重庆师范大学考研真题 英语专业(6)

招收专业：英语语言文学、外国语言学及应用语言学研究方向：英语语言学、文体学、英美文学、英语国家文化研究、英语教学理论及应用、现代英语研究、社会语言学、翻译理论

Oil is unique in the extent to which it relies not on manpower but on knowledge and technical investment to find it, get it out, process it and refine it. Money is what it takes to develop it, and money is what you make from it. It is also unique in the extent to which it is found not where it is needed but in the most isolated and most inhospitable parts of the world. It‘s not that oil, and natural gas, don‘t exist elsewhere. In traces and small quantities they crop up almost everywhere.

But only in certain parts are the oil and gas caught in reservoirs big and porous enough to ―gush‖ out in the volumes that make it worthwhile. These, by a quirk of fate, lie largely in the deserts of Arabia and the Middle East, and the offshore waters of the continental shelves.

Oil is politics and politics is oil. For the producer it brings revenues beyond measure but few jobs and little local direct benefit – a sure recipe for corruption and conspicuous government consumption. Which is exactly what has happened in Nigeria and Kuwait. To the producing country, at least, oil is a curse. Even Saudi Arabia has found its finances wrecked and its society pulled apart by it, while no one could argue that it has been the savior of either Iran or Indonesia.

For the consumer, oil brings endless concerns about security of supply and foreign dependence. A sure recipe for political meddling and unholy alliances between Western states and foreign tyrants. Not for nothing has America, which once had plentiful supplies of its own and now depends on imports for half its consumption, forged special links with Saudi Arabia and other producers.

Nor can oil be excluded – to put it mildly – from President Bush‘s calculations when he invaded Iraq and instructed his troops to direct themselves first to guarding the oil installations. Iraq, with the greatest untapped reserves of the Middle East, was meant to provide a new, securer source of oil for America to counterbalance an ever more volatile Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein‘s greatest sin in Western eyes … was to take over Kuwait and then threaten Saudi Arabia‘s oil.

And so it is that the invasion of Iraq to unseat him has helped bring about a further oil crisis, the third in 30 years in which the price of oil has doubled, strategic reserves have been broken into and oil supplies overstretched. The first crisis, in 1973, was brought about by the Arab imposition of selective cutbacks in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war. The second was caused by the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978. The latest has been engendered by rising demand in China, falling supply because of Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, and a shortage of refining capacity. One crisis could be regarded as a warning; two as shock treatment. A third can only be viewed (by many of the experts, at least) as the beginning of the end.

Is it?

5. According to Paragraphs 1-7,

A. a group of oil exporting countries formed OPEC to protect their legitimate rights in international

oil market.

B. oil has always been regarded as both a blessing and a curse.

C. the ―seven sisters‖ multinational companies monopolize the world oil market.

D. Russia‘s oil industry belongs to the state.

6. Which of the following CANNOT be in the omitted part?

A. Oil.

B. Stone.

C. Gold and silver.

D. Coal.