【练习】

A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handling, it may become a driving force. When __1

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 other　competitor, given its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its __2

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 that the war had destroyed. __3

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 found __4

themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competition. Some __5

huge American industries, such as consumer electronic, had shrunk __6

or vanished in the face of foreign competition. Foreign-made cars　and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market and America’s　machine-tool industry was on the rope. For a while it looked as __7

though the making of semiconductors, which America had sat at the __8

heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.
All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped talking　prosperity for grant. They began to believe that their way of doing __9

business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly　begin to fall as well. The mid-1980 brought one inquiry after __10

another into the causes of America’s industrial decline. Their sometimes　sensational findings were filled with warnings about growing competition　from overseas.

 
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