William, who conquered England some 930 years ago, had wealth, power and a ruthless army. Yet although William was stupefyingly

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问题     William, who conquered England some 930 years ago, had wealth, power and a ruthless army. Yet although William was stupefyingly rich by the standard of his time, he had nothing remotely resembling a flush toilet. No paper towels, no riding lawn mower. How did he get by?
    History books are filled with wealthy people who were practically destitute compared to me, I have tripe-tracked storm window; Croesus did not. Entire nations trembled before Alexander the Great, but he couldn’t buy cat food in bulk. Czar Nicholas Ⅱ lacked a compound-miter saw.
    Given how much better off I am than so many famous dead people, you’d think I’d be content. The trouble is that, like most people, I compare my prosperity with that of living persons: neighbors, high-school classmates, TV personalities. The covetousness I feel toward my friend Howard’s kitchen is not mitigated by the fact that no French monarch ever had a refrigerator with glass doors.
    There is really no rising or falling standard of living. Over the centuries people simply find different stuff to feel grumpy about. You’d think that merely not having bubonic plague(腺鼠疫) would put us in a good mood. But no, we want a hot tub too.
    Of course, one way to achieve happiness would be to realize that even by contemporary standards the things I own are pretty nice. My house is smaller than the houses of many investment bankers’, but even so it has a lot more rooms than my wife’s and I can keep clean. Besides, to people looking back at our era from a century or two in the future, those bankers’ fancy counter tops and my own worn Formica(福米加塑料桌面)will seem equally shabby. I can’t keep up with my neighbor right now. but just wait.
From the passage, you may infer that most people______.

选项 A、are content with their life
B、are not as wealthy as the author
C、like compare their life with famous dead people
D、have tendency to compare their property with others

答案D

解析 题目询问从文中可知大多数人的生活状态是什么样的。A意为:对自己的生活很满意;B意为:没有作者这样富有;C意为:喜欢和过世的人名人比较他们的生活;D意为:总是爱和他人攀比财富。文中第三段讲到虽然我们现在的生活比古代的君主还要便利,从某种意义上讲,比他们还要富有,但大多数都不满足,还喜欢和其他人攀比。因此,此题选D。
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