Question

【題目】Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Pension bonds (債券) and a novel idea for providing retirement income

When people stop working, they need a retirement income. Some are lucky enough to have an employer-provided 【1】 linked to their salary. Everyone else faces a difficult choice. Some keep their pension in cash and watch as it wears away with inflation. Others use savings products with high fees and risk being hurt by a stock market downturn. A third option is an annuity, which 【2】 a lifelong income but vanishes at death, even if that is a week after retirement.

Lionel Martellini of EDHEC, a French business school, and Robert Merton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a Nobel laureate in economics) have come up with a(n) 【3】. Workers would buy government-issued bonds while in employment; these bonds would pay no interest until retirement. Over the next 20 years (the typical life expectancy on retirement) bond holders would receive payments 【4】 interest plus the return of the capital. These would be linked to inflation, or another 【5】 such as average consumption. So a worker born in 1970, say, would buy a bond that made payments from 2035 until 2055. Every 【6】 innovation needs a specific name, and these are called SLFIES (Standard of Living Indexed, Forward — starting Income — only Securities).

These bonds would act somewhat like annuities, though without 【7】 against the risk of living much longer than expected. One big advantage is that if holders die before the final year of the bond, the capital would be passed to their children. They could also be attractive to corporate pension 【8】 and institutions such as sovereign-wealth funds. But if bond yields stay as low as they are now, workers will still need a big pension pot to be able to retire 【9】. The average pension pot of an American aged 40-55 is $14,500. That will not 【10】 much comfort, whatever financial products it buys.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】B

【2】A

【3】H

【4】C

【5】I

【6】D

【7】F

【8】J

【9】E

【10】K

【解析】

本文是一篇說明文。文章介紹了養(yǎng)老金債券和一種提供退休人收入的新想法。

【1】考查名詞。句意：有些人很幸運，擁有與工資掛鉤的雇主提供的養(yǎng)老金。根據上文When people stop working, they need a retirement income.可知，此處是pension“養(yǎng)老金”。故選B。

【2】考查動詞。句意：第三種選擇是年金，它可以保證終生收入，但在死亡時消失，即使那是在退休后一周。根據語境可知，此處是guarantee“保證”，句子描述的是客觀事實，應使用一般現在時，which指代的是an annuity，從句謂語動詞應使用第三人稱單數形式。故選A。

【3】考查名詞。句意：法國商學院EDHEC的萊昂內爾馬泰利尼和麻省理工學院的羅伯特默頓（諾貝爾經濟學獎得主）提出了一個方案。根據語境可知，此處是名詞alternative“供替代的選擇”，由空前a(n)可知，此處使用名詞單數形式。故選H。

【4】考查動詞。句意：在接下來的20年里（退休后的平均壽命），債券持有人將收到利息加資本回報的支付。根據語境可知，此處是動詞contain“包括，包含”，與空前payments是邏輯主謂關系，應使用現在分詞做定語，表主動。故選C。

【5】考查名詞。句意：這將與通脹或其他計量標準掛鉤，如平均消費。根據語境可知，此處是名詞measure“計量標準”，由空后such as average consumption可知，此處使用名詞單數形式。故選I。

【6】考查形容詞。句意：每一項金融創(chuàng)新都需要一個特定的名稱，這些名稱被稱為SLFIES (生活標準指數化，開始時只計算收入)。根據語境可知，此處是形容詞financial“金融的”，做innovation的定語。故選D。

【7】考查動詞。句意：這些債券的作用有點像年金，但并不能防范壽命比預期長得多的風險。根據語境可知，此處是動詞protect“保護”，protect against“使免受……”，由空前without可知，此處使用動名詞形式。故選F。

【8】考查名詞。句意：它們還可能對企業(yè)養(yǎng)老基金和主權財富基金等機構具有吸引力。根據語境可知，此處是可數名詞fund“基金”，其前沒有冠詞，應使用復數形式，空后such as sovereign-wealth funds也是提示。由故選J。

【9】考查副詞。句意：但是，如果債券收益率保持目前的低水平，工人們仍然需要一大筆養(yǎng)老金才能舒舒服服地退休。根據語境可知，此處是副詞comfortably“舒服地”，修飾動詞retire。故選E。

【10】考查動詞。句意：無論它購買何種金融產品，這都不會形成多少安慰。根據語境可知，此處是動詞generate“使形成”，由空前will not可知，使用動詞原形。故選K。