You hear the refrain all the time: the U.S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn’t feel good. Why doesn’t ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent (富裕的) Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97.
The Affluent Society is a modern classic because it helped define a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, “hunGER, sickness, and cold” threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote. “Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours.” After World War II, the dread of another Great Depression gave way to an economic boom. In the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4.5 percent.
To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would breed discontent. Through advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn’t really want or need. Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unfulfilling. Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people instinctively—and wrongly—labeled government only as “a necessary evil.”
52. What question does John Kenneth Galbraith raise in his book The Affluent Society?
A) Why statistics don’t tell the truth about the economy.
B) Why affluence doesn’t guarantee happiness.
C) How happiness can be promoted today.
D) What lies behind an economic boom.
真题阅读分析四步法:
第一步:针对题目进行分析:
包括两部分:
1)对于正确选项的选取,最重要的定位与替换,这是阅读理解解题和得高分的精髓。
2)对干扰项的分析,提高抗干扰能力;总结常见的干扰项的命题方式
对于第52题来说,我们根据题干中的定位词The Affluent Society很快定位到原文的第一段的本句“It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent (富裕的) Society by John Kenneth Galbraith”。本句中所出现的“question”正是题干中的”question”,因为本句中question是一个指代,必须追到该句的上一句,并且去寻找question所指代的内容,这才是我们需要找的答案,通过定位与寻找,不难发现B选项就是我们所找的答案。