1994年P(guān)assage 1
The American economic system is organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. Private businessmen, striving to make profits, produce these goods and services in competition with other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating under competitive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.
An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. If the product is in short supply relative to the demand, the price will be bid up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product. Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the American economic system.
The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individuals are allowed to own productive resources (private property) , and they are permitted to hire labor, gain control over natural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.
52. The first two &sentences in the second paragraph tell us that__.
[A] producers can satisfy the consumers by mechanized production
[B] consumers can express their demands through producers
[C] producers decide the prices of products
[D] supply and demand regulate prices
[答案] D
[解題思路]
本題對應(yīng)于第二段的開頭兩句話"An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers"（市場型經(jīng)濟(jì)中的一個(gè)重要因素是反映消費(fèi)者需求以及生產(chǎn)者對消費(fèi)者需求作出反應(yīng)的機(jī)制。在美國經(jīng)濟(jì)中，這一機(jī)制是由價(jià)格體制體現(xiàn)的，價(jià)格隨消費(fèi)者的相對需求與生產(chǎn)者的供應(yīng)情況而上下浮動(dòng)。如果供不應(yīng)求，價(jià)格就上升，有些消費(fèi)者就會(huì)被排擠出市場），即價(jià)格機(jī)制的形成取決于供求關(guān)系，可見D選項(xiàng)符合原文表述。A選項(xiàng)中的"mechanized production"（機(jī)械化制造）是對該段第一句話中"mechanism"（機(jī)制）的誤解，可以排除。B和C選項(xiàng)的表述都顯然不符合原文的內(nèi)容。
[題目譯文]
第二段的前兩句話告訴我們 。
[A] 生產(chǎn)者能夠通過機(jī)械化的生產(chǎn)滿足消費(fèi)者
[B] 消費(fèi)者可以通過生產(chǎn)者來表達(dá)他們的需求
[C] 生產(chǎn)者決定產(chǎn)品的價(jià)格
[D] 供給和需求狀況規(guī)定了價(jià)格
