2001年Passage 4

The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at this process and worrying: Won't the wave of business concentration turn into an uncontrollable anti-competitive force?

There's no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful. Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in 1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early 1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability of the world economy.

I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation and communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers' demands. All these are beneficial, not detrimental, to consumers. As productivity grows, the world's wealth increases.

Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty. Yet it is hard to imagine that the merger of a few oil firms today could re-create the same threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the US, when the Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World Com, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing-witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault and Nissan-but it does not appear that consumers are being hurt.

Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who is going to supervise, regulate and operate as lender of last resort with the gigantic banks that are being created? Won't multinationals shift production from one place to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair competition? And should one country take upon itself the role of defending competition on issues that affect many other nations, as in the US vs. Microsoft case?

65. From paragraph 4 we can infer that ________.
[A] the increasing concentration is certain to hurt consumers
[B] WorldCom serves as a good example of both benefits and costs
[C] the costs of the globalization process are enormous
[D] the Standard Oil trust might have threatened competition

[答案] D

[解題思路]

本文的對應信息為原文第四段，可將選項與原文一一對應來分析。A選項的說法過于絕對，而該段第一句指出"Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty"（目前證明這股合并浪潮是利還是弊的實例并不多），因此是否會損害到消費者的利益尚無定論。B選項的錯誤則在于WorldCom指是在benefit方面是一個好的例子，但它并不是作為costs方面的例子。C選項的表述在原文并為提及，因而也不正確。D選項對應于該段的第二句話，因而是正確答案。

[題目譯文]

從第四段中我們可以推斷                。
[A] 不斷加劇的合并一定會傷害到消費者
[B] 世界電訊在成本和收益兩個方面上看都是一個好的例子
[C] 全球化進程的成本是巨大的
[D] 標準石油托拉斯可能曾威脅到其競爭者