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 invented and 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 or 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 bas yielded io blind pride. "American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quickwitted," 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 D.C. 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 che United States.”

　　測試題

　　1. When the economy of European and Asian were deep in difficulties after WWII, the U.S. was enjoying a period of_______________________.

　　2. Until the 1980s Americans began to realize their_____________was on the decline.

　　3. The loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy caused_______________.

　　4. According to the passage. some findings tended to attribute the causes of America's industrial decline to_____________.

　　5. What was the reason for the revival of the U.S. economy in the l990s in the author's opinion?

　　答案詳解

　　1.[(economic) prosperity]

　　[定位]第1段最后一句。

　　解析：題干the economy of... were deep in difficulties是原文whose economies

　　the war had destroyed的近義改寫，答案在主句中找。主句說戰后的美國繁榮富

　　裕。題干要求填入名詞，因此只需將prosperous改寫為prosperity即可。

　　2.[industrial competitiveness]

　　[定位]第2段第3句。

　　解析：根據時間狀語1980s查找到解題關鍵句。在20世紀80年代，美國人就發現他們的industrial competitiveness逐漸衰落。原文中的found 和fading分別對應題干的realized和on the decline.

　　3.[a crisis of confidence]

　　[定位]第3段第1句。

　　解析：文章第2段主要是用一些具體的例子，描述美國的the retreat from predominance(退出統治地位)，即題干中的loss of U.S. predominance in the world economy，緊接著在第3段總結，說所有這些對美國造成了a crisis of confidence(一場信心危機)，即題干所問的后果。

　　4.[the growing competition from overseas]

　　[定位]第3段最后一句。

　　解析：原文就美國產業衰退的原因引申了一些人的看法，提到某些調查結果中全是關于海外經濟競爭力增長的警告，也就是說這些調查結果傾向于將原因歸結為海外經濟競爭力增長，故答案為the growing competition from overseas。

　　5.[A devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle.]

　　[定位]最后一段第3句。

　　解析：該段第3句中this指代上一句提到的90年代美國經濟的穩步增長，對應題干中的the revival of the U.S. economy in the l990s。答案本句中找。obvious一詞表明作者認為這時期美國經濟的繁榮主要是因為A devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle。后面內容是一些名人對于美國經濟的盲目自信，而非作者的觀點。注意避免觀點張冠李戴。

　　參考譯文

　　長時問且不費力的成功史可能成為一種可怕的阻礙。但是，如果處理得當，它可以變成一種動力。二戰結束后，美國進入了一個熠熠生輝的時期，它的市場規模是任何一個競爭對手的八部以上，這使得它的產業經濟規模無與倫比。它的科學家是世界上最出色的，它的工人在技術上是最棒的。[1]美國和美國人的繁榮富裕是那些經濟受到戰爭摧毀的歐洲人和亞洲人所難以想象的。

　　這種獨占鰲頭的情形隨著其他國家日漸強盛，不可避免地被削弱。同樣不可避免的是逐漸失去統治地位的痛苦滋味。[2]到了20世紀80年代中期，美國人困惑地發現他們的產業競爭力逐漸衰落。一些大的美國產業，如電子消費品，已經在外國的競爭下萎縮或消失。到了l987年，只有一家美國電視制造公司——“頂點”公司存留下來。(現在則蕩然無存：“頂點”已在7月份被南韓LG電子公司收購。)外國生產的汽車和紡織品席卷了美國國內市場。美國的機床制造業處境艱難。曾經有一段時間，連美國發明的處于新的電腦時代核心地位的半導體制造業看上去也將成為下一個犧牲品。

　　[3]所有這一切導致了一場信心危機。美國人不再把繁榮當作理所當然的事情。他們開始相信他們做生意的辦法不對頭，他們的收入也會因此很快下降。在80年代中期人們對美國產業衰退的原因提出一個又一個的質疑。[4]他們間或拋出的聳人聽聞的調查結果充滿了關于海外經濟競爭力增長的警告。

　　形勢改變得多快啊!1995年，美國可以回顧過去五年里經濟的穩步增長，而日本則一直在苦苦掙扎。[5]很少美國人把這個原因單純地歸結為美元貶值或商業周期轉變這樣明顯的原因。自我懷疑為盲目自大所替代。按照哈佛大學肯尼迪政府學院的行政院長理查德·卡佛納的說法，“美國產業改變了結構，進行了瘦身運動，學會了如何更加機敏地反應”。“看到我們的工商業怎么提高生產力讓我為自己是個美國人而感到驕傲，”華盛頓特區的智囊團卡托學會的史蒂芬·摩爾如是說。而哈佛大學商學院的威廉·薩爾曼相信人們在回顧這段時期時，會把它看成“美國企業管理的黃金時代”。