練習で読むのでしたら、読みながら全体のテーマを短文で考えてみてください。解説ページ冒頭にあげておきますので、読解後に確認してみてください。

 

解説はこちら→解説

 
 

出典: 近畿大学 2015年度(平成27年度)推薦入試(一般公募)11月23日実施分 Ⅶ

Ⅶ 次の英文を読み,あとの問いに答えよ。

 The small country of Bhutan in the Himalayan mountains is over one thousand years old. In the past it was a poor country and not many people visited it. But nowadays, it is becoming more and more popular with tourists. Medicine and health is improving and its economy is growing. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the king of Bhutan until 2006, talked about his country’s ‘Gross National Happiness’. In other words, he thought happiness is the way to measure the country’s development.
 But how do you measure happiness? Perhaps health is the best way because a famous doctor once said, ‘Happy people generally don’t get sick.’ It’s also easy to measure how many people feel ill or unhealthy in a country. For example, one survey says Iceland is the ‘healthiest country in the world’ because men and women live a long time there, the air is very clean and there are more doctors available per person than anywhere else in the world.
 However, there was another survey of the happiest countries in the world and Iceland was not near the top. The questions on this survey included: How much do you earn? How healthy are you? How safe do you feel? After visiting 155 different countries, the researchers decided that Denmark feels happier than other countries.
 So does happiness equal money and good health? Not according to the artist Erik Krikortz. He feels that there are other ways of measuring happiness. Krikortz has a website and visitors click on different happy or sad faces to comment on how well they sleep, their family and friends, their level of stress, their inspiration and their physical activity. When you finish, his website adds the results for each area and it gives you a final result for your happiness.
 In his home city of Stockholm, Krikortz also shows the results of this survey as different colored lights on the side of a large building in the city. For example, red means the people of Stockholm are very happy, green is OK and purple means many people are sad. ‘A lot of people look at the building every day and see how “we” are,’ Krikortz says. The colored lights are also useful if you feel like visiting the city. For example, if the lights are red, you know the locals are feeling happy!

 

問1

問1 本文の第1段落の内容に合うものとして最も適当なものを,ア~エから一つ選べ。(38)
ア. Bhutan, a Himalayan country, is now not as prosperous as it once was.
イ. In recent years, people can travel to Bhutan more and more economically.
ウ. In the past, few tourists went to Bhutan because they had little money and were afraid of catching diseases there.
エ. King Wangchuck believed that happiness is the key element in determining a country’s prosperity.

 

問2

問2 本文の第1段落の内容に合わないものを,ア~エから一つ選べ。(39)
ア. Bhutan’s economy is becoming stronger, and its tourist industry is also improving.
イ. ‘Gross National Happiness’ is widely considered the best indicator to measure the strength of a country’s economy.
ウ. The country of Bhutan has a history of more than one thousand years.
エ. The Himalayan country of Bhutan is a mountainous country of
small size.

 

問3

問3 本文の第2段落の内容に合わないものを,ア~エから一つ選べ。(40)
ア. A famous doctor said people typically don’t become ill when they are happy, so health might be a good indicator of happiness.
イ.One way to measure whether people are happy or not is to look at data concerning sickness and health.
ウ.The people of Iceland live the longest because they have more doctors in total than in any other country.
エ.Two factors that indicate a country’s overall health are the number of doctors that country has as well as its air quality.

 

問4

問4 本文の第3段落の内容に合うものとして最も適当なものを,ア~エから一つ選べ。(41)
ア. According to a survey, one factor that helps measure happiness is one’s income.
イ. Of the 155 countries that participated in the survey, researchers found that Denmark was ranked the happiest country, with Iceland closely behind Denmark.
ウ. The Danish are the happiest in the world because they are clearly living a healthier life than Icelanders.
エ. The people of Denmark know that they are happier than the people in over 155 other countries who participated in the survey.

 

問5

問5 本文の第4段落の内容に合うものとして最も適当なものを,ア~エから一つ選べ。(42)
ア. Krikortz feels that there are many factors that determine happiness, some of which are family and friends, sleep, education level, and stress.
イ. Krikortz has created his own website that helps individuals determine their level of happiness.
ウ. Krikortz knows if his website is popular or not because visitors click happy or sad faces indicating ‘like’ or ‘dislike’.
エ. Krikortz’s website asks which areas in the world are happy.

 

問6

問6 本文の第5段落の内容に合うものとして最も適当なものを,ア~エから一つ選べ。(43)
ア. The colored lights on the building are seen by all the people of Stockholm each day.
イ. The colored lights on the building have various meanings with red meaning extreme unhappiness, green meaning healthy, and purple meaning happiness.
ウ. The colored lights on the building in Stockholm tell the people of the city their overall level of happiness.
エ. The colored lights on the top of the building indicate changes in the people’s level of happiness throughout the day.

 

問7

問7 本文の内容と合うものを,ア〜キから二つ選び,(44)と(45)に一つずつマークせよ。ただし,マークする記号(ア,イ,ウ,…)の順序は問わない。
ア. Jigme Singye Wangchuck is happy to still be the king of Bhutan even though he is quite old.
イ. King Wangchuck believed that happiness, not the economy, was the most important factor when measuring the development of his country.
ウ. ‘Gross National Happiness’ is the most objective and reliable indicator of a country’s overall growth and development.
エ. One reason Iceland is thought to be a healthy country is that the air quality is very good there.
オ. Researchers conducted their survey in slightly less than 150 countries in order to determine that Denmark was the happiest country.
カ. The lights on the building in Stockholm have sensors that can detect the people’s happiness.
キ. People often decide to visit the city of Stockholm by looking at the colored lights on the building.