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Consider GDP.In October, the Commerce Department announced — to rejoicing in the media, on Wall Street and in the White House — that the economy had grown at a 3.5% annual pace in the third quarter. By late December, GDP had been revised downward to a less impressive 2.2%, and revisions to come could ratchet it down even more (or revise it back up). The first fourth-quarter GDP stimate comes out Jan. 29. Some are saying it could top 5%. If it does, should we really believe it?
Or take jobs. In early December, the Labor Department's monthly report surprised on the upside — and brought lots of upbeat headlines — with employers reporting only 11,000 jobs lost and the unemployment rate dropping from 10.2% to 10%. A month later, the surprise was in the other direction — unemployment had held steady, but employers reported 85,000 fewer jobs. Suddenly the headlines were downbeat, and pundits were pontificating about the political implications of a stalled labor market. Chances are, the disparity between the two reports was mostly statistical noise. Those who read great meaning into either were deceiving themselves. It is a classic case of information overload making it hard to see the trends and patterns that matter. In other words, we might be better off paying less (or at least less frequent) attention to data.
以上两段中，举了两个很详细的例子：GDP 与就业问题。分别除了两个题目，都属于例子功能题。其中一题问：关于GDP的不同数据说明什么？从上文的misleading 一词可以看出，应该说明的是数据经常是not convincing 或not reliable.
另一题问到：关于失业率的两份报告说明什么？与上一题几乎是一样的答法。
With that in mind, I asked a few of my favorite economic forecasters to name an indicator or two that I could afford to start ignoring. Three said they disregarded the index of leading indicators, originally devised at the Commerce Department but now compiled by the Conference Board, a business group. Forecasters want new hard data, and the index "consists entirely of already released information and the Conference Board's forecasts," says Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs. (The leading-indicators index topped a similar survey by the Chicago Tribune in 2005, it turns out.) The monthly employment estimate put out by payroll-service firm ADP got two demerits, mainly because it doesn't do a great job of predicting the Labor Department employment numbers that are released two days later. And consumer-sentiment indexes, which offer the tantalizing prospect of predicting future spending patterns but often function more like an echo chamber, got the thumbs-down from two more forecasters.
本段开头告诉我们，顶尖经济学家一般会选择忽略哪些经济指标，一系列的并列结构过后，结尾句出现考点：thumbs-down.在这里显然也是“忽略”的意思。在这里，有两个选项可能会使考生迷惑 disapproval 还是strong criticism? 后一项显然是阐述过度了。
The thing is, I already ignore all these (relatively minor) indicators. I had been hoping to learn I could skip GDP or the employment report.
I should have known that professional forecasters wouldn't forgo real data. As Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com put it in an e-mail, "I cherish all economic indicators."
Most of us aren't professional forecasters. What should we make of the cacophony of monthly and weekly data? The obvious advice is to focus on trends and ignore the noise. But the most important economic moments come when trends reverse — when what appears to be noise is really a sign that the world has changed. Which is why, in these uncertain times, we jump whenever a new economic number comes out. Even one that will be revised in a month.
最后一段考察了段义。很显然，本段的重点在于but 引导的转折句上：经济转折事件往往是逆潮流而动的——这时，原来的“noise”即干扰性指标也会具有说服力。
