Financial regulations in Britain have imposed a rather unusual rule on the bosses of big banks. Starting next year, any guaranteed bonus of top executives could be delayed 10 years if their banks are under investigation for wrongdoing. The main purpose of this “clawback” rule is to hold bankers responsible for harmful risk-taking and to restore public trust in financial institution. Yet officials also hope for a much larger benefit: more long-term decision-making not only by banks but also by all corporations, to build a stronger economy for future generations.
“Short-termism” or the desire for quick profits, has worsened in publicly traded companies, says the Bank of England’s top economist, Andrew Haldane. He quotes a giant of classical economies, Alfred Marshall, in describing this financial impatience as acting like “Children who pick the strawberries out of their pudding to eat them at once” rather than putting them aside to be eaten last.
The average time for holding a stock in both the United States and Britain, he notes, has dropped from seven years to seven months in recent decades. Transient(短期的) investors, who demand high quarterly profits from companies, can hold back a firm’s efforts to invest in long-term research or to build up customer loyalty. This has been called “quarterly capitalism”.
In addition, new digital technologies have allowed more rapid trading of equities( 股 票 ), quicker use of information, and thus shortens attention spans in financial markets. “There seems to be an advantage of short-term thinking at the expense of long-term investing,” said Commissioner Daniel Gallagher of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in speech this week.
In the US, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has pushed most public companies to delay performance bonuses for senior executives by about a year, slightly helping reduce “short-termism.” In its latest survey of CEO pay, The Wall Street Journal finds that “a substantial part” of executive pay is now tied to performance.
Much more could be done to encourage “long-termism,” such as changes in the tax code and quicker disclosure(披露) of stock acquisitions. In France, shareholders who hold onto a company investment for at least two years can sometimes earn more voting rights in a company.
Within companies, the right compensation design can provide motivation for executives to think beyond their own time at the company and on behalf of all shareholders. Britain’s new rule is a reminder to bankers that society has an interest in their performance, not just for the short term but for the long term.
1.According to Paragraph 1, one reason for imposing the new rule is the _______.
A.enhance banker’s sense of responsibility
B.help corporations achieve larger profits
C.build a new system of financial regulation
D.guarantee the bonuses of top executives
2.It is argued that the influence of transient investment on public companies can be _______.
A.indirect B.negative
C.favorable D.temporary
3.The US and France examples in paragraphs 5 and 6 are used to illustrate_______.
A.the obstacles to preventing “short-termism”.
B.the significance of long-term thinking.
C.the approaches to promoting “long-termism”
D.the popularity of short-term thinking.
4.Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
A.Failure of Quarterly Capitalism
B.Patience as a Corporate Virtue
C.Decisiveness Required of Top Executives
D.Frustration of Risk-taking Bankers
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Last July, Angela Peters, 36, rolled her wheelchair into a nail salon located at the Walmart shopping center in Burton, Michigan, with the idea of painting her nails. But Peters, who has cerebral palsy（脑瘫）, was turned away. The salon (which is not owned by Walmart), she says, told her that they were afraid it would be too difficult to properly do the job given that her hands shook. What was meant to be a day of beauty bliss for Peters was now a disappointment.
Watching the interaction from a few feet away was a Walmart cashier about to go on her break. Ebony Harris, 40, recognized Peters as a Walmart regular. Now what she recognized in Peters was a kindred spirit. “She’s just like you, me, my daughter, anybody,” Harris told ABC News, “She wants to look pretty. So why can’t she?”
Harris approached Peters. “Do you want me to do your nails?” she asked. A smile spread across Peters’ face. “Yeah!” Having found a table for two, Harris gently took Peter’s hand into hers and carefully began painting her nails.
“I was a little nervous and was shaking because I didn’t want to mess her nails up,” Harris admitted. “I told her she’s a blessing to anybody, not just me. She makes me look at life and appreciate it much more than I have.”
Watching it all with amazement and admiration was Subway employee Tasia Smith. What struck her most was the ease and gentleness displayed by Harris as she painted Peters’ nails, all the while chatting as if they were old friends. Smith was so taken by the scene that she wrote about it on Facebook. “They were so patient with her,” she wrote. “Thanks to the Walmart worker for making this beautiful girl’s day!”
Peters, who runs a poetry website, harbors no bitterness toward the nail salon that turned her away. “When people do us wrong, we must forgive,” Peters wrote on Facebook. “I just want to educate people that those with different challenges, like being in a wheelchair, can have our own business and get our nails done like anyone else.”
1.Why was Peters declined when she wanted to have her nails painted?
A.She insisted on sitting in a wheelchair.
B.She was not a regular customer of the salon.
C.Her hands shook involuntarily due to disability.
D.There was no need for her to have nails painted.
2.It can be inferred from “a kindred spirit” in Paragraph 2 that _______.
A.Peters was in high spirits just like others around her.
B.Peters was approached with special attention and care.
C.Peters was more tolerant of the denial than normal people.
D.Peters was no different from the people around her.
3.In Paragraph 4, Harris referred to Angela Peters as “a blessing” because _______.
A.Peters deserved to be happy and be treated kindly.
B.Harris was reminded why she should be grateful.
C.Harris felt obliged to offer her a hand on a voluntary basis
D.Peters got her nails done despite the previous rejection.
4.What may well be Angela Peters’ guiding principle in life?
A.Beauty is about having a pretty mind, a pretty soul, as well as pretty poetry.
B.Forgive others who have wronged us, and we are likely to enjoy our life more.
C.Being grateful is a way to sing for our life which comes just from our love and hope.
D.Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.
If you examine the birth certificate of every soccer player in the last Word Cup tournament, you will most likely find the excellent players were born in the earlier months of the year. If you then examine the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup, you will find this phenomenon even more _______ .
What might account for this strange phenomenon? Some guess a certain astrological sign(星座) _________superior soccer skills; others maintain that winter-born babies have higher oxygen capacity which increases soccer stamina(it t ).But Anderson Ericsson, a 58-year-old professor who is called the expert on experts, believes in neither. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved _______ training a person to hear and repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject after 20 hours of training, his digital span rose to 20, Ericsson recalls, "and after about 200 hours of training he could repeat up to 80 numbers
This success, coupled with later research showing memory itself is not _______ determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is a cognitive( i in a) exercise, which means whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are _________ by how well each person encodes the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as _________ practice. It involves more than simply repeating a task _______ playing a C-minor scale 100 times hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. _______ it involves stepping outside your comfort zone, setting specific and well-defined goals, focusing on _______ areas of expertise, obtaining immediate feedback from professionals and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying high achievers in a wide range of ________ including soccer, golf, chess, piano playing and darts. They gather all the data they can and make a rather shocking statement: the trait we commonly call talent is highly ________, And yes, expert performers are nearly always made.
Ericsson’s formula seems appealing to many tiger parents: "practice makes perfect" is naturally ________ to genetic determinism. By________ innate ability as insignificant, many are confident they can make a concert-level pianist or an Olympic figure skater of their kids as long as they push them hard enough. Ericsson, ________ believes what parents should learn from the science of expertise is not the effect of logging thousands of hours, but how to get kids to. ________ the importance and challenge of effective practice
1.A.understandable B.misleading C.appealing D.noticeable
2.A.promises B.improves C.compromises D.masters
3.A.numbers B.subjects C.memory D.practice
4.A.physically B.genetically C.fundamentally D.psychologically
5.A.overshadow B.demonstrated C.strengthened D.produced
6.A.enormous B.deliberate C.desperate D.persistent
7.A.on average B.more importantly C.for instance D.in particular
8.A.Besides B.Nevertheless C.Therefore D.Rather
9.A.various B.comprehensive C.targeted D.minor
10.A.pursuits B.occupations C.performances D.assumptions
11.A.underestimate B.overrated C.flexible D.demanding
12.A.equal B.inferior C.preferable D.beneficial
13.A.dismissing B.lacking C.recognizing D.highlighting
14.A.likewise B.therefore C.besides D.however
15.A.study B.practice C.reflect D.embrace
Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Joaquin Phoenix took home the best-actor Oscar on Sunday night for his role in “Joker.” In the following lengthy and wide-ranging speech, the actor, 45, tackled issues of equality and nature preservation.
I’m full of so much gratitude right now. And I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees (被提名者) or anyone in this room 1. we share the same love, the love of film.
But I think the greatest gift it’s given me, and many of us in this room, 2. (be) the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know what I’d be 3. it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the 4. (distress) issues that we are facing collectively. I think at times we’re made 5. (feel), that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think, 6.we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one race, or one gender or one species has the right to dominate, control and exploit 7. without punishment.
I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world, and 8. we’re guilty of is a self-centered world view that we're the center of the universe.
And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something, but human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and original. And I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, and implement systems of change 9. are beneficial to all emotional beings and to the environment.
Now, I have been, I have been a villain in my life. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that I 10. (give) a second chance because of the many of you in this room.
Directions: Write an English composition in 120 -150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
最近新冠病毒肆虐的特殊时期，全国各地大中小学都在组织学生在家上网课，学生利用电脑、手机以及各种 App 学习。 经历了两个多月的网上学习体验，请把居家上网课和在学 校课堂学习做一个比较，并说明你更喜欢哪一种方式及理由。
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