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  3. The American Industry A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may

The American Industry A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may

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问题                           The American Industry
    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 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, DC. 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 does "the American industry has gone on a diet" mean?
选项 A、Employees in the American industry are on a diet.
B、The American industry has reduced redundant staff.
C、The American industry has shrunk.
D、The American industry has been made more efficient.
答案B
解析 本题考查的是细节理解能力。原文指美国工业在20世界90年代通过改变机构臃肿得到发展。选项A明显不正确。选项B是最接近原文意思的，指裁减多余的员工，精简机构。选项C指美工工业衰减，不符合题意。而选项D只是概括地说美国工业效率提高，并没有具体指出原因。因此本题选B。
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