Question

Spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found on Thursday.

    Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others—even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.

   “We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn,” said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia. They asked their 600 volunteers first to rate their general happiness, report their annual (yearly) income and detail their monthly spending including bills, gifts for themselves, girls for others and donations to charity.

   “Regardless of how much income each person made, those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not,” Dunn said in a statement.

   Dunn’s team also surveyed 16 employees at a company in Boston before and after they received an annual profit-sharing bonus of between $3,000 and $8,000. “Employees who devoted more of their bonus to pro-social spending experienced greater happiness after receiving the bonus and the manner in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the size of the bonus itself” they wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.

　　They gave their volunteers $5 or $20 and half got clear instructions on how to spend it. Those who spent the money on someone or something else reported feeling happier about it.

   “These findings suggest that very minor alterations (changes) in spending allocations (shares)—as little as $5—may be enough to produce real gains in happiness on a given day，”Dunn said.

1. What is the general idea of the passage?

A. The more you earn, the greater happiness you will get.

B. Spending more money on yourself will make you happier.

C. Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else.

D. You can spend only 5$ a day to get happiness.

2.The underlined word “boost” in the first paragraph probably means_______.

A. help to find     B. help to bring    C. help to increase     D. help to get

3.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Those who spend more money on others can get much more bonus.

B. People usually think spending money on themselves will make them happier.

C. Very small changes in spending your money may be enough to gain happiness.

D. Researchers think that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn.

4.It can be inferred from the 6th paragraph that ______.

A. the volunteers not given 5$ or 20$ spent their own money on themselves.

B. those who spent the money on someone or something else felt happier about it.

C. the volunteers were given 5$ or 20$ as a reward for the experiment.

D. half of the volunteers could spend the money as they liked.

 

Answer 1

【答案】

 

1.C

2.C

3.A

4.D

【解析】

试题分析：本文主要讲了研究结果表明，每天只需稍稍改变支出分配——哪怕为别人花5美元，就能得到更多快乐。

1.这篇文章主要讲了研究人员日前称，金钱可以买到快乐，但前提是你得把钱花在别人身上，故选C。

2. 根据Spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found on Thursday. Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others—even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.可猜出“boost”意思是增加，故选C。

3.文中指出他们为别人花钱时其实更加快乐，而没有说为别人花钱会得到更多的奖金，可知答案为A。

4.根据They gave their volunteers $5 or $20 and half got clear instructions on how to spend it. Those who spent the money on someone or something else reported feeling happier about it.可知答案为D。

考点：新闻报道类短文阅读理解

点评：先阅读问题，然后带着问题，再读全文，找出答题所需要的依据，完成阅读。这篇文章非常容易，根据问题找到相关问题的段落或句子，便可选出答案。