1994年Passage 1
The American economic system is organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. Private businessmen, striving to make profits, produce these goods and services in competition with other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating under competitive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.
An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. If the product is in short supply relative to the demand, the price will be bid up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product. Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the American economic system.
The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individuals are allowed to own productive resources (private property) , and they are permitted to hire labor, gain control over natural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.
51. In Line 11, Para 1, "the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes" means__.
[A] Americans are never satisfied with their incomes
[B] Americans tend to overstate their incomes
[C] Americans want to have their incomes increased
[D] Americans want to increase the purchasing power of their incomes
[答案] D
[解题思路]
本题词组来自于文章第一段的最后一句话"Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it"（因此，在美国经济体制中，消费者个人的需求，加上商人获取最大利润的追求及消费者想最大限度提高购买力的愿望三者共同决定应该生产什么和如何利用资源来生产这些产品），从原句中可以看出所谓的"个人收入最大化"其实包含着最大化收入的购买力这层意思，即可以以同样的收入买到更多的商品。分析出这层意思后显然只有D选项符合题意，而其他三个选项都是表面上肤浅的理解。
[题目译文]
在文章第一段第11行中，"个人对于收入最大化的期望"的意思是 。
[A] 美国人从来不满足于他们的收入
[B] 美国人往往过于强调他们的收入
[C] 美国人想要增加他们的收入
[D] 美国人想要提高他们收入的购买力
