河北省昌黎县2014高考英语学生自选训练（1）及答案
社会生活类阅读理解
Homeownership has let us down. For generations, Americans believed that owning a home was undoubtedly good. Our political leaders hammered home the point. Franklin Roosevelt held that a country of homeowners was “unconquerable.” Homeownership could even save babies, save children, save families and save America. A house with a lawn and a fence wasn’t just a nice place to live in or a risk-free investment; it was a way to transform a nation.No wonder leaders of all political types wanted to spend more than $100 billion a year on subsidies and tax breaks to encourage people to buy.
But the dark side of homeownership is now all too apparent: Indeed, easy lending stimulated by the cult of homeownership may have triggered the financial crisis. Housing remains a drag on the economy. Existing-home sales in April dropped 27% from the prior month, worsening fears of a double-dip. And all that is just the obvious tale of a housing bubble and what happened when it popped.The real story is deeper and darker still.
For the better part of a century, politics, industry and culture lined up to create a fetish of the idea of buying a house.Homeownership has done plenty of good over the decades; it has provided stability to tens of
