1 . Despite the fact that there has never been so much wealth or so many wealthy people in the world, many of the world’s poor people still live in material and energy poverty. Could you and I cut back on our consumption (消耗) so as to make some space for others to increase theirs?

I am sure we could. But, unfortunately, everything about our economic systems is set up to make us believe and behave otherwise. The default (默认) mindset is that there is nothing wrong with wanting ever newer and more expensive things as long as we can afford them.

Look around you for a moment. No society anywhere before lived like this. Further, since our spending must necessarily be someone else’s income, we tell ourselves that we actually make the world a better place every time we buy another pair of shoes or trade in a car for the latest model. And that’s the tug (拉) of war that plays itself out cruelly in our lives, as one side of our age cries out “less”, and from the other side comes the answering cry “more”.

Of course, wanting to live a better life is deeply ingrained in human nature. Otherwise, we would never have generated the progress that has brought us to our present station.

But now we should think deeply about how and why we consume.

After all, even the earliest thinkers in the history of economic—including Adam Smith—thought, having more does not always translate into being happier. Evidence shows that many people in the developing world, despite being hard-up, report being just as happy as those in the materially rich societies of the West.

So what now? The answer, perhaps, is to try to be rich in the enjoyment of things, not in the accumulation (堆积) of them. A pair of good shoes, lightly creased (起皱) but also carefully polished (擦亮) once a month a meal cooked at home instead of a trip to McDonald’s—such as these lie our act of saving from the virus of compulsive (强迫性的) consumption.

1. What can we infer from the first two paragraphs?

A．People tend to buy things unreasonably.

B．People refuse to cut down on consumption.

C．People all face material and energy poverty.

D．People believe in political and economic systems.

2. What does the underlined word “ingrained” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Held.

B．Rooted.

C．Changed.

D．Possessed.

3. What does the author suggest?

A．Trying to be rich.	B．The more, the better.
C．Enjoying what we have.	D．Focusing on the compulsive consumption.

4. In which section of a newspaper may this text appear?

A．Entertainment.

B．Health.

C．Education.

D．Economy.