Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
Economic inequality is the “defining challenge of our time,” president Barack Obama declared in a speech last month to the center for American Progress. Inequality is dangerous, he argued, not merely because it doesn’t look good to have a large gap between the rich and the poor, but because inequality itself destroys upward mobility, making it harder for the poor to escape from poverty. “Increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream,” he said.
Obama is only the most prominent public figure to declare inequality Public Enemy No.1 and the greatest threat to reducing poverty in America. A number of prominent economists have also argued that it’s harder for the poor to climb the economic ladder today because the rungs(横档)in that ladder have grown farther apart.
For all the new attention devoted to the 1 percent, a new dataset from the Equality of opportunity project at Harvard and Berkeley suggests that, if we care about upward mobility overall, we’re vastly exaggerating the dangers of the rich-poor gap. Inequality itself is not a particularly strong predictor of economic mobility, as sociologist Scott Winship noted in a recent article based on his analysis of this data.
So what factors, at the community level, do predict if poor children will move up the economic ladder as adults? What explains, for instance, why the Salt Lake City metro area is one of the 100 largest metropolitan areas most likely to lift the fortunes of the poor and the Atlanta metro area is one of the least likely?
Harvard economist Raj Chetty has pointed to economic and racial segregation, community density, the size of a community’s middle class, the quality of schools, community religiosity, and family structure, which he calls the “single strongest correlate of upward mobility.” Chetty finds that communities like Salt Lake City, with high levels of two-parent families and religiosity, are much more likely to see poor children get ahead than communities like Atlanta, with high levels of racial and economic segregation.
Chetty has not yet issued a comprehensive analysis of the relative predictive power of each of these factors. Based on my analyses of the data, of the factors that Chetty has highlighted, the following three seem to be most predictive of upward mobility in a given community:
1. Per-capita(人均)income growth
2. Prevalence of single mothers (where correlation is strong, but negative
3. Per-capita local government spending
In other words, communities with high levels of per-capita income growth, high percentages of two-parent families, and high local government spending—which may stand for good schools—are the most likely to help poor children relive the Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches story.
51. How does Obama view economic inequality?
A) It is the biggest obstacle to social mobility.
B) It is the greatest threat to social stability.
C) It is the No. 1 enemy of income growth.
D) It is the most malicious social evil of our time.
52. What do we learn about the inequality gap from Scott Winship’s data analysis?
A) It is fast widening across most parts of America.
B) It is not a reliable indicator of economic mobility.
C) It is not correctly interpreted.
D) It is overwhelmingly ignored.
53. Compared with Atlanta, metropolitan Salt Lake City is said to _______.
A) have placed religious beliefs above party politics
B) have bridged the gap between the rich and the poor
C) offer poor children more chances to climb the social ladder
D) suffer from higher levels of racial and economic segregation
54. What is strongly correlated with social mobility according to economist Raj Chetty?
A) Family structure. C) School education.
B) Racial equality. D) Community density.
55. What does the author seem to suggest?
A) It is important to increase the size of the middle class.
B) It is highly important to expand the metropolitan areas.
C) It is most imperative to focus our efforts on the elimination of income inequality.
D) It is better to start from the community to help poor children move up the social ladder.
答案解析：
51. 由题干中的关键词 Obama view economic inequality”定位到文章第一段和第二段。第一段提到奥巴马认为不平等是危险的，因为它本身会破坏向上流动性”，第二段进一步说他是将不平等视为头号公敌”的最著名公众人物。综合来看，奥巴马认为不平等是社会流动的最大障碍。所以选 A。
52. 由题干中的关键词 Scott Winship’s data analysis”定位到文章第三段。该段明确指出，基于哈佛和伯克利的新数据，社会学家Scott Winship注意到，不平等本身并不是经济流动性的一个特别有力的预测指标”。所以选 B。
53. 由题干中的关键词 Salt Lake City”和 Atlanta”定位到文章第四段和第五段。第四段提出问题：为什么盐湖城最有可能帮助穷人改变命运，而亚特兰大最不可能?第五段给出了答案，指出像盐湖城这样双亲家庭和宗教信仰水平高的社区，比亚特兰大这种种族和经济隔离程度高的社区，更有可能看到贫困儿童出人头地”。所以选 C。
54. 由题干中的关键词 Raj Chetty”和 strongly correlated with”定位到文章第五段。该段末尾提到，Chetty指出家庭结构是他所称之为向上流动性的最强相关因素”。所以选 A。
55. 由题干可知，本题考查作者的观点或建议。纵观全文，作者先引出奥巴马等人的观点(不平等是核心问题)，然后通过Chetty等人的研究，指出真正影响社会流动性的因素是社区层面的因素，如家庭结构、政府支出、学校质量等。文章最后总结道，具备这些特点的社区最有可能帮助贫困儿童”。这表明作者认为，与其笼统地关注收入不平等，不如从社区层面着手解决问题。所以选 D。
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