Answer A

1. Give an outline of the views on the relation between wealth and happiness presented in texts 1 and 2
Text 1:
Text 1 is written by David Brooks and it’s an op-ed column.
He starts off by telling about Sandra Bullock’s life – she winning an Academy Award but also her husband being an “adulterous jerk”. He asks if anybody would trade publicity with having a personal life.
He continues to happiness. If you have a successful marriage and you encounter a lot of personally setbacks, either on the job or financially you will remain happy.
But if you have an unsuccessful marriage and you encounter a lot of happiness, financially or getting a promotion, you will remain “significantly” unfulfilled.
Money can’t give you happiness. The United States is richer than it was 50 years ago but researches show that Americans aren’t any happier than 50 years ago.
Even on a personal level if you win the lottery – you will be happier until you have bought your material goods, and you will go back to your old self.
The activity that will make you the happiest is sex. Just as being married “produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year”.
“Most people overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives”

Text 2:
Text 2 is written by Stephanie Rosenbloom and is an article.
She starts off by telling about the economy, which is not very good. Consumers saved more than 4% more on their after-tax income then normal, which is alarming because the economy is depending on shoppers’ spending money on material goods.
But on the bright side the consumers are changing their course of action. Instead of buying material goods they spend their money on experiences. For instants instead of buying new clothes the consumer saves the money and spending them on vacation or concert tickets. The reason why is because buying luxury goods will never stop. You always want to have the best, and if your neighbor gets a better TV, you have to have an even better one.
With the experiences people are less likely to compare experiences – for instants – whose vacation were best and therefore more happy. The enemy in article is portrayed as fashion all the fashion icons, which have to walk around in luxury clothes. “She rejects the idea that happiness has to be an either-or proposition. Some days, you want a trip, she says; other days, you want a Tom Ford handbag”

2. How does David Brooks engage the reader in text 1? Give examples from the text.
In the first paragraph on the first page he uses rhetorical questions such as: “Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow?” Which makes the reader think if one really would exchange your life for a celebrity life.
He also uses rhetorical questions in the first paragraph on the second page.
He uses Rhetorical Devices such as Logos. He gives a reference to the expert Carol Graham and also a fact that is: “Oscar winners live nearly four years longer than nominees that don’t win.”

3. Based on the opinions voiced in texts 2 and 3, discuss whether spending makes people happy.
Each text has their own opinion but actually they are kind of the same. In text 2 they believe if you spend your money on experiences you will be much more happy then if you spend it on material goods. If you use it on luxury goods you will start a downward spiral until you don’t have any money left. The stuff you buy isn’t going to make you happy; it will just make you feel like an empty shell – with no money and a lot of luxury goods that you won’t use.
But if you use it on experiences it will warm your heart a long time, because you will remember what it was like and you would get the time to relax.
In text 3 they talk about a man named Warren Buffett who is the second world richest man in the world with $42 billion worth in assets.
A study shows that people who has higher incomes spends more time being in a negative mood, because they use extra time in traffic and commuting to work. They say they were more often in hostile and angry moods.
The problem with Buffett was that he didn’t want to spend it on him self, and now turning 75 he didn’t know what to do with them. But he found a way of getting “rid” of the money without using them on him self. He donated a total of $37 billion to charity to help cure diseases that cause disability to billion of the poorest people in the world.
And by doing that, he showed the researchers: “that there is more to happiness than being in a good mood.”
To summon up, you can be happy by spending money but not on material goods. In text 2 they spent money on experiences, and in text 3 he spent his on donation to charity. Material goods doesn’t make you long-term happy, but experiences and doing something good towards other does.

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