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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  76
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.
The author’s overall attitude toward lottery in America is one of
选项 A、tolerance.
B、indifference.
C、cautiousness.
D、disapproval.
答案D
解析 (1)本题需要综合考虑全文内容，尤其是第5段内容。(2)根据第5段，“中奖也许是糟糕的，但真正糟糕的是彩票本身”(第5段：the lottery itself)。(3)作者在第1段提到了彩票中奖概率低的字眼(第1段：odds)，在文章中间作者说“研究发现，彩票并非像人们所传言的那么简单明了”(第3段：aren’t so straightforward)。据此，确定选项[D]为最佳答案。
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