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Sometimes it’s just hard to choose. You’re in a restaurant and the waiter has his pen at the ready. As you hesitate, he gradually begins to take a close interest in the ceiling, his fingernails, then in your dining partner. Each dish on the menu becomes a blur as you roll your eyes up and down in a growing panic. Finally, you desperately opt for something that turns out to be what you hate. It seems that we need devices to protect us from our hopelessness at deciding between 57 barely differentiated varieties of stuff — be they TV channels, gourmet coffee, downloadable ring tones, or perhaps, ultimately even interchangeable lovers. This thought is opposed to our government’s philosophy, which suggests that greater choice over railways, electricity suppliers and education will make us happy. In my experience, they do anything but happiness. Perhaps the happiest people are those who do not have much choice and aren’t confronted by the

misery of endless choice. True, that misery may not be obvious to people who don’t have a variety of luxuries. If you live in Madagascar, say, where average life expectancy is below 40 and they don’t have digital TV or Starbucks, you might not be impressed by the anxiety and perpetual stress our decision- making paralysis causes.

Choice wasn’t supposed to make people miserable. It was supposed to be the hallmark of self- determination that we so cherish in capitalist western society. But it obviously isn’t: ever more choice increases the feeling of missed opportunities，and this leads to self-blame when choices fail to meet expectations. What is to be done? A new book by an American social scientist, Barry Schwartz, called The Paradox of Choice, suggests that reducing choices can limit anxiety. Schwartz offers a self-help guide to good decision making that helps us to limit our choices to a manageable number, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices we make. This is a capitalist response to a capitalist problem.

But once you realize that your Schwartzian filters are depriving you of something you might have found enjoyable, you will experience the same anxiety as before, worrying that you made the wrong decision in drawing up your choice-limiting filters. Arguably, we will always be doomed to buyers- remorse and the misery it entails. The problem of choice is perhaps more difficult than Schwartz allows.

43. The waiter mentioned in Paragraph 1 would agree that given a variety of choice .

A. it is common for his customer to hesitate in ordering a meal

B. it is impolite for his customer to order with hesitation

C. it is difficult for his customer to expect quality food

D. it is possible to get to know his customer’s partner

44. It is implied that it is the government’s intention to .

A. improve the quality of TV programs

B. try to offer greater choice over public service systems

C. make people realize that some lovers are interchangeable

D. encourage the downloading of a variety of ring tones

45. The author mentioned “Starbucks” in Paragraph 3 as an illustration of .

A. happiness B. life expectancy C. perpetual stress D. luxury

46. From Barry Schwartz’s book, The Paradox of Choice, we can get recommendation tips on

A. how to handle the situation of capitalist exploitation

B. how to deal with your expense budget

C. how to avoid the feeling of missed opportunities

D. how to save money by making a right choice

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