Question : Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
It is now forty years and something more since I surveyed the scene in the economically advanced countries, especially the United States, and wrote The Affluent Society. The book had a satisfying reception, and I'm here asked as to its latter-day relevance. That should not be asked of any author, but the mistake having been made, I happily respond. The central argument in the book was that in the economically advanced countries, and especially in the United States, there has been a highly uneven rate of social development. Privately produced goods and services for use and consumption are abundantly available. So available are they, indeed, that large and talented expenditure on advertising and salesmanship is needed to persuade people to want what is produced. Consumer sovereignty, once governed by the need for food and shelter, is now the highly contrived consumption of an infinite variety of goods and services.
That, however, is in what has come to be called the private sector. There is no such abundance in the services available from the state. Social services, health care, especially education, public housing for the needful, and even food, along with action to protect life and the environment, are all in short supply. Damage to the environment is the most visible result of this abundant production of goods and services. In a passage that was much quoted, I told of the family that took its modern, highly styled, tail-finned automobile out for a holiday. They went through streets and countryside made hideous by commercial activity and commercial art. They spent their night in a public park replete with refuse and disorder and dined on delicately packaged food from an expensive portable refrigerator.
All this, were I writing now, I would still emphasize. I would especially stress the continuing unhappy position of the poor. This, if anything, is more evident than it was forty years ago. Then in the United States, it was the problem of southern plantation agriculture and the hills and hollows of the rural Appalachian Plateau. Now it is a highly visible problem in the great metropolis.
There is another contrast. Were I writing now, I would give emphasis to the depressing difference in well-being between the affluent world and the less fortunate countries mainly in the post-colonial world. The rich countries have their rich and poor. The world has its rich and poor nations. There has been a developing concern with these problems; alas, the progress has not kept pace with the rhetoric.
Question:
What is the central idea in the book?
Option 1: Economically advanced countries also exhibits a high rate of social development
Option 2: Economically advanced countries exhibit a highly uneven rate of social development
Option 3: Economically weaker countries exhibit a highly uneven rate of social development
Option 4: Economically advanced countries include those countries which have adequate social services
Correct Answer:
Economically advanced countries exhibit a highly uneven rate of social development
Solution : The correct answer is 'Economically advanced countries exhibit a highly uneven rate of social development'
Explanation:
In the text that follows, the author's perspective on economic and social growth in various nations is discussed. In a book on this topic, the author gave his point of view.
Referring to the first paragraph's fourth sentence:
-
"The central argument in the book was that in the economically advanced countries, and especially in the United States, there has been a highly uneven rate of social development.'
This leads us to the conclusion that the main idea of the book is the uneven social development of economically developed nations.
- Thus, option 2 is the correct answer.




