Question

In the United States, sometimes when one becomes rich, he wants everyone to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what “keeping up with the Joneses” is about. It is a story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.

The expression was first used in1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $125 a week at the age of 23, and that was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw rich people riding horses, Momand went horse-riding every day. When he saw that the rich had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.

It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because another one was always trying to keep up. The race ended when Momand and his wife finally found that they could no longer pay for their new way of life and had to move back to an old apartment in New York City.

Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do such things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series（系列）of short novels, and he called it “Keeping up with the Joneses” because “Jones” is a very common name in the United States. “Keeping up with the Joneses” came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Since then, Momand’s series came out in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.

People never seem, to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are “Joneses” in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what he does, a Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.

1.Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they __________.

A. want to be as rich as their neighbors B. want others to know or to think that they are rich

C. don’t want others to know they are rich D. want to be as happy as others

2.It can be inferred（推測）from the story that rich people like to __________.

A. go horse-riding with neighbors B. live inside New York City

C. compare with others D. give big parties for servants

3.Arthur Momand used the name “Jones” in his series of novels because “Jones” is __________.

A. an important name to Mr. Momand B. not a good name to Americans

C. Mr. Momand’s neighbor’s name D. a popular name in the United States

4.The underlined sentence in the last paragraph（段落）tells us that __________.

A. keeping up with Joneses helps you to know what you’re able to do

B. according to the writer, it is impossible to keep up with the Joneses

C. people can be rich and successful by having competitions with others

D. we should fight for a better life on our own instead of depending on others

Answer 1