New figures from France, Germany and Italy -- the three biggest economies in the 12-country Eurozone- suggest the continent’s ec

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问题       New figures from France, Germany and Italy -- the three biggest economies in the 12-country Eurozone- suggest the continent’s economic woes may have been exaggerated.  In France, evidence emerged that consumer spending remained solid in July and August, rising 1.4% and 0.6% respectively. Forecasters had generally expected the July figure to show a 0.1% slippage, with August unchanged. But the figures were flattered slightly by a down grade to the June figure, to 0.7% from 1.5%.
     With manufacturing in the doldrums across Europe and the U. S. , consumer spending has been increasingly seen as the best hope of stopping the global economic slowdown from turning into a recession. The French government said the news proved that the economy was holding up to the strain of the slowdown.
     Meanwhile in Germany, new regional price figures went someway towards calming fears about inflation in Europe’s largest economy -- a key reason for the European Central Bank’s reluctance to cut interest rates 15 states said consumer prices were broadly stable, with inflation falling year on year. The information backed economists’ expectations that inflation for the country as a whole is set to fall back to a yearly rate of 2.1%, compared to a yearly rate of 2.6% in August, closing in on the Euro-wide target of 2%. The drop is partly due to last year’s spike in oil prices dropping out of the year-on-year calculation.
     The icing on the cake was news that Italy’s job market has remained buoyant. The country’s July unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% from 9.6% the month before, its lowest level in more than eight years. And a business confidence survey from quasi-governmental research group ISAE told of a general pick-up in demand in the six weeks to early September.  But the news was tempered by an announcement by Alitalia, the country’s biggest airline, that it will have to get rid of 2,500 staff to cope with the expected contraction as well as selling 12 aeroplanes. And industrial group Confindustria warned that the attacks on U. S. targets meant growth will be about 1.9% this year, well short of the government’s 2.4% target. And it said the budget deficit will probably be about 1.5%, nearly twice the 0.8% Italy’s government has promised its European Union partners.
We know from the first paragraph that ______.

选项 A、new figures from the three European countries show the prediction of forecasters is exactly right
B、European economy gets on better than forecasters have predicted
C、all of the forecasters expect the fully figure to show a reduction
D、in three European countries the consumer spending continues to rise

答案B

解析 由第一段第一句:从法国等国获得的新数据表明,对欧洲大陆的经济危机的预测可能有所夸大,可知A项与题意不符;C项过于绝对,文中的原词是generally(通常,一般地);D项中指三个欧洲国家的消费情况,文中仅谈到France,所以D项错误。
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