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  3. There has rarely been a tougher time to be a carmaker, Squeezed by the credit crunch, rocked by the seesawing price of oil and n

There has rarely been a tougher time to be a carmaker, Squeezed by the credit crunch, rocked by the seesawing price of oil and n

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问题      There has rarely been a tougher time to be a carmaker, Squeezed by the credit crunch, rocked by the seesawing price of oil and now faced with a nasty recession as the banking crisis infects the real economy, the traditional markets of North America, western Europe and Japan, already sluggish (行动迟缓的) for several years, have all but packed up. In America car sales are running at about 16% below last year’s level. Detroit’s struggling big three -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler- are in dire(可怕的) straits. They have gotten a ＄25 billion bailout from Congress and are now looking for much more. In Europe the market is also collapsing. Sales in Japan this year are expected to be the lowest since 1974.
     However, not all is doom and gloom. Mature vehicle markets may be close to saturation (饱和), but there is huge unsatisfied demand in the big emerging car markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRICs). Although not immune from the rich countries’ troubles, they are likely to suffer much less. For one thing, levels of personal debt are far lower and a smaller proportion of cars are bought on credit. For another, the BRIC economies have been expanding so fast that even a slowdown should still leave them with growth rates that look respectable to Western eyes.
     One measure of the BRIC countries’ new importance to the car industry is that, recession or not, global car sales in 2008 may still hit an all-time record of about 59 million. For the first time passenger-vehicle sales in the BRICs, at around 14 million, are likely to overtake those in America, which are expected to be the worst since 1992. As recently as 2005 America outsold them by over 10 million. By the end of this decade China, already the world’s second-biggest market, will probably overtake America’s sales of 16 million-17 million in a "normal" year. In Brazil sales have increased by nearly 30% in each of the past two years.
     It is the irresistible combination of rapid economic growth, favorable demographics (人口特征) and social change in the BRICs that is coming to the carmakers’ rescue and that is likely to account for nearly all their growth for the foreseeable future. America has more than 900 cars (including light trucks) for every 1,000 people of driving age.
     When times are hard, an American family that already has two or three cars will simply postpone buying a new one. But a potential customer in an emerging market who has been saving for years to buy his first car will still want to go ahead. As Carlos Ghosn, the boss of the Renault-Nissan alliance, put it at this year’s Beijing motor show: "Nothing can stop the car being the most coveted product that comes with development."  
What does the author want to show us by the figures in paragraph three?
选项 A、BRICs play an important role in car industry.
B、BRICs’ car sales hit a record high in 2008.
C、America has been outsold by BRICs.
D、China has been the second-biggest market.
答案A
解析 推理判断题。第三段第一句提到One measure of the BRIC countries’ new importance to the car industry is that... ，可知本段主要说明金砖四国对汽车产业的重要性，无论是其销售量创纪录，还是可能超过美国都表明四国的重要性，A 符合题意。
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