Federal efforts to aid minority businesses began in the 1960’s when the Small Business Administration (SBA) began making federal

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问题     Federal efforts to aid minority businesses began in the 1960’s when the Small Business Administration (SBA) began making federally guaranteed loans and government-sponsored management and technical assistance available to minority business enterprises. While this program enabled many minority entrepreneurs to form new businesses, the results were disappointing, since managerial inexperience, unfavorable locations, and capital shortages led to high failure rates. Even years after the program was implemented, minority business receipts were not quite two percent of the national economy’s total receipts.
    Recently federal policymakers have adopted an approach intended to accelerate development of the minority business sector by moving away from directly aiding small minority enterprises and toward supporting larger, growth-oriented minority firms through intermediary companies. In this approach, large corporations participate in the development of successful and stable minority businesses by making use of government-sponsored venture capital. The capital is used by a participating company to establish a Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Company or MESBIC. The MESBIC then provides capital and guidance to minority businesses that have potential to become future suppliers or customers of the sponsoring company.
    MESBIC’s are the result of the belief that providing established firms with easier access to relevant management techniques and more job-specific experience, as well as substantial amounts of capital, gives those firms a greater opportunity to develop sound business foundations than does simply making general management experience and small amounts of capital available. Further, since potential markets for the minority businesses already exist through the sponsoring companies, the minority businesses face considerably less risk in terms of location and market fluctuation. Following early financial and operating problems, sponsoring corporations began to capitalize MESBIC’s far above the legal minimum of $500,000 in order to generate sufficient income and to sustain the quality of management needed. MESBIC’s are now emerging as increasingly important financing sources for minority enterprises.
    Ironically, MESBIC staffs, which usually consist of Hispanic and Black professionals, tend to approach investments in minority firms more pragmatically than do many MESBIC directors, who are usually senior managers from sponsoring corporations. The latter often still think mainly in terms of the "social responsibility approach" and thus seem to prefer deals that are riskier and less attractive than normal investment criteria would warrant. Such differences in viewpoint have produced uneasiness among many minority staff members, who feel that minority entrepreneurs and businesses should be judged by established business considerations. These staff members believe their point of view is closer to the original philosophy of MESBIC’s and they are concerned that, unless a more prudent course is followed, MESBIC directors may revert to policies likely to re-create the disappointing results of the original SBA approach.
Which of the following statements about the SBA program can be inferred from the passage?

选项 A、The maximum term for loans made to recipient businesses was 15 years.
B、Business loans were considered to be more useful to recipient businesses than was management and technical assistance.
C、The anticipated failure rate for recipient businesses was significantly lower than the rate that actually resulted.
D、Recipient businesses were encouraged to relocate to areas more favorable for business development.

答案C

解析 推理判断题。第一段第一句提到,美国中小企业管理局向少数民族企业提供帮助;接着第二句提到,受援助企业的高失败率令人失望。由此可推断,在中小企业管理局项目中,受援助企业的预期失败率明显低于实际发生的失败率,C项表述符合文义,故为答案。第一句提到了federally guaranteed loans,但并未谈及该贷款的最高期限,故排除A项;第一句中指出,中小企业管理局向少数民族企业提供联邦担保的贷款、政府支持的管理和技术援助,但并未对这三种援助的有用程度进行对比,故排除B项;第二句指出,地理位置不利是受援助企业高失败率的原因之一,但并未指明解决方法,故排除D项。
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