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 has yielded to blind pride." American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted," 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, DC. 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 the United States."

　　51. The U.S.achieved its predominance after World War Ⅱbecause_____.

　　[A] it had made painstaking efforts towards this goal

　　[B] its domestic market was eight times larger than before

　　[C] the war had destroyed the economies of most potential competitors

　　[D] the unparalleled size of its workforce had given an impetus to its economy

　　[答案] C

　　[解题思路]

　　本题对应信息为第一段的最后一句话“America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed”(美国的繁荣是那些经济遭到战争破坏的欧亚诸国做梦也无法达到的)，可见美国取得主导地位在很大程度上是由于二战摧毁了其潜在竞争对手的经济，因此C选项为正确答案。A选项中的painstaking efforts与第一段中的“effortless”意思相左，是错误选项。B选项与原文不符，因为文章的意思是美国的国内市场比起竞争对手大8倍，不是比以前大8倍。D选项提到的劳动力因素不是主要原因。