Question

【题目】Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Pension bonds (债券) and a novel idea for providing retirement income

When people stop working, they need a retirement income. Some are lucky enough to have an employer-provided 【1】 linked to their salary. Everyone else faces a difficult choice. Some keep their pension in cash and watch as it wears away with inflation. Others use savings products with high fees and risk being hurt by a stock market downturn. A third option is an annuity, which 【2】 a lifelong income but vanishes at death, even if that is a week after retirement.

Lionel Martellini of EDHEC, a French business school, and Robert Merton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a Nobel laureate in economics) have come up with a(n) 【3】. Workers would buy government-issued bonds while in employment; these bonds would pay no interest until retirement. Over the next 20 years (the typical life expectancy on retirement) bond holders would receive payments 【4】 interest plus the return of the capital. These would be linked to inflation, or another 【5】 such as average consumption. So a worker born in 1970, say, would buy a bond that made payments from 2035 until 2055. Every 【6】 innovation needs a specific name, and these are called SLFIES (Standard of Living Indexed, Forward — starting Income — only Securities).

These bonds would act somewhat like annuities, though without 【7】 against the risk of living much longer than expected. One big advantage is that if holders die before the final year of the bond, the capital would be passed to their children. They could also be attractive to corporate pension 【8】 and institutions such as sovereign-wealth funds. But if bond yields stay as low as they are now, workers will still need a big pension pot to be able to retire 【9】. The average pension pot of an American aged 40-55 is $14,500. That will not 【10】 much comfort, whatever financial products it buys.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】B

【2】A

【3】H

【4】C

【5】I

【6】D

【7】F

【8】J

【9】E

【10】K

【解析】

本文是一篇说明文。文章介绍了养老金债券和一种提供退休人收入的新想法。

【1】考查名词。句意：有些人很幸运，拥有与工资挂钩的雇主提供的养老金。根据上文When people stop working, they need a retirement income.可知，此处是pension“养老金”。故选B。

【2】考查动词。句意：第三种选择是年金，它可以保证终生收入，但在死亡时消失，即使那是在退休后一周。根据语境可知，此处是guarantee“保证”，句子描述的是客观事实，应使用一般现在时，which指代的是an annuity，从句谓语动词应使用第三人称单数形式。故选A。

【3】考查名词。句意：法国商学院EDHEC的莱昂内尔马泰利尼和麻省理工学院的罗伯特默顿（诺贝尔经济学奖得主）提出了一个方案。根据语境可知，此处是名词alternative“供替代的选择”，由空前a(n)可知，此处使用名词单数形式。故选H。

【4】考查动词。句意：在接下来的20年里（退休后的平均寿命），债券持有人将收到利息加资本回报的支付。根据语境可知，此处是动词contain“包括，包含”，与空前payments是逻辑主谓关系，应使用现在分词做定语，表主动。故选C。

【5】考查名词。句意：这将与通胀或其他计量标准挂钩，如平均消费。根据语境可知，此处是名词measure“计量标准”，由空后such as average consumption可知，此处使用名词单数形式。故选I。

【6】考查形容词。句意：每一项金融创新都需要一个特定的名称，这些名称被称为SLFIES (生活标准指数化，开始时只计算收入)。根据语境可知，此处是形容词financial“金融的”，做innovation的定语。故选D。

【7】考查动词。句意：这些债券的作用有点像年金，但并不能防范寿命比预期长得多的风险。根据语境可知，此处是动词protect“保护”，protect against“使免受……”，由空前without可知，此处使用动名词形式。故选F。

【8】考查名词。句意：它们还可能对企业养老基金和主权财富基金等机构具有吸引力。根据语境可知，此处是可数名词fund“基金”，其前没有冠词，应使用复数形式，空后such as sovereign-wealth funds也是提示。由故选J。

【9】考查副词。句意：但是，如果债券收益率保持目前的低水平，工人们仍然需要一大笔养老金才能舒舒服服地退休。根据语境可知，此处是副词comfortably“舒服地”，修饰动词retire。故选E。

【10】考查动词。句意：无论它购买何种金融产品，这都不会形成多少安慰。根据语境可知，此处是动词generate“使形成”，由空前will not可知，使用动词原形。故选K。