exercise 7exerise 7.doc

Section B Directions: Read the following four passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage you have just read． (A) On October 24, 1929—”Black Thursday”—a wave of panic selling of stocks swept the New York Stock Exchange. The Great Depression began. By 1932, thousands of banks and businesses had failed. Industrial production was cut in half, farm income had fallen by more than half, wages had decreased 60 percent, new investment was down 90 percent and one out of every four workers was unemployed. The Republican president, Herbert Hoover was unable to take measures to deal with the economic collapse. So in the 1932 election, he was defeated by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised “a New Deal for the American people”. Within the “Hundred Days”, Roosevelt rushed through Congress a number of laws to aid the recovery of the economy. The Civilian Conservation Corps put young men to work in reforestation and flood. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration aided state and local relief funds. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration paid farmers to reduce production, thus raising crop prices. The Tennessee Valley Authority built a network of dams in the Tennessee River area to generate electricity, control floods and manufacture fertilizer. The National Recovery Administration regulated fair competition among businesses and ensured bargaining rights and minimum wages for workers. The Social Security Act of 1935 established contributory old age and survivors’ pensions, as well as a joint federal state program of unemployment insurance. The Work Progress Administration was one of the most effective of the New Deal measures. Financed by taxes collected by the federal government, the WPA created millions of jobs by undertaking the construction of roads, bridges, airports and other public bu