2. 外语
  3. In this part of the Reading section, you will read 2 passages. You will have 40 minutes to read the passages and answer the ques

In this part of the Reading section, you will read 2 passages. You will have 40 minutes to read the passages and answer the ques

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问题     In this part of the Reading section, you will read 2 passages. You will have 40 minutes to read the passages and answer the questions.
    Most questions in the Reading section are worth 1 point, but the last question for each passage is worth more than 1 point. The directions for the last question include the point value of the question.
    Some passages will include a word or phrase that is underlined in blue. In the real test, click on the word or phrase to see its definition or an explanation.
    Within each part, you can go on to the next question by clicking the Next icon. You may skip questions and go back to them later. If you want to go back to previous questions, click the Back icon. You may click the Review icon at any time and the review screen will show you which questions you have answered and which you have not. From the review screen, you can go directly to any question you have already seen in the Reading section.
Benjamin Graham
    Benjamin Graham was a noted economist who formulated his theories on stock market investment in response to the great stock market collapse of 1929. Specifically, he viewed the collapse of the stock market as a result of people following market trends too closely. In fact, he often used a character called "Mr. Market" in his works to demonstrate how foolish it was to simply fall into line with market trends. If a person called "Mr. Market" appeared on your doorstep each day and offered random prices for various stocks, you would not accept every offer he made, since some of those offers would be utterly ridiculous. Instead, Benjamin Graham argued, a person who wishes to do well in the stock market should seek out stocks that are being sold for less than their value should be in a rational market. This was something he called value investing. The problem, of course, lies in figuring out what a stock’s ideal value should be. To do this, Graham believed that before buying a stock, an investor should analyze that company’s assets and liabilities to determine its true financial situation. If that situation looked good, and seemed as if it should allow the company to command a higher stock price than it was actually charging, then it was a good buy.
    When it came to determining which stocks were below ideal market value, Benjamin Graham emphasized studying those aspects of a company that were easily quantifiable. In his original version of the theory of value investing, he simply looked for stocks that were trading for slightly less than their so-called "book value." A company’s book value is how much net worth it has according to its accounting books, which list all of its liabilities, expenses, revenue, and assets. Most economists later viewed this as a flawed approach, since some assets, such as computers, tractors, and cars, depreciate in value almost as soon as they are acquired. They argued that the value of a company’s assets should be measured not by their book value, but by how much money they were likely to make the company in future. Others pointed out that some industries are so unstable that it is difficult to meaningfully quantify the assets of the companies involved in them. Still others have criticized Graham’s theory for ignoring factors that cannot be easily quantified, such as the quality of a company’s leadership. Despite this criticism, studies have shown that value investing seems to increase an investor’s chance of making money on the stock exchange.
    To most people today, Graham’s basic theory may seem like little more than common sense; yet there are still many investors who allow themselves to get caught up in the excitement of market fluctuations and who stop making rational investment decisions. We see this in the creation and bursting of stock bubbles. A stock bubble occurs when people focus purely on market trends without stopping to examine the actual worth of the companies whose stock they are buying. Normally, this is driven by a belief that companies
in a certain sector are on the verge of a breakthrough that will drive their profits up. Investors pour money into buying these companies’ stocks, which drives up the stocks’ price. This in turn makes their investment seem good to others, who then follow suit, driving the price up even higher and encouraging still more people to invest in those stocks. This upward cycle cannot continue indefinitely, however. Eventually, the stock prices are so much higher than those companies’ financial positions should allow that some of the investors get nervous and start selling stock. The prices then begin to drop, and everyone involved panics, trying to sell at the same time, rendering those stocks virtually worthless.
    In a very real sense, the stock market crash that launched the Great Depression was a result of the first stock market bubble bursting. The problem was that since no one knew about the bubble phenomenon, the entire market became one big bubble. Today, when bubbles occur, most investors are cushioned from the effects by the fact that the bubble bursting only affects one segment of the market. For example, in the late 1990s, many people got carried away with the surge in popularity of the Internet. With so many people spending so much of their time online, the reasoning went that it was only a matter of time before they began shopping online as well. Companies that got online first would secure the majority of their business sectors’ market share. Surely such companies were good investments, or so many people thought. The problem with this reasoning is that it is based on market trends.
(A) As more people bought stock in new "dotcom" companies, the stock prices rose, making those stocks seem more attractive to investors.
(B) However, most of the companies selling stock had no solid business plan, nor any way to convince people to engage in online transactions widely seen as insecure.
(C) They never made any real money, and eventually all of the people who invested in dotcom companies lost their investments.
(D) However, most of these people were also invested in other traditional stocks as well, which meant they did not lose everything when the dotcom bubble burst.
According to paragraph 3, why do stock bubbles burst?
选项 A、Companies don’t make money and declare bankruptcy.
B、Investors get nervous and start to sell.
C、The stock market itself decides to lower stock prices.
D、Stock prices keep increasing no matter what.
答案B
解析 细节题 文章第三段结尾处提到，股票价格持续上升，达到了所在公司财政无法承受的高价，对此感到不安的投资者们开始抛股，股市泡沫彻底崩溃。因此，B项是正确答案。
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