Surprisingly, since modern PR was largely anAmerican invention, America's relations is beingthreatened by PR efforts in other countries. Tenyears ago, for example, the world’s top five public relations agencies were American-owned. In1991, only one was. The British in particular are becoming more sophisticated and creative.A recent survey found that more than half of all British companies include PR as part of theircorporate (公司的) planning activities, compared to about one-third of U.S. companies. It maynot be long before London replaces New York as the capital of PR.

　　Why is America lagging behind in the global PR race? First, Americans as a whole tend to befairly provincial and take more of an interest in local affairs. Knowledge of world geography, forexample, has never been strong in this country. Secondly, Americans lag behind their Europeanand Asian counterparts (相對(duì)應(yīng)的人) in knowing a second language. Less than 5 percent ofBurson—Marshall’s U.S. employees know two languages. Ogilvy and Mather has about the samepercentage. Conversely, some European firms have half or more of their employees fluent in asecond language. Finally, people involved in PR abroad tend to keep a closereye on internationalaffairs. In the financial PR area, for instance, most Americans read the Wall Street Journal.Overseas, their counterparts read the Journal as well as the Financial Times of London and TheEconomist, publications not often read in this country.

　　Perhaps the PR industry might take a lesson from Ted Turner of CNN (Cable News Network).Turner recently announced that the word “foreign”would no longer be used on CNN newsbroadcasts. According to Turner, global communications have made the nations of the worldso interdependent that there is no longer any such things as foreign.

　　練習(xí)題：

　　Choose correct answers to the question:

　　1. According to the passage, America's relations is being threatened because of________.

　　A. an unparalleled increase in the number of public relations companies

　　B. shrinking cultural differences and new communications technologies

　　C. the decreasing number of multinational corporations in the U.S.

　　D. increased efforts of other countries in public relations

　　2. London could soon replace New York as the center of PR because ________.

　　A. British companies are more ambitious than U.S. companies

　　B. British companies place more importance on PR than U.S. companies

　　C. British companies are heavily involved in planning activities

　　D. four of the world’s top public relations agencies are British-owned

　　3. The word “provincial” (Line 2, Para. 3) means “________”.

　　A. limited in outlook

　　B. like people from the provinces

　　C. rigid in thinking

　　D. interested in world financial affairs

　　4. We learn from the third paragraph that employees in the American PR industry________.

　　A. speak at least one foreign language fluently

　　B. are ignorant about world geography

　　C. are not as sophisticated as their European counterparts

　　D. enjoy reading a great variety of English business publications

　　5. What PR industry take from Ted Turner of CNN?

　　A. American PR companies should be more internationally-minded.

　　B. The American PR industry should develop global communications technologies.

　　C. People working in PR should be more fluent in foreign languages.

　　D. People involved in PR should avoid using the word “foreign”.

　　答案詳解：

　　1.[D] 事實(shí)細(xì)節(jié)題。由第2段第1句美國(guó)在公關(guān)方面威脅是來(lái)自其他國(guó)家在這方面的努力，故得知D為正確答案。

　　2.[B] 事實(shí)細(xì)節(jié)題。第2段最后兩句提到，最近的研究調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，英國(guó)有超過(guò)一半的公司將PR作為其公司的計(jì)劃活動(dòng)的一部分,而美國(guó)只有三分之一的公司這樣做，不久倫敦將取代紐約成為PR的中心。因此B為正確答案。

　　3.[A] 詞義理解題。provincial是province“省;區(qū)域;范圍”的派生詞，可見(jiàn)它與“區(qū)域性的、一定范圍的”的意思有關(guān)。文中提到美國(guó)人相當(dāng)provincial，更關(guān)心的是本地的事情，因此provincial的意思與A最為接近。

　　4.[C] 推理判斷題。第3段提到了美國(guó)在全球公共競(jìng)賽中與其歐洲對(duì)手相比落后的三個(gè)主要原因：美國(guó)人視野較窄，只關(guān)心本地的事物，關(guān)于世界地理的知識(shí)了解不多(但并不是一無(wú)所知，因此B不正確);外語(yǔ)流利的人很少(可見(jiàn)A是不正確的);閱讀面很窄，只讀《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》(可見(jiàn)D也不正確)。由此可推斷出美國(guó)人與其歐洲對(duì)手相比，沒(méi)有那么老練，因此C為正確答案。

　　5.[A] 事實(shí)細(xì)節(jié)題。文章最后兩句提到，特納宣稱(chēng)在CNN的新聞廣播中“foreign”一詞將不再被使用，全球化的通訊已經(jīng)使得世界各國(guó)相互依靠，從而不再需要“foreign”這類(lèi)東西，也就是說(shuō)所有人都應(yīng)當(dāng)具有國(guó)際觀念，因此A為正確答案。