A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight times larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world‘s best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed。
It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith. (Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea’s LG Electronics in July。) Foreign made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America‘s machine-tool industry was on the ropes. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty。
All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America’s industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas。
How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self doubt has yielded to blind pride. “American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick witted,” according to Richard Cavanagh, executive dean of Harvard‘s Kennedy School of Government. “It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity,” says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as “a golden age of business management in the United States。”
51. The U.S. achieved its predominance after World War II because ________。
[A] it had made painstaking efforts towards this goal
[B] its domestic market was eight times larger than before
[C] the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitors
[D] the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy
52. The loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy in the 1980s is manifested in the fact that the American ________。
[A] TV industry had withdrawn to its domestic market
[B] semiconductor industry had been taken over by foreign enterprises
[C] machine-tool industry had collapsed after suicidal actions
[D] auto industry had lost part of its domestic market
53. What can be inferred from the passage?
[A] It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pride。
[B] Intense competition may contribute to economic progress。
[C] The revival of the economy depends on international cooperation。
[D] A long history of success may pave the way for further development。
54. The author seems to believe the revival of the U.S. economy in the 1990s can be attributed to the ________。
52題,20 世紀80年代,美國在世界經濟方面喪失了主導地位,主要表現在下面哪一事實。A選項,重疊原文不難發現,文中說,電視制造業已經消失。但是選項卻說“退回了國內市場”。B選項,文中中“半導體業將會成為下一個受害對象”。選項卻說,已經被國外市場所吞并。C選項,望文生義,原文中的on the ropes是岌岌可危,但是選項卻當成了自殺性行為,故而錯誤,排除法,D選項正確。
53題,通過使用自然段定位法,不難定位在第三段。推理題型。根據凱程小技巧,我們正確答案定位于BD之間,D選項在文中首句出現,但是偷換了概念,首句使用的詞語是long and effortless 但是被替換成了long,故而錯誤,所以答案就是B了。
54題,作者將90年代美國經濟的復蘇,歸因于——。這里再次使用凱程小技巧(眾人皆醉我獨醒)將答案定位于Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle。重疊選項,僅有A是符合題意的。