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  3. It is hard to pinpoint the date at which Americans developed an Indian—or perhaps British fatalism about the declining quality o

It is hard to pinpoint the date at which Americans developed an Indian—or perhaps British fatalism about the declining quality o

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问题     It is hard to pinpoint the date at which Americans developed an Indian—or perhaps British fatalism about the declining quality of their infrastructure. When my British mother spent several months in the US in the 1950s, it was dazzlingly futuristic. There was air conditioning, an icebox in every fridge, ubiquitous neon lights and an open road on which even the working class could afford to drive. But bit by bit over the past 30 years, the world’s first truly modern infrastructure has shown its age. It has been starved by a generation of under-investment. And Americans have adapted around it.
    At some point in the next 12 months, we will discover whether the US has the will to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century. If all goes well, Congress will take steps to avert a fiscal cliff before January 1. As part of that deal lawmakers will schedule another ticking time bomb for late 2013, before which they will have to strike a larger bargain or hit another fiscal cliff. The likelihood is that Congress will shrink the already meagre federal investment budget. The hope, as the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Center puts it, is that Congress will "cut to invest" rather than doing so crudely across the board.
    There are three reasons to worry. First, there is remarkably little public outrage over the dilapidation in the power grid, public roads, domestic airports and waterways. This means that lawmakers will be feeling stronger pressures in other directions(such as defending the existing low level of capital gains tax, for example, or maintaining job-creating defence budgets). It is hard to fly domestically in the US and not at regular intervals face heavy delays, cancellations or being bumped off your flight. It is also hard not to miss the impressively stoical reaction of most passengers.
    Second, most Americans are unaware of how far behind the rest of the world their country has fallen. According to the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness report, US infrastructure ranks below 20th in most of the nine categories, and below 30 for quality of air transport and electricity supply. The US gave birth to the internet the kind of decentralised network that the US power grid desperately needs, yet according to the OECD club of mostly rich nations, average US internet speeds are barely a 10th of those in countries such as South Korea and Germany. In an age where the global IT superhighway is no longer a slogan, this is no joke. The budding US entrepreneur can survive gridlocked traffic, but a slow internet can be crippling.
    Third, it may be asking too much of Washington in its present state of polarisation to give the green light to an ambitious infrastructure plan. In a departure from their party’s traditions, many Republicans are now ideologically opposed to any serious federal role in infrastructure and want to decentralise it to the states. It is thus also a stretch to imagine Congress setting up a public infrastructure bank, as President Barack Obama has requested. The bank would use $ 10bn in seed money to leverage a multiple of that in private money for cross-state projects much like the European Investment Bank. The chances are it will stay on the drawing board.
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that______.
选项 A、infrastructure transformation is a bipartisan pursuit in the US
B、the US still has a long way to go to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century
C、republicans have a tradition of opposing to any serious federal role in infrastructure
D、congress will set up a public infrastructure bank by the end of this year
答案B
解析 本题考查考生对最后一段内容的理解。最后一段指出由于华盛顿目前处于两党对立的状态，此时不可能对基础设施建设计划达成共识。而由于许多共和党人如今在意识形态上反对联邦在基础设施建设上履行任何重要职能，美国国会也不可能建立一家公共基础设施银行。可见，决定美国能否进行基础设施改造的关键性问题——联邦投资，在短期内无法实现，因此可以推断出．让其基础设施步入21世纪，美国还有很长的一段路要走。B项正确。美国基础设施改造并不是两党的共同追求．最后一段一开始就说两党在这一问题上存在分歧，因此A错误。最后一段讲到“与共和党传统相悖的是，许多共和党人如今在意识形态上反对联邦在基础设施建设上履行任何重要职能”，因此C错误．反对联邦在基础设施建设上履行任何重要职能并不是共和党的一贯做法。而由于共和党的反对，美国国会不能建立一家公共基础设施银行。最后一句明确说道“这家银行可能仍将停留在规划中”，因此D项错误。
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