Yonsu99
Junior Member
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Korean
- Home Country
- China
- Current Location
- South Korea
I was solving a reading comprehension question, considering between 1 and 5, and I decided to choose 5 because austerity has a meaning of saving something. But the answer was 1. But I don't agree that the answer is 1. By definition, austerity is a word for describing a situation when little money is spent only on things that are necessary. Can austerity be used for describing economic difficulties?Choose the answer that is closest in meaning to the underlined austerity.
On October 14, 1973, in one of the biggest tank battles in history, Israeli forces routed an invading Egyptian Army, destroying about two hundred and fifty tanks and losing just twenty-five. Two days later, the Israelis—who had been aided by an American airlift of military supplies—crossed over the Suez Canal and into Egypt. In retaliation, the Arab members of OPEC declared an oil embargo against the United States, ordering a series of production cutbacks and royalty increases that tripled the price of oil. Long gas lines became commonplace and the U.S. economy fell into a recession. In a nod to austerity, Richard Nixon decreed that the national Christmas tree would go unlit.
Thirty years later, we can't see past that darkened tree. The embargo, which lasted only a few months, still shapes the way we think about the politics and economics of oil. Ever since, the spectre of Arab countries using oil as a political weapon has haunted discussions of the Middle East and the global petroleum market, and has kept U.S. policymakers obsessed with “energy security” (which in practice has meant sucking up to the Saudis) and with “energy independence” from what has come to be known, in the Times and elsewhere, as “the axis of oil.”
- economic difficulties
- threats by Arab states
- the dilemma of U.S. policy makers
- comments by U.S journalists
- the recovery of oil markets
austerity: a situation in which there is not much money and it is spent only on things that are necessary
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