雅思阅读练习：The Triumph of Unreason

　　Questions 7-9

　　Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 7-9 on your answe sheet.

　　7. Which of the following statements about orthodox economics is true?

　　A. The process which people make their decisions is rational.

　　B. People have a clear idea of their best interests in any situation.

　　C. Humans make judgement on the basis of reason rather then emotion.

　　D. People weigh the present good against future alternatives in shopping.

　　8. The word “miserliness” in line 3 of Paragraph J means__________.

　　A. people’s behavior of buying luxurious goods

　　B. people’s behavior of buying very special items

　　C. people’s behavior of being very mean in shopping

　　D. people’s behavior of being very generous in shopping

　　9. The three researchers are now designing the future experiments, which test

　　A. whether people with very different spending behaviour experience different amounts of pain in response to products.

　　B. whether buying an item with credit cards eases the pain of the same individuals compared with paying for it by cash.

　　C. whether the abstract nature of credit cards may modulate the “con” side of the calculation in favour of the “pro”.

　　D. whether the credit cards may subvert human instincts in ways that seem pleasurable but with a terrible effect.

　　Questions 10-13

　　Complete the notes below.

　　Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 1 for each answer.

　　Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

　　To find what happens in the brain of humans when it is deciding things to buy, George Loewenstein and his co-researchers did an experiment by using the technique of fMRI. They found that different parts of the brain were invloved in the process. The activity in …10… was greatly increased with the displaying of certain product. The great activity was found in the insular cortex when …11…and the subject decided not to buy a product. The activity of the medial prefrontal cortex seemed to associate with both …12…informaiton. What interested Dr Loewenstein was the …13… of the assessment of the product and its price in different parts of the brain.

　　Part II

　　Notes to Reading Passage 1

　　1. the nucleus accumbens, the insular cortex, and the medial prefrontal cortex:

　　大脑的不同部位 (皮层，皮质等)

　　e.g. cerebellar cortex 小脑皮层cerebral cortex 大脑皮层

　　2. hone:

　　珩磨，磨快，磨练，训练使。。。更完美或有效.

　　3. subvert:

　　毁灭，破坏;摧毁：

　　4. piggyback：

　　骑在肩上;在肩上骑

　　5. deferment:

　　推迟、延迟、分期付款

　　6. aftertaste:

　　余味，回味事情或经历结束后的感觉，特指令人不快的感觉

　　Part III

　　Keys and explanations to the Questions 1-13

　　1. TRUE

　　See the second and third sentence in Paragraph A “Neoclassical economics assumes that the process of decision-making is rational. But that contradicts growing evidence that decision-making draws on the emotions—even when reason is clearly involved.”

　　2. TRUE

　　See the third sentence in Paragrph B “ Since emotion is the mechanism by which animals are prodded towards such outcomes, evolutionary and economic theory predict the same practical consequences for utility in these cases.”

　　3. FALSE

　　See the second sentence in Paragrph C “In particular, he suspects that modern shopping has subverted the decision-making machinery in a way that encourages people to run up debt.”

　　4. TRUE

　　See the last sentence in Paragrph E “Moreover, the level of its activity correlated with the reported desirability of the product in question.”

　　5. FALSE

　　See the second sentence in Paragrph F and G respectively “Excessively high prices increased activity in the insular cortex, a brain region linked to expectations of pain, monetary loss and the view