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  3. This week, many Americans will be buying into the same dream: winning the unprecedentedly large $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot o

This week, many Americans will be buying into the same dream: winning the unprecedentedly large $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot o

admin2017-02-28  79
问题     This week, many Americans will be buying into the same dream: winning the unprecedentedly large $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot on Wednesday night. Since last week, when the jackpot had accrued to over $500 million, Powerball tickets have been reportedly flying off bodega and convenience-store counters. The odds of winning remain 1 in 292 million—that’s why the lottery is sometimes called a "stupidity tax" — but a ticket’s $2 price tag does make it a low-risk impulse buy. (Alex Tabarrok, over at Marginal Revolution, suggests that those who participate should buy tickets early in order to enjoy their real value—the pleasure of anticipation—for longer).
    A reader complains: "The lottery is a scheme acted on the poorest and most gullible." Many people are hoping to acquire this tremendous windfall, but is what they’re after something that will actually make them happy? Anecdotes about how winning the lottery can be bad luck abound—a winning ticket has led some "lucky" winners into bankruptcy, or worse. But there’s also the possibility that all of the lottery winners who are living comfortably don’t make headlines.
    Researchers have tried to figure out which of these narratives is more accurate by looking into two questions whose answers lottery players assume to be in the affirmative; Does winning the lottery make people rich in the long run? And does an influx of tons of cash make people happier? Their results, though, suggests that these answers aren’t so straightforward.
    In the late 1970s and ’80s, the sociologist H. Roy Kaplan performed now-classic research on what became of lottery winners. His most famous study asked lottery winners how happy they had been before and after their big checks arrived. That 1978 study, which had a very small sample size, famously found that lottery winners were not that much happier than the control group—a bunch of people who didn’t win the lottery—after their win. (A 2008 Dutch study concluded the same thing.) Kaplan did a bigger study in 1987 on 576 lottery winners, and found that "popular myths and stereotypes about winners were inaccurate"—by which he meant that American lottery winners did not typically quit their jobs and spend lavishly.
    In the end, while winning can turn out bad, the real bad thing is probably the lottery itself; America, especially its poor households, spends way too much on it, and the odds are worse than at a casino.
Lottery players often take it for granted that suddenly receiving a large sum of money
选项 A、makes them temporarily richer .
B、warns them of oncoming doom.
C、brings with it more happiness.
D、depends largely upon pure luck.
答案C
解析 (1)需要判断出题干的often take it for granted照应原文第3段的lottery players assume to be in the affirmative。(2)根据文章，“研究者调查了两个问题，并假定玩家的回答都是肯定的”。问题之一是“彩票中奖能让人们长期富有吗?”问题之二是“巨额财富能让人们更快乐吗?”选项[C]与第二个问题相关，故为最佳答案。
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