More and more people are annoyed at the continually rising house prices. They want to know who is to blame for it. Local governments, developers and speculators (投机商) share a vested (既得的) interest in it. People who are really in need of homes are most likely to suffer heavy losses.
     Many local governments depend on selling land to keep its normal operation. The higher land prices,
the more money. Therefore, developers back the local governments by buying land at high prices. In
return, the governments make favorable policies to help the developers. For example, drive all the possible home buyers to this nasty (危险的) market. They even encourage large numbers of speculators to catch
more people.
     Rising house prices have already become the fence which divides the Chinese society. It has caused
widespread dissatisfaction. The government will lose the support of the common people if leaving house
prices out of control. Besides, rising house prices will stop us building the new countryside as the present
policy actually forbid people to flow freely from cities to the countryside.
     Collecting taxes on houses can fundamentally solve this problem. On one hand, it will discourage the
speculators. On the other hand, it will offer a stable tax resource apart from reducing the sales cost of the
developers. Secondly, stop the developers selling the houses before completion. If so, the developers will certainly try their best to sell all their houses once completed. And this will also lower speculators'
expectation of price rising, which will decrease speculations.

1. The only victims of rising house prices are _____.

A. governments  
B. real home buyers
C. developers  
D. speculators

2. The local governments reward the developers by _____.

A. offering enough land  
B. allowing sales in advance
C. providing enough buyers  
D. making favorable policies

3. We can infer from the passage that continually rising house prices will _____.

A. benefit the government
B. draw more home buyers
C. help the housing industry develop soundly
D. affect the sound development of the Chinese society

4. Collecting taxes on houses has all the following effects except _____.

A. making the developers do their best to sell their houses
B. cutting down speculations
C. supplying a stable tax resource for the government
D. decreasing the sales cost