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  3. Are burgers and fries a product of the profound social changes of the past 50 years, or were they to a large extent responsible

Are burgers and fries a product of the profound social changes of the past 50 years, or were they to a large extent responsible

admin2010-06-17  57
问题     Are burgers and fries a product of the profound social changes of the past 50 years, or were they to a large extent responsible for them? The author of this diatribe against multinational restaurant brands opts for the latter explanation. "There is nothing inevitable about the fast food nation that surrounds us", he concludes. "The triumph of McDonald’s and its imitators was by no means pre-ordained". But it happened nevertheless and in his view, it is to be blamed for many of the evils of modern America and their global spread. The emergence of the corporate colossus, followed inexorably by its deionization, is a familiar pattern in American business history.
    The modern phenomenon of fast food originated in California just before the Second World War. Its first manifestation was kerb service, with meals delivered to motorists by handsome young carhops. Richard and Maurice McDonald, who ran a drive-in burger bar in San Bernardino near Los Angeles, became tired of having constantly to replace their carhops and wash up crockery and dishes. In 1948 they decided to make customers serve themselves, while restricting the menu to items that could be prepared by unskilled cooks and eaten without plates, knives or forks.
    The McDonald brothers were soon bought out by the entrepreneurial Ray Kroc, who franchised their name and techniques so successfully that there is now scarcely a comer of the world that is free from their trademark golden arches, invariably spawning a cluster of rival chains selling hamburgers, pizzas, or fried chicken, handed out by smiling teenagers willing to accept minimal pay. They are cheap, cheerful, popular, and children love them. So just what is Mr. Schlosser’s beef? Apart from his nutritional reservations—too much fat, salt and sugar—he proves how. as the chains expanded, they were able to dictate terms to the suppliers of potatoes and ground beef, their staple ingredients. This caused an upheaval in agribusiness, as a few large suppliers quickly forced less efficient producers out of the market. The drive to keep down costs and increase the speed of production led to the employment of cheap unskilled labor and. to the widespread toleration of dangerous and unhygienic practices among growers and processors, which regulatory bodies have failed to police.
    Mr. Schlosser, who is a skillful and persuasive investigative reporter, sees all this as a damaging corruption of the free market. He is especially angered by promotional techniques aimed at impressionable children. A 1997 giveaway of Teenie Beanie Babies increased the sale of McDonalds’ Happy Meals from 10m a week to 10m a day. And a survey found that 96% of American schoolchildren could identify Ronald McDonald, the chain’s mascot. Only Santa Claus scored higher.
选项 A、the fast food is the great social change of the past 50 years
B、the success of multinational brands was destined
C、the corporate deionization contributed to some social changes
D、McDonald is popular in America
答案C
解析 推理判断题。文章第一段提出了一个问题，"汉堡和薯条是过去50年社会变化的产物，还是这些食品在某种程度上大大地引起了社会变革?"批评家更趋向于后者。因此，选项"公司打造品牌所使招术已是社会变化的因素之一"，不是作者的观点；"国际品牌注定成功"，从文章的一段可以看出，麦当劳之类快餐的成功并不能说明它们有着必然的成功决定权，而是体现了现代美国主义的全球扩张，故也不是作者的观点。"集团公司是导致社会变动的原因"，文中提到这些公司都有着巨型招牌，不惜斥巨资打造品牌，这在美国商业界早已司空见惯了，这种全球化是真正的原因。"麦当劳很受美国人欢迎"，这并不是作者总结出来的。
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