单选题
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.
单选题
In Para 1, "the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes" means______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】解析：第一句的重点是对as well as的理解。as well as用作连词引出比较对象，意为“和……一样好”。这里as well as any相当于as well as any(money spent)，I know of是定语从句，修饰any。其次，看下文内容。从文章第二句“它直接有助于……”可以推出作者对广告的作用持肯定态度。因此第一句应该被理解为“花在广告上的钱和任何别处花的钱一样值得”。故选D。
单选题
The first two sentences in the second paragraph tell us that______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】解析：文章第2段第1、2句所表达的内容是该段的主题：价格(的波动)是供求关系(生产者与消费者的关系)的反映。该段的最后一句也重述总结了这一主题。A选项中“mechanized”意为?机械化的”，而原文中“mechanism”意为“机制”。B选项对应原文第2段第1句中“by which”意指”“by means of this mechanism”，即：通过这一机制反映出来；该句中的“by producers”则只与“responded to”有关，即：生产者对消费者的需要作出反应。C选项所表达的内容不正确，因为原句明确指出：价格为供求关系所调节。
单选题
According to the passage, a private-enterprise economy is characterized by______.