单选题
Banking is about money; and no other familiar commodity
arouses such excesses of passion and dislike. Nor is here any other about which
more nonsense is talked. The type of thing that comes to mind is not what is
normally called economics, which is inexact rather than nonsensical, and only in
the same way as all sciences are at the point where they try to predict people's
behavior and its consequences. Indeed most social sciences and, for example,
medicine could probably be described in the same way. However,
it is common to hear assertions of the kind "if you were left alone on a desert
island a few seed potatoes would be more useful to you than a million pounds" as
though this proved something important about money except the undeniable fact
that it would not be much use to anyone in a situation where very few of us are
at all likely to find ourselves. Money in fact is a token or symbolic object,
exchangeable on demand by its holders for goods and services. Its use for
these purposes is universal except within a small number of primitive
agricultural communities. Money and the price mechanism, i. e.,
the changes in prices expressed in money terms of different goods and services,
are the means by which all modern societies regulate demand and supply for these
things. Especially important are the relative changes in price of different
goods and services compared with each other. To take random examples: the price
of house-building has over the past five years risen a good deal faster than
that of domestic appliances like refrigerators, but slower than that of motor
insurance or French Impressionist paintings. This fact has complex implications
for students of the industry, trade unionism, town planning, insurance
companies, fine-art auctions, and politics. Unpacking these implications is what
economics is about, but their implications for bankers are quite
different. In general, in modern industrialized societies,
prices of services or goods produced in a context requiring a high
service-content (e. g. a meal in a restaurant) are likely to rise in price more
rapidly than goods capable of mass-production on a large scale. It is also a
characteristic of highly developed economies that the number of workers employed
in service industries tends to rise and that of workers employed in
manufacturing to fall. The discomfort this truth causes has been an important
source of tension in western political life for many years and is likely to
remain so for many more.
单选题
According to the passage, economics is ______.
A. similar to other social sciences because a lot of nonsense is talked
about it
B. different from social sciences which try to forecast the way people
behave
C. similar to other social sciences because it can foretell the
tomorrow
D. different from sciences such as medicine
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】细节题。文章第一段第三句的后一分句说明了经济学与其他科学的共同点：...only in the same way as all sciences are...try to predict，people's behavior and its consequences，即它们都试图预测人们的行为和行为的后果，也就是说它们都能预测未来，选[C]。
单选题
In the writer's view, the assertion that money would he useless on a
desert island ______.
A. illustrates one limitation to the importance of money
B. is only of importance to people stranded in such places
C. proves that there are many situations in which money is irrelevant
D. tells us that money is no longer significant in a certain
situation
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】细节题。文章第二段第一句引用一种说法，然后在后一分句中说明了这种说法的真正含意：...it would not be much use...to find ourselves，即钱在某种特定的情况下会没有任何用处，与[D]一致。本题由常识也可推知答案。
单选题
Modern societies control supply and demand ______.
A. by direct intervention in the pricing of goods and services
B. by means of money and the price mechanism
C. by keeping a watchful eye on relative price changes
D. by fixing prices in specific industries
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】细节题。答案是第三段第一句：Money and the price mechanism...are the means by which all modern societies regulate demand and supply，即现代社会调节供需的方式是货币和价格机制。
单选题
The writer suggests that economics is concerned with ______.
A. explaining to bankers the price changes
B. understanding the effect of relative price changes
C. trying to understand why some prices rise fast
D. the same financial considerations as banking
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】细节题。文章第三段最后一句指出：Unpacking these implications is what economics is about，其中的unpacking指的是“揭示”，而these implications指的则是前文中所说的相对价格变化所带来的可能影响，因此本题答案选[B]。
单选题
In developed economies, service industries ______.
A. tend to employ an increasing number of people
B. employ more people than manufacturing industries do
C. cause problems for the white-collar unions
D. try to reduce their employees to combat rising costs