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 result of the surplus production of goods and services?
Option 1: Increase in capitalist regimes
Option 2: Environmental damage
Option 3: Wastage of unsold goods
Option 4: Lack of social development
Correct Answer: Environmental damage
Solution : The correct answer is 'Environmental damage'.
Explanation: The provided text discusses an author's views on economics and social development in many countries throughout the world, as described in a book authored by him. - Let's focus on the second paragraph's fourth line: - 'Damage to the environment is the most visible result of this abundant production of goods and services.' - Thus, option 2 is the correct answer.
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
Question: What was the nature of the activity and art that made the countryside hideous?
Option 1: Private
Option 2: Surreal
Option 3: Fantastic
Option 4: Materialistic
Question: How has the evidence of poverty shifted over the past forty years in United States?
Option 1: It has shifted from the southern plantation areas to the hills of the rural Appalachian Plateau.
Option 2: It has shifted from affecting the rural poor to affecting the middle-income groups
Option 3: It has shifted from rural areas to urban areas.
Option 4: It has shifted from the low developed countries to those which are highly developed.
Question: What is needed to promote consumption of produced goods in economically advanced countries?
Option 1: Proper advertising
Option 2: Good salesmanship
Option 3: Both of the above
Option 4: None of the above
Question: After surveying which of the following countries did the author write the book 'The Affluent Society'?
Option 1: Canada
Option 2: Mexico
Option 3: USA
Option 4: United Arab Emirates
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