2016年BEC中级考试阅读模拟试题四

　　The Cash-free Society

　　Imagine a society in which cash no longer exists, Instead, “ cash ” is electronic, as in bank-card Systems. Currency and coin are abandoned.

　　____ example ____ . Theft of cash would become impossible. Bank robberies and cash-register robberies would simply cease to occur ____ ( 8 ) ____ . Purse snatchings would become a thing of the past. Urban streets would become safer ____ ( 9 ) ____ . Security costs and insurance rates would fall. Property values would rise. Neighbourhoods would improve.

　　Drug traffickers and their clients, burglars and receives of stolen property, arsonists for hire, and bribe-takers would no longer have the advantage of using untraceable currency. ____ ( 10 ) ____ These prosecutions, in turn, would inhibit further crimes.

　　In a society devoid of physical money, a change from cash to recorded electronic money would be accompanied by a flow of previously unpaid income-tax revenues running in the tens of billions of dollars. ____ (11) ____

　　Cash has been the root of much social and economic evil. ____ (12)____ Eighty percent of Americans regularly use credit cards. The development of a federal system to handle the country’s 300 billion annual cash transactions in the United States electronically is within reach.

　　Example: H.

　　A. A national electronic-money system would operate as a debit-card system.

　　B. Retail shops in once dangerous areas could operate in safety.

　　C. As a result, income tax rates could be lowered or the national debt reduced.

　　D. The use of cash has diminished substantially since World War II.

　　E. Attacks on shopkeepers, taxi drivers, and cashiers would all end.

　　F. The emergence of electronic funds-transfer technology makes it possible to change the nature of money and to divorce it from evil.

　　G. Almost every present-day cash transaction can be duplicated electronically.

　　H. The immediate benefits would be profound and fundamental.

　　I. Electronic “money” would leave incriminating trails of data, resulting in more arrests and convictions.

　　答案：Questions 8 – 12: E, B, I, C, F