2012年6月六级阅读理解第三篇.docVIP

阅读理解第三篇 生词、短语 Passage Two Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage. For most of the 20th century， Asia asked itself what it could learn from the modern， innovating West. Now the question must be reversed. What can the West‘s overly indebted and sluggish （经济滞长的） nations learn from a flourishing Asia？ Just a few decades ago， Asia‘s two giants were stagnating（停滞不前） under faulty economic ideologies. However， once China began embracing free-market reforms in the 1980s， followed by India in the 1990s， both countries achieved rapid growth. Crucially， as they opened up their markets， they balanced market economy with sensible government direction. As the Indian economist Amartya Sen has wisely said， “The invisible hand of the market has often relied heavily on the visible hand of government.” Contrast this middle path with America and Europe， which have each gone ideologically over-board in their own ways. Since the 1980s， America has been increasingly clinging to the ideology of uncontrolled free markets and dismissing the role of government——following Ronald Regan‘s idea that “government is not the solution to our problem； government is the problem. ”Of course， when the markets came crashing down in 2007， it was decisive government intervention that saved the day. Despite this fact， many Americans are still strongly opposed to “big government.” If Americans could only free themselves from their antigovernment doctrine， they would begin to see that the America‘s problems are not insoluble. A few sensible federal measures could put the country back on the right path. A simple consumption tax of， say， 5% would significantly reduce the country’s huge government deficit without damaging productivity. A small gasoline tax would help free America from its dependence on oil imports and create incentives for green energy development. In the same way， a significant reduction of wasteful agricultural subsidies could also lower the deficit. But in order to take advant