四、閱讀測驗

　　When it was published in 1973，E.F. Schumacher’s book, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, made a lot of people think about the ways we make money, and what we use it for. Here is a quote taken from the book: 

　　“A modem economist is used to measuring the ‘standard of living，by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is ‘better off’ than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. ... The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modem economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity.” 

　　The quote makes sense to a lot of people who are tired of always working harder to buy things that don’t really make them feel a lot better. What do people really want, and what do they really need? Suppose someone decides that a bigger or better television would make life more enjoyable. Perhaps. But what does the person have to pay for that TV? It’s not just the money; it’s the lost hours spent earning that money. 

　　In any case, a family decides to buy a big television for the living room. But then the parents decide that they want a second television for their bedroom. What happens? They all can’t watch both televisions at the same time. Perhaps one person in the family watches the one in the bedroom, while someone else watches the one in the living room. But then they are missing out on the happiness of being together as a family. There are lots of things we do that don’t really improve our lives.

Questions 21 - 25 

Long before Jesus Christ was born, some Arabic legends talked about a mysterious drink. It is black, strong in flavor, and can 21 a powerful stimulant. That could be the earliest mention of coffee, a drink that has swept the world today. In ancient days, another usually told story mentions a shepherd who found his goat strangely excited after chewing on certain berries. Bewildered by the magical effects, the shepherds 22 a local monk, who later distilled the berry to create a strong beverage. That was 23 the coffee drink came into being. Even though coffee has existed for thousands of years in the Arabic and Native American world, it was 24 the late 1500s that coffee traders introduce the exotic beverage to the western world. Europeans fell in love with the beverages, and its consumptions dramatically 25 in decades. Later in the following centuries, the European colonies brought this product drink to their colonies.