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  3. The Global Competitiveness Report, released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) each year, measures 113 factors that contribute to

The Global Competitiveness Report, released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) each year, measures 113 factors that contribute to

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问题     The Global Competitiveness Report, released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) each year, measures 113 factors that contribute to an economy’s competitiveness and it is widely watched by countries that want to find out their weak spots and by companies deciding where to invest. In the overall ranking, the U.S. finishes first out of 131 countries. Next are Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Fin-land, Singapore, Japan, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Further down are some more surprising comparisons, such as South Korea at No. 11, up from 23rd place last year.
    【B11】_____________
    A fundamentals-driven economy like Egypt or Bolivia is judged more on basic requirements such as the reliability of police services and electricity supply; an efficiency-driven economy like Brazil or Latvia is evaluated more by measures such as Internet access in schools and strength of investor protection; and an innovation-driven economy like France or South Korea sees more weight put on more sophisticated issues such as company R&D spending and marketing.
    【B12】________________________________________
    U.S., for instance, grabs the No. 1 slot for 10 measures, but in certain areas it doesn’t perform well. It scores 69th for primary-school enrollment and 75th in ability to fend off organized crime. The U.S. does particularly poorly when it comes to macroeconomic gauges: 89th for level of government debt, 107th for savings rate. "It’s a real warning sign coming out of the data," says Blankem, a senior economist at the WEF.
    The data also challenge some widespread beliefs—for  instance, that high taxes stifle business.【B13】_____________________
    "There’s always the debate about more government, less government, more taxes, less taxes," says Xavier Sala-i-Martin, the Columbia University economist who designed the index. "This suggests that is the wrong debate. We should be talking about what the government does and not its size."
    Take Kenya. The sub-Saharan nation ranks badly on many basic measures, such as favoritism in decisions of government officials (115th) and business impact of malaria (113th), but on some more sophisticated metrics it does quite well—eighth for legal rights tied to the financial markets and 31st for quality of scientific-research institutions.【B14】____________________
    But for all that the data can teach us, keep in mind that the nature of a ranking masks certain economic realities of a globalized world. The ability of countries to raise their citizens’ standard of living is not a zero-sum game.【B15】___________That’s why South Korea invests in North Korea, which is in some respects an economic black hole. At the end of the day, both can be winners.
    [A]  Dig deeper into the data behind a country’s ranking, and there are often surprises lurking.
    [B]   Geography, physical capital, technology, worker education—they’ve all taken a turn as the supposed silver bullet.
    [C]   Skipping the basics while nailing the more complicated stuff is an abnormal yet increasingly widespread trend—think of the places in Africa that leaped from no phones to cell phones, bypassing landlines—but whether a country can excel in the long run without a more stable foundation is another question.
    [D]   Nearly 200 years ago, Ricardo gave a detailed lesson about comparative advantage: when two economies interact, they both can benefit even if one is more advanced across the board.
    [E]   The U.S. and Switzerland, two moderately taxed countries, are at the top of the list, but so are Denmark, Sweden and Finland, where taxes are sky high.
    [F]  Part of the way countries stack up results from how the WEF weights a nation’s scores according to its stage of development.
    [G]  The index focuses on productivity, not its collateral effects.
【B13】
选项
答案E
解析 空格前说这些数据挑战了一些广为认同的观点，例如：高税收会抑制商业发展。而空格后又反复出现关键词government与taxes，故推断空格处应和税收有关。纵观各项，只有E与税收这个话题相关，符合上下文语境；其中，but so are Denmark…taxes are sky high这一信息体现了空格前的内容。故E为答案。
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