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  3. [A]Convincing evidence; US is losing its appeal in the eyes of multinationals [B]Biggest hindrance: US divided political system

[A]Convincing evidence; US is losing its appeal in the eyes of multinationals [B]Biggest hindrance: US divided political system

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问题 [A]Convincing evidence; US is losing its appeal in the eyes of multinationals
[B]Biggest hindrance: US divided political system
[C]American future: stuck in the middle
[D]Overstated statement: US overall competitiveness is declining
[E]Voice of experts: pessimism pervades academic world
[F]Economic outlook: bad but not desperate
[G]Undisputed fact: US is losing its economic edge
【R1】______
    Is America fading? America has been gripped by worries about decline before, notably in the 1970s, only to roar back. But this time it may be serious. There is little doubt that other countries are catching up. Between 1999 and 2009 America’s share of world exports fell in almost every industry: by 36 percentage points in aerospace, nine in information technology, eight in communications equipment and three in cars. Private-sector job growth has slowed dramatically, and come to a halt in industries that are exposed to global competition. Median annual income grew by an anemic 2% between 1990 and 2010.
【R2】______
    The March issue of the Harvard Business Review is devoted to " American competitiveness". The Review reports that declinism is prevalent among HBS alumni; in a survey, 71% said that American competitiveness would decline in the coming years.
【R3】______
    America is losing out in the race to attract good jobs. Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business points out that multinational firms increased employment in America by 24% in the 1990s. But since then they have been cutting back on jobs in America. They have moved dull repetitive tasks abroad, and even some sophisticated ones, too. The proportion of the employees of American multinationals who work for subsidiaries abroad rose from 21.4% in 1989 to 32. 3% in 2009. The share of research-and-development spending going to foreign subsidiaries rose from 9% in 1989 to 15. 6% in 2009; that of capital investment rose from 21. 8% in 1999 to 29. 6% in 2009.
【R4】______
    America’s political system comes in for particularly harsh criticism; 60% of HBS alumni said that it was worse than those in other advanced countries. David Moss of HBS argues that such complaints are nothing new: American politicians have been arguing about the role of government ever since Thomas Jefferson butted heads with Alexander Hamilton. But in the past this often led to fruitful compromises. But such compromises are rarer these days. Republicans and Democrats are more ideologically divided, and less inclined to make pragmatic concessions.
【R5】______
    For all this gloom, the Review’s gurus argue that, as Bill Clinton said in his first inaugural address, there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. The country has huge strengths, from its world-beating universities to its tolerance of risk-taking. It has a highly diverse market: firms that seek cheap labour can move to Mississippi, where wages are a third lower than those in Massachusetts. Rosabeth Moss Kanter of HBS points to the extraordinary amount of innovation that is going on not just in Silicon Valley but across the country.
    Yet it is difficult to read this collection of essays without a sense of foreboding. The one thing that worries the HBS alumni more than anything else—the state of American politics—is the most difficult to fix. The politicalsituation swings unpredictably, making it hard to plan for the future. Should companies assume that they will have to abide by Mr. Obama’s health-care law when it comes into effect in 2014, or will the Republicans have repealed it by then? No one knows.
【R3】
选项
答案A
解析 为了印证专家们对美国经济前景的担忧，文章第三段从一个点切人讨论美国竞争力的下降，那就是美国对于跨国公司的吸引力。研究显示，在20世纪90年代，跨国公司在美国的雇佣率上升了24％，但是自那之后，这个数据一直在下降，它们将一些重复性的工作(repetitive tasks)，甚至是一些复杂性的工作(sophisticated ones)移到了海外。另外，它们还将很多的研发中心以及资金投入移到了海外。由此可见，本段的中心主旨应该是[A]Convincing evidence：US is losing its appeal in the eyes of multinationals。
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