大学英语四级模拟阅读及答案

Passage One

It's official: Money can't buy happiness.

Sure, if a person is handed $10, the pleasure centres of his brain light up as if he were given food, sex, or drugs. But that initial rush does not translate into long-term pleasure for most people. Surveys have found virtually the same level of happiness between the very rich individuals on the Forbs 400 and the Maasai herdsmen of East Africa. Lottery winners return to their previous level of happiness after five years. Increases in income just don't seem to make people happier-and most negative life experiences likewise have only a small impact on long-term satisfaction.

"The relationship between money and happiness is pretty darned(非常)small," says Peter Ubel, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan.

That's not to say that increased income doesn't matter at all. There is a very small correlation between wealth and happiness-accounting for about one percent of the happiness reported by people answering the surveys. And for some groups, that relationship may be considerably bigger. People who are poor seem to get much happier when their monetary prospects improve; so do the very sick. In these cases, Ubel speculates, people may be protected from negative circumstances by the extra cash. Another possibility is that the money brings an increase in status, which may have a greater impact on happiness.

Why doesn't wealth bring a constant sense of joy? "Part of the reason is that people aren't very good at figuring out what to do with the money," says George Loewenstein, an economist at Carnegie Melton University. People generally overestimate the amount of long-term pleasure they'll get from a given object.

Sometimes, Loewenstein notes, the way people spend their money can actually make them less happy. For example, people derive a great deal of pleasure from interacting with others. If the first thing lottery winners do is to quit their job and to move to a palatial(富丽堂皇的)but isolated estate where they don't see any neighbours, they could find themselves isolated and depressed.

1. The first sentence of the passage means_.

A. it is announced by government that money can't buy happiness

B. it is justified that money can't buy happiness

C. it is authoritative that money can't buy happiness

D. it is fair that money can't buy happiness

2. We can infer that if one is very sad at some time in his life,_.

A. he will be sad all his life

B. he will never be happy

C. he may be happy at other time

D. he may be influenced by the sadness all the time

3, According to Ubel,_.

A. money has much to do with happiness

B. increases in money may make people happy

C. money doesn't matter at all

D. money has no effect on happiness

4. Wealth doesn't assure one of long-term pleasure because_·

A. they don't know what to do with the money

B. they are not good at using the money