托福閱讀備考之事實(shí)信息題講解
回顧托福閱讀的所有題型，其中有2種題型占據(jù)的比例----“詞匯題”和“事實(shí)信息題”，前者每一場(chǎng)考試大約考察10-12題左右，而后者大約也會(huì)考察12題左右。因此，從每一場(chǎng)考試的39-42題總量上來(lái)看，這兩種題型就占據(jù)了半壁江山。從難度系數(shù)上來(lái)看事實(shí)信息題的難度明顯高于詞匯題。那么，今天筆者打算簡(jiǎn)單談一談該題型的解決方法。
托福閱讀備考之事實(shí)信息題講解
1. 提問(wèn)方式：
Accordingto paragraph… which of the following statements is true of / concerned with /related to X?
例：According toparagraph 1, what was true of the Sahara region around 6,000 B.C.? (TPO 28 EarlySaharan Pastoralists)
Accordingto paragraph… why / how / what….?
例：According to paragraph 1, why is playdifficult to define? (TPO 30 Role of Playin Development)
分析：通過(guò)以上兩種不同提問(wèn)方式可以總結(jié)出該題型有以下幾個(gè)特點(diǎn)：
1). 該題型是就某段話(huà)當(dāng)中的某個(gè)細(xì)節(jié)信息(即提問(wèn)方式1中的X)進(jìn)行提問(wèn)。
2). 該題型可以圍繞該細(xì)節(jié)信息的不同方面進(jìn)行提問(wèn)，通過(guò)特殊疑問(wèn)詞which;what; why; how可以看出。
3). 由于題干中未出現(xiàn)infer;suggest; indicate等字樣，所以該題型旨在考察文本信息的字面含義，無(wú)需考生進(jìn)行文本的隱含意推理。
2. 解題步驟：
Step 1: 讀題干，找出定位詞
注意：如果是提問(wèn)方式1, 那么定位詞則是位于介詞of/with/ to后面的信息。
如果是提問(wèn)方式2, 那么定位詞一般是名詞，并且是非主題性的名詞(當(dāng)然定位詞不一定只能找一個(gè)，一般可以找2到3個(gè)，因?yàn)槎ㄎ辉~越多相對(duì)定位的位置也會(huì)越。)
例：
Accordingto paragraph 2, which of the following presents a particular challenge toresearchers who study play behavior in animals?(TPO30 Role of Play in Development)
分析：通過(guò)提問(wèn)方式類(lèi)似于第1種提問(wèn)方式，其實(shí)題干可以改寫(xiě)成whichof the following statements is true of the challenge to researchers who… 因此，定位詞應(yīng)該是位于介詞of后面的challenge toresearchers。至于后面的playbehavior就不需要了，因?yàn)樗鼘儆谕ㄆ闹黝}詞。
Accordingto paragraph 4, how did the Catholic Church react to the introduction ofmechanical clocks? (TPO 30 The Inventionof Mechanical Clock)
分析：通過(guò)提問(wèn)方式屬于第2種提問(wèn)方式，因此考生們應(yīng)該在題干中找出名詞部分，考生們可以看到兩組名詞：CatholicChurch和MechanicalClocks, 并且這兩組詞都是我們所需要的定位詞。
Paragraph5 answers which of the following questions about mechanical clocks. (TPO 30 The Invention of Mechanical Clock)
分析：通過(guò)題干找出題干中一疑似的定位詞組Mechanical Clocks, 但是卻發(fā)現(xiàn)整篇文章都在討論MechanicalClocks。這種類(lèi)型的提問(wèn)方式是考生們怕看到的，因?yàn)槎ㄎ辉~無(wú)效。此刻建議考生們可以反過(guò)來(lái)先讀選項(xiàng)，然后根據(jù)選項(xiàng)中的定位詞回讀段落尋找答案。
Step 2: 通過(guò)題干中定位詞回原文進(jìn)行定位。
注意：在定位的過(guò)程中考生們可能會(huì)遇到以下2個(gè)問(wèn)題：
問(wèn)題1：定位詞在原文中可能是非原文原詞(如果是專(zhuān)有名詞一般在原文中就是原文原詞，但如果是普通名詞則有可能是非原文原詞)。
例1：定位詞為原文原詞的情況
Paragraph 1: Evolutionary biologists believe thatspeciation, the formation of a new species, often begins when some kind ofphysical barrier arises and divides a population of a single species intoseparate subpopulations. Physical separation between subpopulations promotesthe formation of new species because once the members of one subpopulation canno longer mate with members of another subpopulation, they cannot exchangevariant genes that arise in one of the subpopulations. In the absences of geneflow between the subpopulations, genetic differences between the groups beginto accumulate. Eventually the subpopulations become so genetically distinctthat they cannot interbreed even if the physical barriers between them wereremoved. At this point the subpopulations have evolved into distinct species.This route to speciationis known as allopatry(“alio-” means “different”，and “patria” means “homeland”).(TPO31 Speciationin Geographically Isolated Populations)
Q: According to paragraph 1, allopatric speciation involveswhich of the following?
分析：此題干中的定位詞為allopatric speciation, 為專(zhuān)有名詞，在原文中為原文原詞，即后一句話(huà)為定位句。
例2：定位詞為非原文原詞的情況
Paragraph 2: Playappears to be a developmental characteristic of animals with fairlysophisticated nervous systems, mainly birds and mammals. Play has been studiedmost extensively in primates and canids (dogs). Exactly why animals play isstill a matter debated in the research literature, and the reasons may not bethe same for every species that plays. Determining the functions of play is difficultbecause the functions may be long-term, with beneficial effects not showing upuntil the animal's adulthood. (TPO30 Role of Play in Development)
According toparagraph 2, which of the following presents a particular challenge toresearchers who study play behavior in animals?
O The delay between activities and the benefitsthe animal derives from them.
O The difficulty in determining which animalspecies play and which do not.
O The fact that for most animals, there is noclear transition from youth to full adulthood.
O The lack of research on the play behavior ofanimals other than canids and primates.
分析：此題干中的定位詞為challenge & researchers, 在原文中考生們無(wú)法找到這兩個(gè)定位詞，但是可以找到challenge的同義替換形式difficult, 因此該句即是我們所需要的定位句。
問(wèn)題2：定位詞在原文中出現(xiàn)不止一次。
Paragraph 7: Occasionally, a sequence offossil-rich layers of rock permits a comprehensive look at one type of organismover a long period of time. For example, Peter Sheldon' s studies of trilobites, a now extinct marineanimal with a segmented body, offer a detailed glimpse into three million yearsof evolution in one marine environment. In that study, each of eight different trilobitespecies was observed to undergo a gradual change in the number of segments ---typically an increase of one or two segments over the whole time interval. Nosignificant discontinuous were observed, leading Sheldon to conclude thatenvironmental conditions were quite stable during the period he examined. (TPO30 The Pace of Evolutionary Change)
According toparagraph 7, Peter Sheldon’s studies demonstrated which of the following abouttrilobites?
O They underwent gradual change over a longtime period
O They experienced a number of discontinuoustransitions during their history
O They remained unchanged during a long periodof environmental stability
O They evolved in ways that cannot be countedfor by either of the two competing theories.
分析：通過(guò)題干找出定位詞Peter Sheldon & trilobites, 然后回讀原文進(jìn)行定位，考生們會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這兩組定位詞在原文中分別出現(xiàn)2次。因此，考生們需要定位的范圍變大，難度由此也加大了。這種類(lèi)型的事實(shí)信息題是考生們?cè)诳紙?chǎng)上不愿意看到的一種，但是很不幸的是由新的幾套TPO中的例題顯示這種類(lèi)型的題目正在變多，所以朗閣海外考試研究中心的專(zhuān)家請(qǐng)各位考生平時(shí)在練習(xí)時(shí)加大這種類(lèi)型的考題的練習(xí)。
Step3: 比較定位句與選項(xiàng)的內(nèi)容，選出語(yǔ)義接近的選項(xiàng)。
注意：1). 考生們所看到的定位句可能是一個(gè)非常長(zhǎng)的句子，而選項(xiàng)相對(duì)比較簡(jiǎn)短，所以考生們一定要學(xué)會(huì)從長(zhǎng)難句中截取你所需要的能回答問(wèn)題的部分。簡(jiǎn)單點(diǎn)說(shuō)就是比如題干中問(wèn)你why….;那么，此時(shí)考生們?cè)诜治鲈亩ㄎ痪鋾r(shí)應(yīng)該重點(diǎn)看because這種能夠解釋的部分。
2). 考生們?cè)诒容^定位句與選項(xiàng)時(shí)切忌不能隨意推理，只需要把握文本的字面意思即可。
例1：
Paragraph 3: To what extent competition determines the composition of acommunity and the density of particular species has been the source ofconsiderable controversy. The problem is that competition ordinarily cannot beobserved directly but must be inferred from the spread or increase of onespecies and the concurrent reduction or disappearance of another species. TheRussian biologist G. F. Gause performed numerous two-species experimentsin the laboratory, in which one of the species became extinct when only asingle kind of resource was available. On the basis of these experiments and offield observations, the so-called law of competitive exclusion was formulated,according to which no two species can occupy the same niche. Numerousseeming exceptions to this law have since been found, but they can usually beexplained as cases in which the two species, even though competing for a majorjoint resource, did not really occupy exactly the same niche. (TPO 29 Competition)
Paragraph 3 supports the idea that Gause’s experiments were importantbecause they
O provided a situation in whichcompetition could be removed from the interaction between two species
O showed that previous ideasabout the extent to which competition determines the composition of a communitywere completely mistaken
O helped establish thatcompetition will remove all but one species from any given ecological niche
O offered evidence thatcompetition between species is minimal when there is an overabundance of asingle food source
解題步驟：
1). 讀題干，找出定位詞Gause’s experiments, 然后把握題目問(wèn)的內(nèi)容是有關(guān)于G的實(shí)驗(yàn)的importance。
2). 通過(guò)定位詞回到原文進(jìn)行定位，位于第三句話(huà)。但是第三句只提到了定位詞之一，接下來(lái)的第四句中提到了由此形成了一個(gè)law, 可以對(duì)應(yīng)題干中想問(wèn)的importance。
3). 第3句和第4句兩句定位句的大意為“當(dāng)只有一種食物來(lái)源被提供時(shí)，兩種物種中的一種會(huì)消亡。參照這些實(shí)驗(yàn)和觀(guān)察就形成了競(jìng)爭(zhēng)互斥規(guī)律----沒(méi)有哪兩種物種可以占據(jù)同樣的生態(tài)圈”，接下來(lái)瀏覽四個(gè)選項(xiàng)，發(fā)現(xiàn)C選項(xiàng)大意吻合----確定了競(jìng)爭(zhēng)將會(huì)移除其他所有的物種在任何一個(gè)生態(tài)圈里面。
例2：
As railroad linesfanned out from Chicago, farmers began to acquire open prairie land in Illinois andthen Iowa, putting the fertile, deep black soil into production. Commercialagriculture transformed this remarkable treeless environment. To settlersaccustomed to eastern woodlands, the thousands of square miles of tall grasswere an awesome sight. Indian grass, Canada wild rye, and native big bluestemall grew higher than a person. Because eastern plows could not penetrate thedensely tangled roots of prairie grass, the earliest settlers erected farmsalong the boundary separating the forest from the prairie. In 1837, however,John Deere patented a sharp-cutting steel plow that sliced through the sodwithout soil sticking to the blade. Cyrus McCormick refined a mechanical reaperthat harvested fourteen times more wheat with the same amount of labor. By the1850s McCormick was selling 1,000 reapers a year and could not keep up withdemand, while Deere turned out 10,000 plows annually. (TPO 33 Railroads andCommercial Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century United States)
Accordingto paragraph 5, the firstsettlersgenerally did not farm open prairie land because
A.they could not plow it effectively with the tools that were available.
B.prairie land was usually very expensive to buy.
C.the soil along boundaries between the forest and the prairie was more fertile thanthe soil of the open prairie.
D.the railroad lines had not yet reached the open prairie when the first settlersarrived.
解題步驟：
1).讀題干，找出定位詞settlers& open prairie land, 并且抓住題干問(wèn)的重點(diǎn)是because
2).根據(jù)定位詞定位到句和第三句這樣的語(yǔ)義群，這樣的語(yǔ)義群可以給我們提供一個(gè)大范圍定位，然后接下來(lái)考生們?cè)诘谒木淅锟吹搅薭ecause,所以第四句就是我們需要的定位點(diǎn)。
3).定位句的語(yǔ)義大約為“因?yàn)闁|部的耕種工具無(wú)法穿透這里的根部纏結(jié)在一起的草，因此，早期的定居者們將農(nóng)場(chǎng)建立在了遠(yuǎn)離草原的邊界地區(qū)?！苯酉聛?lái)瀏覽四個(gè)選項(xiàng)，只有A選項(xiàng)提到了因?yàn)楦鞴ぞ叩脑颍赃x擇A選項(xiàng)。
3. 總結(jié)：
1).此種題型必須要先閱讀題干，摸清題干所問(wèn)的具體內(nèi)容，然后再讀文章進(jìn)行定位
2).此種題型既可以只考察某一個(gè)特定的定位句理解;同時(shí)也可以考察2-3個(gè)定位句范圍的意群理解。但無(wú)論怎樣，考生不是漫無(wú)目的地搜索，而是根據(jù)題干有目的性地尋找答案。
托福閱讀材料：如何延長(zhǎng)友情的“保質(zhì)期”
1.Make time for friendships. Nothing makes closeness fade away more than never talking to or seeing each other. While some bonds of friendship may be strong enough to span long silences, most aren't. If you cherish a person's friendship, make time for him or her, whether it's just the occasional phone call, e-mail or a weekly get-together.
為朋友騰出時(shí)間。不交流，也不見(jiàn)面會(huì)讓朋友日漸疏遠(yuǎn)。盡管有的友誼足夠牢固，經(jīng)得起長(zhǎng)時(shí)間冷卻，但大多數(shù)是不行的。如果你珍惜一人友情，就為他或她留出時(shí)間。不管是偶爾打個(gè)電話(huà)，或是發(fā)一封郵件，又或是周末聚會(huì)。
1)On your computer at home or work, make a note to "call friends" regularly.
在你公司或家里的電腦上貼個(gè)便條“給朋友打電話(huà)”。
2)Keep a Post-it note on the phone, the bathroom mirror, the car dashboard, anywhere you're likely to see it.
貼張便條在電話(huà)上，浴室的鏡子上，或汽車(chē)擋板上，任何你可能看到的地方。
3)Also make sure your friends' phone numbers are programmed into your phone. Then call a friend when you have a spare 10 minutes.
確認(rèn)你電話(huà)里存有朋友的電話(huà)號(hào)碼，有空的時(shí)候給朋友打個(gè)電話(huà)。
4)Schedule a regular once-a-month lunch – same time, same place.
定期安排一個(gè)月一次的午餐，同一時(shí)間，同一地點(diǎn)。
2.Remember: a true friend doesn't flee when changes occur. Nothing is sadder for new parents than to find that their single friends have abandoned them because of the baby. A good friend is one who stays true through it all – marriage, parenthood, new jobs, new homes, any losses. Just because a situation's changed doesn't mean the person has.
記住：真正是朋友是在發(fā)生變故時(shí)仍留在你身邊。沒(méi)有什么比這更難過(guò)了，剛當(dāng)爸媽卻發(fā)現(xiàn)他們的單身朋友因?yàn)樗麄冇辛诵『⒕头艞壛怂麄?。好朋友是能夠?jīng)歷一切的：結(jié)婚，生兒育女，新工作，新家庭，任何損失。因?yàn)榍闆r改變了并不意味人改變了。
3.Make sure you aren't being a burden to a friend. Friendships fade away if there isn't an equilibrium between the give and the take. Be sensitive to how much your friend can and can't offer you – be it time, energy or help – and don't overstep the mark. And vice versa: friendships that drain you will not last. If a friendship is out of balance, talk the situation through.
確保你不會(huì)成為朋友的負(fù)擔(dān)。如果付出和回報(bào)不平衡，友誼會(huì)逐漸褪色。對(duì)于哪些朋友能給予哪些不能給予要很敏感—無(wú)論是時(shí)間，精力或幫助，不要逾越界限，反之亦然。拖后腿的友誼不會(huì)長(zhǎng)久的。如果友誼失去了平衡，就要說(shuō)出來(lái)。
4.Be a good listener. It can be the hardest thing in the world to do – simply to listen as he or she pours it all out or is seeking your advice or opinion. To be a better listener, follow this advice:
做一個(gè)好的聆聽(tīng)者。這也許是世界上最難的事情—只是聽(tīng)他或她的傾訴或是向你尋求建議。做一位好的聆聽(tīng)者，有以下建議：
1)Maintain eye contact. Offer nods and murmurs to indicate that you understand his or her point of view.
保持眼神交流。時(shí)不時(shí)的點(diǎn)頭和低語(yǔ)表明你了解他的觀(guān)點(diǎn)。
2)Don't finish your friend's sentences. If you catch yourself planning your response while your friend is still talking, gently remind yourself to focus.
不要插話(huà)。如果當(dāng)朋友在講話(huà)時(shí)你正準(zhǔn)備回應(yīng)，提醒你自己集中精力。
3)Minimize distractions – don't write or read e-mails, open the mail or watch television while you're on the phone to your friend. He or she will hear the lack of interest in your responses.
盡量減少分心—當(dāng)你在接朋友電話(huà)時(shí)不要寫(xiě)或閱讀電子郵件，打開(kāi)郵件或看電視。他或她會(huì)在你的回答中聽(tīng)到冷漠。
4)Be careful with advice. Assume your friend wants to let off steam, not necessarily ask for a plan of action.
提供建議需謹(jǐn)慎。假使你的朋友只是想發(fā)泄不滿(mǎn)，不一定是尋求行動(dòng)的計(jì)劃。
5.Be in your friend's corner if he or she's not there to defend him or herself. If you're at a gathering at which someone mentions your friend disparagingly, defend him or her against gossip or criticism. Say, "Mary is my friend, and it makes me feel bad to hear you talk this way." Sooner or later, news of your loyalty will travel back to your pal, and it will deepen your friendship.
當(dāng)朋友不在場(chǎng)時(shí)要站出來(lái)為他們辯護(hù)。當(dāng)你站在一群人中正在說(shuō)你朋友的壞話(huà)，你要站出來(lái)為他辯護(hù)，說(shuō)，“瑪麗是我的朋友，你們這樣說(shuō)她，我感覺(jué)很不好?！痹缤?，你朋友會(huì)知道你對(duì)友情的忠誠(chéng)，而且會(huì)加深你們的友誼。
托福閱讀背景知識(shí)：美國(guó)的歷史
關(guān)于美國(guó)的歷史
The continent's first inhabitants walked into North America across what is now the Bering Strait from Asia. For the next 20,000 years these pioneering settlers were essentially left alone to develop distinct and dynamic cultures. In the modern US, their descendants include the Pueblo people in what is now New Mexico; Apache in Texas; Navajo in Arizona, Colorado and Utah; Hopi in Arizona; Crow in Montana; Cherokee in North Carolina; and Mohawk and Iroquois in New York State.
The Norwegian explorer Leif Eriksson was the first European to reach North America, some 500 years before a disoriented Columbus accidentally discovered 'Indians' in Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1492. By the mid-1550s, much of the Americas had been poked and prodded by a parade of explorers from Spain, Portugal, England and France.
The first colonies attracted immigrants looking to get rich quickly and return home, but they were soon followed by migrants whose primary goal was to colonize. The Spanish founded the first permanent European settlement in St Augustine, Florida, in 1565; the French moved in on Maine in 1602, and Jamestown, Virginia, became the first British settlement in 1607. The first Africans arrived as 'indentured laborers' with the Brits a year prior to English Puritan pilgrims' escape of religious persecution. The pilgrims founded a colony at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in 1620 and signed the famous Mayflower Compact - a declaration of self-government that would later be echoed in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. British attempts to assert authority in its 13 North American colonies led to the French and Indian War (1757-63). The British were victorious but were left with a nasty war debt, which they tried to recoup by imposing new taxes. The rallying cry 'no taxation without representation' united the colonies, who ceremoniously dumped caffeinated cargo overboard during the Boston Tea Party. Besieged British general Cornwallis surrendered to American commander George Washington five years later at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. In the 19th century, America's mantra was 'Manifest Destiny.' A combination of land purchases, diplomacy and outright wars of conquest had by 1850 given the US roughly its present shape. In 1803, Napoleon dumped the entire Great Plains for a pittance, and Spain chipped in with Florida in 1819. The Battle of the Alamo during the 1835 Texan Revolution paved the way for Texan independence from Mexico, and the war with Mexico (1846-48) secured most of the southwest, including California.
The systematic annihilation of the buffalo hunted by the Plains Indians, encroachment on their lands, and treaties not worth the paper they were written on led to Native Americans being herded into reservations, deprived of both their livelihoods and their spiritual connection to their land. Nineteenth-century immigration drastically altered the cultural landscape as settlers of predominantly British stock were joined by Central Europeans and Chinese, many attracted by the 1849 gold rush in California. The South remained firmly committed to an agrarian life heavily reliant on African American slave labor. Tensions were on the rise when abolitionist Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. The South seceded from the Union, and the Civil War, by far the bloodiest war in America's history, began the following year. The North prevailed in 1865, freed the slaves and introduced universal adult male suffrage. Lincoln's vision for reconstruction, however, died with his assassination. America's trouncing of the Spaniards in 1898 marked the USA's ascendancy as a superpower and woke the country out of its isolationist slumber.
The US still did its best not to get its feet dirty in WWI's trenches, but finally capitulated in 1917, sending over a million troops to help sort out the pesky Germans. Postwar celebrations were cut short by Prohibition in 1920, which banned alcohol in the country. The 1929 stock-market crash signaled the start of the Great Depression and eventually brought about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which sought to lift the country back to prosperity. After the Japanese dropped in uninvited on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US played a major role in defeating the Axis powers. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 not only ended the war with Japan, but ushered in the nuclear age. The end of WWII segued into the Cold War - a period of great domestic prosperity and a surface uniformity belied by paranoia and betrayal. Politicians like Senator Joe McCarthy took advantage of the climate to fan anticommunist flames, while the USSR and USA stockpiled nuclear weapons and fought wars by proxy in Korea, Africa and Southeast Asia. Tensions between the two countries reached their peak in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The 1960s was a decade of profound social change, thanks largely to the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests and the discovery of sex, drugs and rock & roll. The Civil Rights movement gained momentum in 1955 with a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. As a nonviolent mass protest movement, it aimed at breaking down segregation and regaining the vote for disfranchised Southern blacks. The movement peaked in 1963 with Martin Luther King Jr's 'I have a dream speech' in Washington, DC, and the passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, America's youth were rejecting the conformity of the previous decade, growing their hair long and smoking lots of dope. 'Tune in, turn on, drop out' was the mantra of a generation who protested heavily (and not disinterestedly) against the war in Vietnam. Assassinations of prominent political leaders - John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr - took a little gloss off the party, and the American troops mired in Vietnam took off the rest. NASA's moon landing in 1969 did little to restore national pride. In 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign from office, due to his involvement in the cover-up of the Watergate burglaries, bringing American patriotism to a new low.
The 1970s and '80s were a period of technological advancement and declining industrialism. Self image took a battering at the hands of Iranian Ayatollah Khomeni. A conservative backlash, symbolized by the election and popular two-term presidency of actor Ronald Reagan, sought to put some backbone in the country. The US then concentrated on bullying its poor neighbors in Central America and the Caribbean, meddling in the affairs of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Grenada. The collapse of the Soviet Bloc's 'Evil Empire' in 1991 left the US as the world's sole superpower, and the Gulf War in 1992 gave George Bush the opportunity to lead a coalition supposedly representing a 'new world order' into battle against Iraq. Domestic matters, such as health reform, gun ownership, drugs, racial tension, gay rights, balancing the budget, the tenacious Whitewater scandal and the Monica Lewinsky 'Fornigate' affair tended to overshadow international concerns during the Clinton administration. In a bid to kickstart its then-ailing economy, the USA signed NAFTA, a free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, in 1993, invaded Haiti in its role of upholder of democracy in 1994, committed thousands of troops to peacekeeping operations in Bosnia in 1995, hosted the Olympics in 1996 and enjoyed, over the past few years, the fruits of a bull market on Wall St. The 2000 presidential election made history by being the most highly contested race in the nation's history.
The Democratic candidate, Al Gore, secured the majority of the popular vote but lost the election when all of Florida's electoral college votes went to George W Bush, who was ahead of Gore in that state by only 500 votes. Demands for recounts, a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court in favor of partial recounts, and a handful of lawsuits generated by both parties were brought to a halt when the US Supreme Court split along party lines and ruled that all recounts should cease. After five tumultuous weeks, Bush was declared the winner. The early part of Bush's presidency saw the US face international tension, with renewed violence in the Middle East, a spy-plane standoff with China and nearly global disapproval of US foreign policy with regard to the environment. On the domestic front, a considerably weakened economy provided challenges for national policymakers. Whether the US can continue to hold onto its dominant position on the world stage and rejuvenate its economy remains to be seen.
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