第三篇

  Economic Knowledge in One Sentence

    Once upon a time, Tanstaafl was made king of all lands. His first act was to call his economic advisers and tell them to write up all the economic knowledge the society possessed. After years of work, they presented the king with a set of books: 25 volumes, each about 400 pages long. But during that time, King Tanstaafl had become very busy with running a kingdom of all lands. Looking at the lengthy volumes, he told his advisers to put their findings into one volume. The economists returned to their desks, wondering how they could summarize what they had been so careful to spell out. After many more years of rewriting, they were finally satisfied with their one volume effort, and tried to make an appointment to see the king. Unfortunately, affairs of state had become even more pressing than before, and the king couldn't take the time to see them. Instead he sent word to them through an adviser that he couldn't be bothered with a whole volume, and ordered them, under threat of death, or reduce the work to one sentence.
    The economists returned, trembling in their chairs and wondering about their impossible task. Thinking about their fate if they were not successful, they decided to send out for one last meal. Unfortunately, when they were collecting money to pay for the meal, they discovered they were penniless. The delivery man became angry and took the meal away, and the economists started down the path to the beheading station（断头台）.On the way, the delivery man's parting words sounded in their ears. They looked at each other and suddenly they realized the truth. "We are saved!" they shouted. "That's it! that's economic knowledge in one sentence!" They wrote sentence down and presented it to the king, who afterwards fully understood all economic problems. The sentence is "There is no such thing as a free lunch".
41. To start with, King Tanstaafl told his economic advisers to ________
   A. put their economic knowledge into one book.
   B. construct an economic theory.
   C. spend several years making economic discoveries.
   D. write down all the economic knowledge.
42. How did the economists react to the king's order for putting their findings into one volume? ________
   A. They accepted the order happily.
   B. They felt it rather difficult to put to much knowledge into a single volume.
   C. They went back to their desks and started working at once.
   D. They decided to spell out their findings with great care.
43. What was the king's reaction to the economists' one-volume effort? ________
   A. He was not satisfied with the way the book was written.
   B. He made an appointment with the economists.
   C. He changed his mind of reading the whole volume.
   D. He decided to give the economists a meal and then kill them.
44. The economists decided to have their last meal ________
   A. before they were killed by the king for failing to reduce the whole volume to one sentence.
   B. before they were killed by the king for no reason at all.
   C. because they knew the king would kill them the following morning.
   D. because they knew that the king had decided to have their heads chopped off in his palace.
45. By writing down the sentence "There is no such things as a free lunch", the economists wished to ________
   A. show that they would never forget what the delivery man had said.
   B. express the essential ideas of economics.
   C. tell the king that they had not taken their meal.
   D. help the king solve all his economic problems.

参考答案：41．D         42．B         43．A          44．A