单选题   The most important divide in America today is class, not race, and the place where it matters most is in the home. Conservatives have been banging on about family breakdown for decades. Now one of the nation's most prominent liberal scholars has joined the chorus.
    Robert Putnam is a former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the author of Bowling Alone (2000), an influential work that lamented the decline of social capital in America. In his new book, Our Kids, he describes the growing gulf between how the rich and the poor raise their children. Among the educated elite the traditional family is thriving: fewer than 10% of births to female college graduates are outside marriage—a figure that is barely higher than it was in 1970. In 2007 among women with just a high-school education, by contrast, 65% of births were non-marital. Race makes a difference: only 2% of births to white college graduates are out-of-wedlock, compared with 80% among African-Americans with no more than a high-school education, but neither of these figures has changed much since the 1970s. However, the non-marital birth proportion among high-school-educated whites has quadrupled, to 50%, and the same figure for college-educated blacks has fallen by a third, to 25%. Thus the class divide is growing even as the racial gap is shrinking.
    Upbringing affects opportunity. Upper-middle-class homes are not only richer (with two professional incomes) and more stable; they are also more nurturing. In the 1970s, there were practically no class differences in the amount of time that parents spent talking, reading and playing with toddlers. Now the children of college-educated parents receive 50% more of what Mr. Putnam calls 'Goodnight Moon' time (after a popular book for infants).
    Working-class parents, who have less spare capacity, are more likely to demand that their kids simply obey them. In the short run this saves time; in the long run it prevents the kids from learning to organize their own lives or think for themselves. Poor parenting is thus a barrier to social mobility, and is becoming more so as the world grows more complex and the rewards for superior cognitive skills increase.
    Stunningly, Mr. Putnam finds that family background is a better predictor of whether or not a child will graduate from university than 8th-grade test scores. Kids in the richest quarter with low test scores are as likely to make it through college as kids in the poorest quarter with high scores.
    Mr. Putnam suggests a grab-bag of policies to help poor kids reach their potential, such as raising subsidies for poor families, teaching them better parenting skills, improving nursery care and making after-school baseball clubs free. He urges all 50 states to experiment to find out what works. A problem this complex has no simple solution.
单选题     Which of the following statements is true according to Putnam's new book?______
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】由题干中的Putnam's new book定位到第二段第三句。 事实细节题。第二段第三句提到,在受过教育的精英之中,传统家庭正在蓬勃兴旺:受过高等教育的女子中只有不到10%生育非婚生孩子,这个数字与20世纪70年代几乎不分伯仲,换言之,在受过高等教育的女性中,婚内生子的比例在1970年到2007年间几乎没有变化,故答案为A。 B“在高中毕业群体中,非婚生子女一直在减少”,文章只是在第二段第六句中提到高中教育程度的白人生育非婚生子女的情况增加了,故排除;C“非裔美国人非婚生子女更多”,作者主要从不同教育阶层比较非婚生子女的比例,并没有整体比较白人和非裔美国人的非婚生子女情况,故排除;D“更多高中教育程度的白人在婚前生子”,作者在本段第六句提到高中教育程度的白人非婚生子女率有所提高,这与婚前生子概念不同,因此D与原文意思不符,故排除。
单选题     'Goodnight Moon' time (Line 5, Para. 3) refers to the time of ______.
 
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】由题干中的“Goodnight Moon” time定位到第三段最后一句。 语义理解题。对于“Goodnight Moon” time的理解应回溯至该段倒数第二句。20世纪70年代,父母与蹒跚学步的孩子一同聊天、阅读和玩耍的时间并不存在明显的阶级差距,而现在受过高等教育的父母会多给孩子一些“Goodnight Moon” time,可见,这个时间就是指“与孩子聊天、阅读和玩耍的时间”,也就是参与孩子教育的时间,故答案为C。 A“为孩子提供机会”,第三段第一句虽然提到“机遇”,但是并没有说明有具体的时间,且从行文上来看,此句与关键词位置较远,故可排除;B“给予孩子更多的营养”,该段第二句中虽提及they are also more nurturing,但从上下文可知,nurturing指的主要是精神上的,而不是指物质上的“营养”,故可排除;D“给婴儿读畅销书籍”,after a popular book for infants是指这个时间的名称是根据一本畅销的婴儿图书命名的,因此D曲解了原文的意思,故可排除。
单选题     We can infer that working-class parents ______.
 
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】由题干中的working-class parents定位到第四段第一句。 推理判断题。定位句指出,工薪阶层的父母,由于没有多少余力,只是要求孩子们单纯地服从。定位句之后还详细地解释了这种做法的弊端,由此可以推断,这些父母需要养育方式上的指导,故答案为D。 A“会对孩子更加严厉”,要求孩子们单纯地服从并不等同于“更加严厉”,故排除;B“禁止孩子独立思考”,文中提到父母要求孩子们单纯地服从客观上会限制孩子独立思考,但并未在主观上禁止孩子独立思考,故排除;C“忽视社会的变化”,本段最后一句提到了社会对高层次的脑力技能的要求不断提高,但并未提到这些父母对此变化的反应,故可排除。
单选题     What does Mr. Putnam's finding about test scores suggest?______
 
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据题干中的Mr. Putnam's和test scores定位到第五段。 推理判断题。该段首句指出,家庭背景比八年级测验分数更能准确地预测一个孩子是否能够从大学毕业,并在后一句中具体解释说富裕家庭的孩子即使分数不高,也与贫困家庭分数高的孩子一样有机会从大学毕业。结合上面两段对不同阶层参与教育和教育方式的差别可知,这能够反映出父母的家庭教育对孩子学业成绩的影响,故答案为B。 A“来自富裕家庭的孩子不必努力学习”,第五段第二句虽然提到考试成绩不及贫困家庭孩子的富裕家庭的学生也有机会从大学毕业,但这主要是说明家庭教育的影响,而不是说他们可以不努力读书,故排除;C“贫困家庭的孩子几乎很难从大学毕业”,文章并没有比较两种家庭孩子大学毕业的整体情况,更没有说贫困家庭的孩子难以大学毕业,故排除;D“家庭背景可以弥补学业上的不足”,该句似是而非,原文实际上是说家庭教育可以帮助学生提高学业水平,而不是直接弥补学业上的不足,故排除。
单选题     In the passage, the author mainly discusses ______
 
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由题干可知本题考查主旨大意,需从全文出发进行解答。 主旨大意题。本文第一段提到,在美国最重要的差别是阶级,不是种族,而这种差别影响最大的地方是家庭;第二段具体阐述家庭的差别,即非婚生子女,然后接着总结:阶层差异拉大了,而种族差异缩小了;接下来的四段提到,不同阶层的家庭给孩子提供的家庭影响、机遇和教育方式均有不同,并由此影响到孩子在学校的成绩。可见,作者讨论的重点在于“家庭背景对学业的影响”,故答案为B。 A“父母应该怎样养育孩子”,文中只提到不同阶层父母的养育方式存在差别,没有提及应该怎样教育孩子,故可排除;C“社会流动性最大的障碍是什么”,第四段提到贫困家庭的教育方式阻碍了社会流动,但没有提到这是社会流动性最大的障碍,故可排除;D“不同阶层教育孩子的方式大相径庭”,文章重点讨论了不同家庭背景对孩子教育的影响,而具体各阶层如何教育孩子并没有论及,故可排除。