High oil prices have not yet produced an economic shock among consuming countries, but further rises, especially sharp (1)_____,

admin2010-02-22  42

问题     High oil prices have not yet produced an economic shock among consuming countries, but further rises, especially sharp (1)_____, would undoubtedly hurt the world economy, and (2)_____ would inevitably harm producers, too. Beyond this obvious point, (3)_____, higher prices could even do harm to both oil firms and producers.
Big oil firms (4)_____ rolling in money today, but that disguises the fact that their longer-term prospects are (5)_____. Behind the reserves-accounting scandal at Royal Dutch/ Shell (6)_____ a problem bedeviling all of the majors: replacing their dwindling reserves. (7)_____ existing fields in Alaska and the North Sea are rapidly declining, OPEC countries and Russia are (8)_____ them out. (9)_____ they are to survive in the long term, the big oil firms must embrace other sources of energy (10)_____ oil.
    (11)_____ it is to believe, higher oil prices could be bad news for producing countries (12)_____. Political leaders in Russia, Venezuela and other oil-rich countries are bending laws to crack (13)_____ on foreign firms and to strengthen their grip on oil (14)_____ through state-run firms. This may be convenient for the political leaders themselves. Alas, it is (15)_____ to do much for their countrymen. For years corruption and inefficiency (16)_____ the typical results of government control of oil resources.
    Producing countries should (17)_____ embrace open markets. (18)_____ one thing, shutting out foreign investment will only hurt their own oil output by (19)_____ the sharpest managers and latest technologies. For another, economic liberalisation (including reform of bloated welfare states) would help OPEC countries (20)_____ their economies—as the NAFTA trade deal has done for oil-rich Mexico—and so prepare them for the day when the black gold starts running out.


选项 A、in place of
B、instead
C、rather
D、rather than

答案B

解析 本题的考点为副词的词义及用法辨析。结合上下文可知,这里表示的意思是"产油国反而是应当采用开放市场",所以instead作为"替代,反而"符合文意。in place of"代替…",rather"宁愿,宁可",rather than"宁可…也不…"都不符合上下文的语境。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/F7a4777K
0

最新回复(0)