Question

Homeownership has let us down. For generations, Americans believed that owning a home was undoubtedly good. Our political leaders hammered home the point. Franklin Roosevelt held that a country of homeowners was “unconquerable.” Homeownership could even save babies, save children, save families and save America. A house with a lawn and a fence wasn’t just a nice place to live in or a risk-free investment; it was a way to shape a nation. No wonder leaders of all political types wanted to spend more than $100 billion a year on subsidies（补助）and tax breaks to encourage people to buy.

But the dark side of homeownership is now all too apparent: Indeed, easy lending stimulated（刺激）by the cult of homeownership may have triggered（引起）the financial crisis. Housing remains a drag on the economy. Existing-home sales in April dropped 27% from the previous month, worsening fears of a double-dip. And all that is just the obvious tale of a housing bubble and what happened when it popped. The real story is deeper and darker still.

For the better part of a century, politics, industry and culture lined up to create a fetish of the idea of buying a house. Homeownership has done plenty of good over the decades; it has provided stability to tens of millions of families. Yet by idealizing the act of buying a home, we have ignored the downsides. In the bubble years, lending standards slipped dramatically, allowing many Americans to put far too much of their income into paying for their housing. And we ignored longer-term phenomena too. Homeownership contributed to the hollowing out of cities and kept renters out of the best neighborhoods. It fed America’s overuse of energy and oil. It made it more difficult for those who had lost a job to find another. Perhaps worst of all, it helped us become casually self-deceiving: By telling ourselves that homeownership was a pathway to wealth and stable communities and better test scores, we avoided dealing with these frightening issues head-on.

Now, as the U.S. recovers from the biggest housing bust（破产）since the Great Depression, it is time to rethink how realistic our expectations of homeownership are—and how much money we want to spend chasing them. Many argue that homeownership should not be a goal pursued at all costs.

1.Political leaders wanted to spend money encouraging people to buy houses because______.

A．owning a home was undoubtedly good

B．homeownership could shape a country

C．houses could save families and America

D．homeownership was unconquerable

2.The underlined sentence in Para. 2 means ______.

A．homeownership has quite a lot of bad effects

B．there might be another housing breakdown in the U.S.

C．the existing-home sales will keep decreasing in the U.S.

D．the result of homeownership is much worse than it appears

3.It can be inferred from Para. 3 that ______.

A．Americans choose to live out of urban areas

B．it is the way to wealth to have one’s own house

C．it is hard for Americans to get a home loan

D．homeownership has made many people out of work

4.What is the author’s attitude towards homeownership?

A．Cautious.          B．Ambiguous.        C．Favorable.         D．Optimistic.

Answer

63-66 BDAA

1.B

2.D

3.A

4.A

【解析】

试题分析：

1.B 细节题。根据第一段后三行it was a way to shape a nation. No wonder leaders of all political types wanted to spend more than $100 billion a year on subsidies（补助）and tax breaks to encourage people to buy.说明homeownership是如此的重要，甚至能够塑造一个国家，故B正确。

2.D 推理题。根据本段后4行Existing-home sales in April dropped 27% from the previous month, worsening fears of a double-dip. And all that is just the obvious tale of a housing bubble and what happened when it popped. The real story is deeper and darker still.说明现在的homeownership已经给社会经济带来了很多负面的影响，引起了经济危机，所引起的问题要比表面上更加严重，故D正确。

3.A 推断题。根据第三段7,8行Homeownership contributed to the hollowing out of cities and kept renters out of the best neighborhoods.说明很多美国人都走出了城市，住到了乡下去。故A说法正确。

4.A 推理题。作者在文章中客观的讲述了homeownership的好处以及给我们的社会带来的不好的地方，使用他对于homeownership的态度是很谨慎小心的。故A说法正确。

考点：考查了经济类短文阅读