I can tap my smartphone and a cab will arrive almost immediately. Another tap will tell me the latest news, value my share portf

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问题    I can tap my smartphone and a cab will arrive almost immediately. Another tap will tell me the latest news, value my share portfolio or give me route directions to my next meeting. As a result, I do not need to stand on a street corner vainly trying to hail a taxi to the theatre, lose myself in London streets. The changes that have occurred in the past decade have, from an economic perspective, increased at virtually no cost the efficiency of household production.
   The data framework within which economic analysis is conducted is largely the product of the second world war. In the 1930s American economist Simon Kuznets began to elaborate a system of national accounts. That work was given impetus when the war led governments to take control of important sectors of economic activity. It was soon realized that this required far better data than had previously existed, which in turn raised the challenge of how best to structure such information.
   Household production—women’ s work as homemakers—did not have much of a look-in; that was not the front line against fascism. The joke about the man who reduced national income by marrying his housekeeper, so that a market transaction became part of household production, was once a mandatory part of every introductory course on national income accounting but has succumbed to political correctness.
   Technological advance has always enhanced household as well as business efficiency. Our domestic productivity has benefited from washing machines, vacuum cleaners and central heating, and before that from electric light and automobiles. But at least these things were partially accounted for: from an economic perspective a car is a faster and cheaper horse. Statisticians in principle incorporated these improvements in the efficiency of consumer goods into their measurement of productivity, though in practice they did not try very hard.
   But the technological advances of the past decade seem to have increased the efficiency of households, rather than the efficiency of businesses, to an unusual extent. An ereader in the pocket replaces a roomful of books, and all the world’ s music is streamed to my computer. We look at aggregate statistics and worry about the slowdown in growth and productivity. But the evidence of our eyes seems to tell a different story.
The phrase "succumbed to" is closest in meaning to______.

选项 A、turned to
B、submitted to
C、gave up
D、sent out

答案B

解析 含义题。根据题干关键词succumbed to定位到第三段最后一句:The joke…was once a mandatory part of every introductory course on national income accounting but has succumbed to political correctness.此句意为“这个笑话曾经是国民收入核算入门课程的 必修部分,但已经屈从于‘政治正确’的时代潮流。”很明显,succumbed to在此处意为 “屈服,顺从”,故B项符合题意,为正确答案。A项“转向,朝向”,C项“放弃”和D项“分 发,散发”均不符合题意,故排除。
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