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.

　　54.The passage is mainly about .(1994)

　　(A) how American goods are produced

　　(B) how American consumers buy their goods.

　　(C) how American economic system works

　　(D) how American businessmen make their profits

　　解析：

　　第一步：判断本题目属于中心思想题；因此进入中心思想题的解题方法；

　　第二步：阅读文章首、末段首、末句4句话，使用剥洋葱式句子结构分析法得知这个4句话的意思(限于篇幅的原因我们就不一一翻译了)；翻译后我们发现，即使翻译为中文我们还是不知道文章的论点是什么。因此进入第2解题的思维：找最佳答案；

　　第三步：A选项是原文讲到的选项，原文第一段最后一句话说that

　　together determine what shall be produced and how

　　resources are used to produce

　　it，因此A是正确的，但是我们不能立刻就选A，因为我们在找最佳答案，既然是最佳就要有4个选项的比较，完全有可能4个选项都是正确的，但是只能选择一个；B选项是原文第一段最后一句讲到的，the

　　desire of individuals to maximize their

　　incomes，因此B也是正确的，符合原文意思的；C选项

责任编辑:zhaotingting