单选题 Poverty exists because our society is an unequal one ,and there are extremely strong and powerful political pressures to keep it that way. Any attempt to redistribute wealth and income in the United States will inevitably be opposed by powerful middle and upper class interests. People can be relatively rich only if others are relatively poor, and since power is concentrated in the hands of the rich, public policies will continue to reflect their interests rather than those of the poor.
As Herbert Gans (1973) has pointed out, poverty is actually functional from the point of view of the non-poor. Poverty ensures that" dirty" work gets done. If there were, no poor people to scrub floors and empty waste, these jobs would have to be rewarded with high incomes before anyone would touch them. Poverty creates jobs for many of the non-poor, such as police officers, welfare workers, pawnbrokers, and government bureaucrats. Poverty makes life easier for the rich by providing them with cooks, gardeners, and other workers to perform basic chores while their employers enjoy more, pleasurable activities. Poverty provides a market for inferior goods and services, such as day-old bread, run-down automobiles, or the advice of incompetent physicians and lawyers. Poverty makes middle-class values seem acceptable. To the middle class, the fate of the poor — who are supposed to lack the virtues of thrift, honesty, and a taste for hard work — only confirms the desirability of qualities the poor are thought to lack. Poverty also provides a group that can be made to absorb the costs of change. For example, the poor suffer the main part or force of unemployment caused by automaton, and it is their homes, not those of the wealthy, that are demolished when a route has to be found for a new highway. There is no intentional, conscious "secret plan" of the wealthy to keep the poor in poverty. It is just that poverty is an inevitable outcome of the American economic system; which the poor are politically powerless to influence change.

单选题 Poverty exists in American society because______.
A. the wealthy find it hard to change it
B. the great majority of the non-poor are totally not concerned about it
C. the rich think they are powerless to do anything about it
D. the poor lack such desirable qualities as honesty
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由题干poverty exists定位到第一段可知之所以存在贫困，是因为美国社会是一个不公平的社会，富人们利用手中的政治权力维持着这种状态，是富人们对穷人生存状况的不关心，因此选[B]绝大多数富人对贫穷漠然视之。富人们不可能去主动改变穷人的贫穷状况，因此排除[A]、[C]；穷人缺乏像诚实这样的优秀品质，这是富人们维护其既得经济利益诬蔑穷人的借口，故排除[D]。
单选题 The poor take on" dirty work" because they do it _______.
A. under political pressures
B. for the high pay offered
C. as they are reasonably paid
D. for low salary to raise themselves and their families
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】由题干dirty work定位到第二段第三句，意思是如果没有穷人擦地板或倒垃圾，那么，除非有很高的报酬，否则是没有人愿意做这些工作的，言下之意是穷人们即使报酬低也会做这些工作，故选[D]，同时排除[B]、[C]。[A]原文未提及。
单选题 Poverty makes life easier for ______.
A. the non-poor as they can get well-paid jobs
B. the rich as there are sorts of domestic services available
C. the poor as they can get cheap bread and automobiles
D. the businessmen as they can easily find a market for goods and services lower in quality
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由题干make life easier定位到第二段第五句，该句意思是贫困的存在使富人们生活得更加容易和舒适，因为穷人们可以给他们当厨师、园艺工以及其他家庭服务人员，因此选[B]。
单选题 The author thinks that the poor______.
A. lack such desirable qualities as saving or honesty
B. are not inclined to work hard
C. are not willing to bear the costs of change
D. have no power to change the present economic system
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】此处考查作者对穷人的看法，因此可定位到第二段第八句和最后一句，意思是：对于中产阶级来说，穷人，被认为是丧失厂节俭、诚实、努力工作等良好的品质的穷人的命运证明了这些优良的品质就是穷人所缺乏的，这是富人们的观点，而作者则认为，贫困是美国经济体制的必然产物，穷人们由于政治上的弱势无力影响或者改变这种经济体制。穷人们并非不愿意承担改革的成本，而是他们对改革根本无能为力，因此选[D]穷人无力改变现存的经济体制，同时排除[C]。[A]、[B]都是中产阶级的观点，故排除。
单选题 The best title for the text would be______.
A. An Unequal Society B. Political Factors in Poverty
C. The Fate of the Poor D. Functions of Poverty
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】本题考查文章的主旨，文章主要讲述了贫穷之所以存在是因为我们的社会是一个不公平的社会，并且存在着强大的政治力量维持着这种不公平的状况，因此选[B]贫困中的政治因素。[A]不平等的社会，太笼统；[C]穷人们的命运，本文在揭示导致穷人们贫穷的命运的根本原因，而不是叙述穷人的命运；作者用讽刺的口吻描述了贫困给富人带来的种种好处，故排除[D]。