张静中学2014高考英语一轮阅读题及答案4_高考复习指南

张静中学2014高考英语一轮阅读题及答案4

　　Use (7) ________ encouragement to inspire yourself.

　　Make thorough (8) ________.

　　(9) ________ from your own mistakes.

　　(10) ________. Keeping on practicing and loving and respecting yourself will make you more confident.

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　　Many families in the United States have a larger income now than ever before, but people are finding it difficult to make ends meet anyway. Almost everyone is wondering,“What happens to all my money?”I never seem to have anything left to put away.

　　Why isn’t a dollar worth as much as it used to be? One dollar is always worth the same amount, that is, 100 cents. But the value of a dollar is how much it can buy. The value of money depends on the cost of living. Economists（经济学家） say that the cost of living is the money that a family must pay for the necessities of life（生活必需品） such as food, housing or rent, clothes, and medical expenses. For many years now, the cost of living has increased greatly, so the value of the dollar has decreased. When a dollar has a low value, you cannot buy as many things with it.

　　No one fully understands why the cost of living keeps increasing, but economists believe that workers and producers can make prices go up. As workers earn more money, they have more money to spend, so many demand more goods. If there is a great demand for certain goods, the prices of these goods go up. At the same time, if there’s a shortage（短缺） of goods, the prices also go up. For example, if everyone wants to buy more and more gas, the price of gas goes up. When companies withhold gas from buyers, they can also make the price of gas go up.