2. 外语
  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 Management. "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. 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".
What can be inferred from the passage?
选项 A、It is human nature to shift between self-doubt and blind pried.
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.
答案B
解析 从文章第2段的内容可知，随着其他国家日趋富强，(美国)的领先地位不可避免地被削弱了。优势渐远的感觉让人痛苦也是必然的。到80年代中期，美国人对日趋衰退的工业竞争能力迷惑不解；从第3段的内容可知，所有这一切导致了一种信心危机。美国人不再把繁荣当作是理所当然的事。他们开始认为自己缺乏经济头脑，他们认为其收入不久也将下跌。在80年代中期，对美国工业走下坡路的原因作了一次又一次的调查。这些调查有时得出令人惊讶的结果，那就是告诫海外的竞争实力愈来愈强。据此可知，一个国家的经济是衰退还是繁荣都是由于竞争所导致的。B项与文章的意思相符，因此B项为正确答案。
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