英语能力提升阅读1答案.doc

ⅠPop Stars Earn Much
Pop stars today enjoy a style of living which was once the prerogative only of Royalty. Wherever they go, people turn out in their thousands to greet them. The crowds go wild trying to catch a brief glimpse of their smiling, colorfully dressed idols. The stars are transported in their chauffeur driven Rolls-Royces, private helicopters or executive aeroplanes. They are surrounded by a permanent entourage of managers, press agents and bodyguards. Photographs of them appear regularly in the press and all their comings and goings are reported, for, like Royalty, pop stars are news. If they enjoy many of the privileges of Royalty, they certainly share many of the inconveniences as well. It is dangerous for them to make unscheduled appearances in public. They must be constantly shielded from the adoring crowds which idolize them. They are no longer private individuals, but public property. The financial rewards they receive for this sacrifice cannot be calculated, for their rates of pay are astronomical.
And why not? Society has always rewarded its top entertainers lavishly. The great days of Hollywood have become legendary: famous stars enjoyed fame, wealth and adulation on an unprecedented scale. By today’s standards, the excesses of Hollywood do not seem quite so spectacular. A single gramophone record nowadays may earn much more in royalties than the films of the past ever did. The competition for the title ‘Top of the Pops’is fierce, but the rewards are truly colossal.
It is only right that the stars should be paid in this way. Don’t the top men in industry earn enormous salaries for the services they perform to their companies and their countries? Pop star searn vast sums in foreign currency –often more than large industrial concerns –and the taxman can only be grateful fro their massive annual contributions to the exchequer. So who would be grudge them their rewards?
It’s all very well for people in humdrum jobs to moan about the successes and rewards of others. People who make envious remarks should remember that the most famous stars represent only the tip of the iceberg. For every famous star, there are hundreds of others struggling to earn a living. A man working in a steady job and looking forward to a pension at the end of it has no right to expect very high rewards. He has chosen security and peace of mind, so there will always be a limit to what he can earn. But a man who attempts to become a star is taking enormous risks. He knows at the outset that only a handful of competitors ever get to the very top. He knows that years of concentrated effort may be rewarded with complete failure. But he knows, too, that there wards for success are very high indeed: they are the recompense for the huge risks involved and if he achieves them, he has certainly earned them. That’s the essence of private enterprise.
1. The sentence Pop stars’style of living was once the prerogative only of Royalty means
[A] their life was as luxurious as that of royalty. [B] They enjoy what once only belonged to the royalty.
[C] They are rather rich. [D] Their way of living was the same as that of the royalty.
2. What is the author’s attitude toward top stars’high income?
[A] Approval. [B] Disapproval. [C] Ironical. [D] Critical.
3. It can be inferred from the passage.
[A] there exists fierce competition in climbing to the top. [B] People are blind in idolizing stars.
[C] Successful Pop stars give great entertainment. [D] The tax they have paid are great.
4. What can we learn from the passage?
[A] Successful man should get high-income repayment. [B] Pop stars made great contribution to a country.
[C] Pop stars can enjoy the life of royalty. [D] Successful men represent the tip of the iceberg.
5. Which paragraph covers the main idea?
[A] The first. [B] The second. [C] The third. [D] The fourth.
Ⅱ
You hear the refrain all the time: the U.S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn’t feel goo d. 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 dre ad 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—labe led government only as “a necessary evil.”
It’s often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is standing still or falling behind. Well, there are many undeserving rich—overpaid chief executives, for instance. But over any meaningful period, most people’s incomes are increasing. From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted average family income rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200. People feel “squeezed” because their rising incomes often don’t satisfy their rising wants—for bigger homes, more health care, more education, and faster Internet connections.
The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded. More workers fe ar they’ve become “the disposable American,” as Louis Unchiselled puts it in his book by the same name.
Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the arrival of widespread affluence suggested utopian possibilities. Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much less physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions.
Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens. But the quest for growth lets loose new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order. Affluence liberates the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-fulfillment. But the promise is so extravagant that it predestines many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown and obesity . Statistical indicators of happiness have not risen with incomes.
Should we be surprised? Not really. We’ve simp ly reaffirmed an old truth: the pursuit of affluence does not always end with happiness.
1. 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 doe sn’t guarantee happiness.
C) How happiness can be promoted today.
D) What lies behind an economic boom.
2. According to Galbraith, people feel discontented because ________.
A) public spending hasn’t been cut down as expected
B) the government has proved to be a necessary evil
C) they are in fear of another Great Depression
D) materialism has run wild in modern society
3. Why do people feel squeezed when their average income rises considerably?
A) Their material pursuits have gone far ahead of their earnings.
B) Their purchasing power has dropped markedly with inflation.
C) The distribution of wealth is uneven between the r5ich and the poor.
D) Health care and educational cost have somehow gone out of control.
4. What does Louis Uchitelle mean by “the disposable American” (Line 3, Para. 5)?
A) Those who see job stability as part of their living standard.
B) People full of utopian ideas resulting from affluence.
C) People who have little say in American politics.
D) Workers who no longer have secure jobs.
5. What has affluence brought to American society?
A) Renewed economic security.
B) A sense of self-fulfillment.
C) New conflicts and complaints.
D) Misery and anti-social behavior.
1.BAADD
BDADC。