Ⅳ.Reading Comprehension (20%)
A.Read the passage and answer the questions.
Where you keep your savings is important both to you and to our economic system. Savings kept in a jar at home or in a safe-deposit box are idle. They are not circulating and doing the work that money is supposed to do. If all savings were just stored away, production should slow down. There would be fewer jobs and less income. Savings deposited in a bank, however, are put to work by the bank. They are loaned to people who use them to buy cars, refrigerators, or other durable goods. They are also loaned to business firms who use them to buy factories, stores, machines, office equipment, and other capital goods. Someone else spends the money you don’t spend. The wheels of our economic system keep turning.
Putting savings to work is called investing. Savings can be invested in several ways. Depositing them in a bank is only one way. Savings also can be used to buy bonds or life insurance. They can be invested in a business of your own or used to buy shares of stock in a corporation. They can be used to buy land, a home to live in, or property to rent to others. Each of these different ways of putting money to work is an investment.
When you put your savings in a bank, the bank invests them along with the savings of other depositors. You invest your money indirectly. When you buy bonds or stock or property, you invest your money directly.
26. If lots of people kept savings at home, ______. ( )
A. production would speed up
B. more jobs would be provided
C. money would do the work it was supposed to do
D. none of the above is true
27. Savings deposited in a bank are ______. ( )
A. lent to people and business firms who are in need of them in the form of loans
B. circulating
C. bringing profits to both you and the bank
D. all of the above
28. “The wheels of our economic system keep turning” means ______. ( )
A. the economic system is out of order
B. the economic system works properly
C. the economic system is out of control
D. the economic system advances rapidly
29. Which of the following is not an investment? ( )
A. Depositing your mother’s money in a bank.
B. Buying shares of stock in a liability corporation.
C. Lending money to your friend’s to buying bonds or life insurance.
D. Sending your daughter to Harvard University.
30. If you want to invest your money indirectly, you can ______. ( )
A. buy houses B. put it in a bank
C. buy stocks and bonds D. buy property
