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  3. A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. Wh

A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. Wh

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问题     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 mid-1980s 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, D C. 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."
The loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy in the mid-1980s is manifested in the fact that its________.
选项 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
答案D
解析 本题关键词是the loss of US. predominance和mid-1980s，定位到第二段。根据第二段第六句，外国制造的汽车和纺织品当时正大举涌入国内市场(foreign—made cars…were sweeping into…)，即美国的汽车业已经失去了部分国内市场(auto industry had lost part of…)，选项D与原文含义相同，为正确选项。选项A偷换概念，根据第二段第五句，到1987年，(面对国外的竞争者)美国只剩下Zenith一家电视生产商，也就是说，将要失去所有国内市场。而该选项偷换成had withdrawn to its domestic market (已经退回到了国内市场)。选项B来自第二段第八句，半导体制造业似乎要(was going to)成为下一个受害者，而该选项将原文的过去进行时(表将来)偷换成过去完成时had been taken over(已经被接管，即已经受害)，因此选项B属于偷换时态。选项C来自第七句，on the ropes是岌岌可危的意思，而不是选项中的suicidal actions(自杀性行为)；而且原文也没说机床业had collapsed(已经倒闭)，所以，选项C无中生有。注意：有的考生望文生义，以为on the ropes是上吊自杀的意思，其实on the ropes原意是knocked against the ropes that enclose a boxing ring，引申为on the verge of defeat or collapse和hopeless orpowerless之意。第二段：美国在20世纪80年代中期的世界经济中失去统治地位的现象与原因。
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