Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[jasonlulu_2000]

I needed to buy a digital camera,one the was simply goog at taking good snaps，maybe occasionally for maganned, Being the cautious type ,I fancied a relisble brand. So I went on the net, spent 15 minutes resding product reviews on good websites,wrote down the names of three top recommend stions and headed for my nearest big friendly camera store. There in the cupboard was one of the cameras on my list . And it was on special offer. Oh joy, I pointed at it and asked an assistant,�Can I have one of those?� He looked perturbed.�Do you want to try it firstly he said, It didn�t quite sound like a question. �Do I need to?� I replied. �There�s nothing wrong with it?� This made him look a bit insulted and I started to feel bad. �No, no. But you should try it,� he said encouragingly,� Compare it with the others.�

I looked across at the others; shelves of similar cameras placed along the wall, offering a wide range of slightly different prices and discounts, with each company selling a range of models based would the same basic box. With so many models to choose from, it seemed that I would have send hours weighing X against Y, always trying to take Z and possibly H into account at the same time. But when I had finished, I would still have only the same two cortainties that I had entered the store with: first soon after I carried my new camera out of the shop, it would be worth half what I paid for it; and second, my wonderful camera would very quickly be replaced by a new model.

But something in the human soul whispers that you can beat these traps by making the right choice, the clever choice, the wise choice. In the end, I agreed to try the model I had chosen. The assistant seemed a sincere man, So I let him take out my chosen camera from the cupboard, show how it took excellent; pictures of my fellow shoppers, and when he started to introduce the special features, I interrupted to ask whether I needed to buy a carry-case and a memory card as well.

Why do we think that new options still offer us anything new? Perhaps it is because they offer an opportunity to avoid facing the fact that our real choice in this culture are far more limited than we would like to imagine.

Can you paraphrase the underlined one?

Thank you

[pugachevV]

Our choices are fewer than we think.