1994年Passage 1

　　The American economic system is organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. Private businessmen, striving to make profits, produce these goods and services in competition with other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating under competitive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.

　　An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. If the product is in short supply relative to the demand, the price will be bid up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product. Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the American economic system.

　　The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individuals are allowed to own productive resources (private property) , and they are permitted to hire labor, gain control over natural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.

51. In Line 11, Para 1, "the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes" means__.
[A] Americans are never satisfied with their incomes
[B] Americans tend to overstate their incomes
[C] Americans want to have their incomes increased
[D] Americans want to increase the purchasing power of their incomes

[答案] D

[解題思路]

　　本題詞組來自于文章第一段的最后一句話"Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it"（因此，在美國經(jīng)濟體制中，消費者個人的需求，加上商人獲取最大利潤的追求及消費者想最大限度提高購買力的愿望三者共同決定應該生產(chǎn)什么和如何利用資源來生產(chǎn)這些產(chǎn)品），從原句中可以看出所謂的"個人收入最大化"其實包含著最大化收入的購買力這層意思，即可以以同樣的收入買到更多的商品。分析出這層意思后顯然只有D選項符合題意，而其他三個選項都是表面上膚淺的理解。

[題目譯文]

在文章第一段第11行中，"個人對于收入最大化的期望"的意思是              。
[A] 美國人從來不滿足于他們的收入
[B] 美國人往往過于強調(diào)他們的收入
[C] 美國人想要增加他們的收入
[D] 美國人想要提高他們收入的購買力