This passage was written in 1985.

What has happened to the economy of Singapore in the last fifty years? A Web site hosted by the government of Singapore suggests a Cinderella-like story of transformation from economic anonymity to economic royalty with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) playing the starring role as Fairy Godmother. The results of the decade-by-decade planning and successes on http://www.edg.gov.sg are hard to argue, however. In the 1960s, Singapore was a small, newly independent, undeveloped nation with almost no natural resources. Today, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, Singapore’s per capita GDP, or PPP, is the seventh largest in the world. It remains to be seen whether Singapore can sustain the meteoric growth that has generally characterized it for five decades, however. Moves to industrialize the nation beginning in the 1960s have resulted in a well developed infrastructure.

Swift, forward looking changes driven by the EDB to stimulate R&D activities and shift economic focus with the changing times have resulted in a highly trained and agile workforce. Still, Singapore’s economy has contracted in response to the financial crises of the first decades of the twenty first century, particularly in Europe, and remains vulnerable to any decreased demands for the exports on which it so heavily depends. Like other nations, Singapore also faces issues of income inequality. With a high percentage of skilled workers (the nation anticipates two thirds of its workers will be PMETS—professionals, managers, executives, or technicians—by 2030), the ranks of the unskilled are increasingly filled by foreigners from less economically successful nearby nations, a profile that tends to keep income depressed for low wage earners while raising the potential for social discontent. The EDB, however, is responding with its magic wand: by decreasing the influx of foreign workers and providing incentives for increased productivity and higher wages for low skilled workers, it seeks to create yet another magical transformation.

1. According to the passage, Singapore’s Economic Development Board is responsible for all of the following changes EXCEPT:

(A) occasional contraction of the economy.
(B) a highly educated, agile workforce.
(C) a shift from industrial activities to R&D activities.
(D) occasional policies that control the influx of foreign workers.
(E) changing economic focuses over the decades.



2. Based on the passage, steps currently undertaken by Singapore’s Economic Development Board are most likely to include

(A) the creation of innovative and higher value products and services.
(B) an internal restructuring process meant to keep pace with the changing times.
(C) strategies to make certain failing manufacturing industries, such as electronics, become more viable.
(D) business credits for companies that invest in automation or other productivity boosting measures.
(E) the closure of companies that continue to hire a large percentage of low wage workers.



3. The author develops the central idea of the passage primarily by

(A) diminishing Singapore’s economic successes by couching them in the extended analogy of a fairy tale.
(B) contrasting the past successes of Singapore’s Economic Development Board with today’s challenges.
(C) highlighting significant accomplishments, listing challenges, and ending with optimism.
(D) recounting the historic changes wrought by Singapore’s Economic Development Board.
(E) critically examining both the serious economic and social challenges that Singapore now faces.



24. In the last paragraph, the author implies that

(A) the “magic” power of the EDB has run out.
(B) the EDB may solve yet another fundamental challenge to growth.
(C) the economic fate of Singapore is largely not under its own control.
(D) all fairy tales must one day come to an end—happy or unhappy.
(E) an unraveling is occurring over what the EDB has no control.