As Oil Declines, So does America
More than 100 years ago, America’s first great economic (26) abroad was spearheaded by its giant oil companies, notably John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. These companies (27) powerful beachheads in Mexico and Venezuela, and later in parts of Asia, North Africa and, of course, the Middle East. (28) they became ever more dependent on the extraction of oil in distant lands, American foreign policy began to be (29) around acquiring and protecting US oil concessions in major (30) areas.
With World War Ⅱ and the Cold War, oil and US national (31) became thoroughly intertwined. After all, the United States had prevailed over the Axis (32) in significant part because it possessed vast reserves of domestic petroleum, while Germany and Japan lacked them, depriving their forces of vital (33) supplies in the final years of the war. As it happened, though, the United States was using up its domestic (34) so rapidly that, even before World War Ⅱ was over, Washington (35) its attention to finding new overseas sources of crude oil that could be (36) under American control. As a result, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and a host of other Middle Eastern producers would become key US oil suppliers (37) American military protection.
There can be (38) question that, for a time, American domination of world oil production would prove a potent source of economic and military power. (39) World War Ⅱ, an abundance of cheap US oil spurred the (40) of vast new industries, including civilian air travel, highway construction, a (41) of suburban housing and commerce, mechanized agriculture, and plastics.
A. stayed B. kept C. remained D. contained
Abundant oil also underlay the global expansion of the country’s (42) power, as the Pentagon defended the world while becoming one of the planet’s great oil guzzlers. Its global dominion came to (43) on an ever-expanding array of oil-powered ships, planes, tanks and missiles. As long as the Middle East—and especially Saudi Arabia—served essentially as an American gas station and oil (44) a cheap commodity, all this was relatively painless. That is why the use of military force has been a (45) of American foreign policy since 1987.
参考答案：C
解析： “remain”和“stay”都指“继续停留”或“继续保持某种状态、关系或行动。”remain常可与stay互换。1．表示“继续待在某处”时，应该用不及物动词remain或stay，例如：Stay indoors for a few days until you recover from your cold.及He remained in his seat after all the other students had gone home.2．表示“继续保持或处于原来的状态”时，可用remain或stay，例如：Three of them remained single. Shops should remain open till later in the evening．及The door stayed closed．But the police themselves prefer to stay unarmed.3．表示“暂住、短期停留”时，只能用不及物动词stay。例如：My mother-in-law stayed with us this week when she visited us. 4．表示“残留、剩下”时，只能用不及物动词remain．例如：Not much of the house remained after the fire.及Of the seven brothers, only four now remain; the rest are dead. 5 remain强调“继续停留于一处或保持原状态、情况性质而不改变”，stay强调“某人[物]继续留在原地而不离开”，如：This place remains cool all summer．这个地方整个夏天都凉爽。及He stayed to see the end of the game. Keep相当于be动词，后跟形容词，表示维持一种状态，比如：keep calm；keep还可以跟名词，表示保留收藏什么东西，比如：keep this book；而stay后跟副词、介词短语的情况比较多。比如stay here，stay overnight．此题选“remained”，是指如果美国的石油继续保持便宜的状态的话。