing on trends.

Question 384

1. Over time such costs usually accrue, slowing growth, but they are hardly ever enough to capsize an economy.
2. The lesson Olson took from all this is that the cost imposed on those losing access to a resource, however key, is not the sudden collapse of every industry that depends on it but the more affordable cost of finding workarounds.
3. Modern economies look more like webs, where the severing of one link is rarely sufficient to compromise the entire structure.
4. Olson could not have foreseen that economic warfare would develop into the sophisticated tit-for-tat of trade and financial sanctions that has been on full display since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Question 385

1. It also found new trading buddies—not least China—to replace those it had lost. In a webby world, the notion of “strategic partner” looks increasingly transient, too.
2. The Bavarian town did not host army hqs or a major garrison. But it produced half of the Third Reich’s supply of ball bearings, used to keep axles rotating in everything from aircraft and tank engines to automatic rifles.
3. To Allied planners, who had spent months studying the input-output tables of German industry, the minuscule manufacturing part had thetrappings of a strategic commodity.
4. Knock away Germany’s ability to make them, the thinking went, and its military-industrial complex would come crashing down.

Question 386

1. After the financial crisis of 2007-09, global house prices fell by 6% in real terms. But, before long, they picked up again, and sailed past their pre-crisis peak.
2. Housing seems to have a remarkable ability to keep appreciating, whatever the weather. It will probably defy gravity even more insolently in the coming years.
3. Metropolises that had once built housing with aplomb, from London to New York, applied the brakes.
4. House prices began to move inexorably upwards.

Question 387

1. Not everywhere has emerged unscathed. In Germany, New Zealand and Sweden real house prices have tumbled by more than 20% since pandemic peaks.
2. People work from home a lot more than they used to, but big cities retain their draw.
3. covid-19 struck in 2020, many people thought that urban areas would lose their shine. The rise of remote work meant that, in theory, people could live anywhere and work from home, enabling them to buy roomier housing for less money.
4. Over the coming years housing markets could face all sorts of slings and arrows, from swings in economic growth and interest rates to banking busts.

Question 388

1. But local and foreign investors agree on one point: Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader, has finally woken up to the severe problems ailing China’s economy and changed his approach to fix them.
2. The effect has been to instantly lift the **gloom that has hung over the country ** after hopes of a strong post-pandemic recovery faded in mid-2023.
3. The shift has given foreign investors whiplash. Just four days before unleashing the stimulus, the People’s Bank of China (pboc), the central bank, declined to cut rates, causing many investors to sell down more of their Chinese holdings.
4. The man overseeing the rally is Wu Qing, who took over the top securities regulatory job after a market crash in January and February shredded his predecessor’s career.

Question 389

1. Regulators have often punished short sellers or anyone appearing to make money from market routs.
2. The news and rumours of redoubled support were designed to make a big splash in markets.
3. But the gloomy sentiment and sagging asset prices that once prevailed must be distinguished from the fundamentally poor economic indicators that continue to materialise.

Question 390

1. These tech barons are presumably hoping for Trump to aggressively pursue deregulation, including by reversing Biden’s antitrust efforts, making way for the mergers and the monopoly consolidation that tech giants continue to thrive on.
2. Conflicts of interest will abound and corporate interests will always win out, especially Uncle Elon’s—at least until one of the famously mercurial men goes too far and the relationship inevitably implodes. As the past decade has proved, over and over, there can only be one Trump.
3. Musk has already come to occupy a para-governmental position in American society, because his multiple technology companies have increasingly wormed their way into international affairs.
4. In October, Trump said that he was considering Musk for a role as “Secretary of Cost Cutting”; on Tuesday, Trump officially announced that Musk and the right-wing entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy would jointly lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (a.k.a. D.O.G.E, surely the first time that a government agency has been named for a meme).
5. Musk’s bio on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, which he bought in 2022 and has since transformed into his bully pulpit, now reads “The people voted for major government reform.”

Answer 390

1. 这些科技巨头大概期望特朗普能够大力推动放松监管政策，包括扭转拜登的反垄断措施，为科技巨头赖以生存的并购和垄断整合铺平道路。
   
   2. 利益冲突将会层出不穷，公司利益将始终占上风，尤其是埃隆叔叔的利益——至少在这些著名的善变人物之一越界，导致关系不可避免地破裂之前。正如过去十年反复证明的那样，特朗普只能有一个。
   3. 马斯克已经在美国社会中占据了一个准政府角色，因为他旗下的多个科技公司越来越多地涉足国际事务。
   4. 在十月份，特朗普表示他正在考虑让马斯克担任“成本削减部长”；而在周二，特朗普正式宣布马斯克和右翼企业家维韦克·拉玛斯瓦米将共同领导一个新的政府效率部门（即D.O.G.E.，或许是首个以网络梗命名的政府机构）。
   5. 马斯克在他2022年收购并已改造为其个人发声平台的社交媒体X（前Twitter）上的个人简介现在写道：“人民投票支持重大政府改革。

Question 391

1. ” The company’s newest offering, a rugged off-roader, received 176,000 bookings within the first hour of going on sale.
2. One reason SUV sales are booming is that most roads remain terrible. Even just outside the centre of a big city such as Bangalore, gaping potholes and barely surfaced roads remain common. And all over India overstretched road-traffic departments plonk down badly designed speedbreakers with little regard for vertebral or mechanical wellbeing. Ground clearance—or the height between the street and the bottom of a vehicle—is a crucial consideration for car-buyers in India.
3. Just five years ago, every second car sold in India was a hatchback. That is partly driven by rising prices—safer and bigger cars are more expensive than tin-can hatchbacks.
4. It allows buyers to think in terms of a few extra thousand rupees a month rather than about the hefty upfront cost.
5. Buyers of even the cheapest cars demand touchscreen consoles.
6. whose ride of choice is the electric version of his company’s Curvv, a sleek SUV coupé.
7. Social cachet plays a role too. A decade ago, simply owning a car conferred status. That is no longer enough. Today it is the car’s make and features that mark out its owner.
8. Like Bangalore, most Indian cities do not have road networks robust enough to support all the vehicles now competing for street space

Answer 391

1. 公司最新推出的一款坚固的越野车，在开售的第一小时内就收到了176,000份订单。
   
   2. SUV销量激增的一个原因是大多数道路状况依然糟糕。即使是在像班加罗尔这样的大城市，市中心以外的地方也常见巨大的坑洞和几乎没有铺设的道路。此外，在印度各地，资源紧张的交通管理部门随意设置设计糟糕的减速带，几乎不考虑对脊椎或汽车机械的影响。离地间隙——即车辆底盘与地面的距离——是印度购车者关注的关键因素之一。
   3. 五年前，印度市场上每售出的两辆车中就有一辆是掀背车。这种现象部分是由于价格上涨导致的——更安全、更大的汽车比“铁皮掀背车”更贵。
   4. 这让买家可以用每月多出几千卢比的方式思考，而不是面对高昂的前期成本。
   5. 即使是最便宜的汽车，消费者也要求配备触屏中控台。
   6. 他钟爱的座驾是公司推出的电动版Curvv，一款时尚的SUV轿跑。
   7. 社会地位也起到了一定作用。十年前，单单拥有一辆车就足以彰显地位。但如今，这已经不够了。现在，车的品牌和配置决定了车主的身份象征。
   8. 和班加罗尔一样，大多数印度城市的道路网络都不足以支撑现在争夺道路空间的车辆数量。