湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (54)

阅读专练

“你的快乐指数是多少？”这个问题可能在你听来有点陌生，但是对英国民众来说，它很可能已经成为大家茶余饭后谈论的热点话题。因为英国政府将使用“快乐指数”来衡量英国民众的快乐程度，从而为政府合理地制定政策提供参考和依据。 3'15''

Pre-reading questions: In your opinion, what is happiness? How does the British government measure people’s happiness? The UK will start measuring people’s psychological well-being1 and environmental sustainability2 and become one of the countries that officially monitor happiness. The British government recently produced measures to put the plan of measuring general well-being into action. The so called "happiness index" mainly depends on a survey of how people feel about their life, how they achieve their life goals and the quality of their living environment. The new index will be placed along side existing data to create a series of signs of people’s happiness. The government intends to ask more questions and apply the index on a society-wide scale. The combined well-being signs will play a more central role in policy making, and they will help the government assess3 whether British people can gain satisfaction from the society and whether its country has sustainable economic growth. An officer from the government said, "Our aim is to produce a fresh set of data that assesses the psychological well-being of people around the UK. There are objective measures of, for example, how much recycling gets done around the UK, and subjective measures of psychology and attitudes." France has also announced that it plans to include happiness in its assessment of economic progress. Canada will also start to survey subjective well-being across the country. What is different in the UK is that the government is not just collecting well-being data, but it will also use the data to make public policies. Notes:

1. well-being

n.健康；安乐

2. sustainability

n.持续性adj. sustainable 可持续的

3. assess

v.评估n. assessment 评价