单选题 When Newsweek recently asked 1,000 U. S. citizens to take America's official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn't name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn't correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn't even circle Independence Day on a calendar.
Don't get us wrong: civic ignorance is nothing new. For as long as they've existed, Americans have been misunderstanding checks and balances and misidentifying their senators. And they've been lamenting the ignorance of their peers ever since pollsters started publishing these dispiriting surveys back in Harry Truman's day. According to a study by Michael X. Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, the yearly shifts in civic knowledge since World War II have averaged out to "slightly under 1 percent. "
But the world has changed. And unfortunately, it's becoming more and more inhospitable to incurious know-nothings—like us. To appreciate the risks involved, it's important to understand where American ignorance comes from. In March 2009, the European Journal of Communication asked citizens of Britain, Denmark, Finland, and the U.S. to answer questions on international affairs. The Europeans outdid us. It was only the latest in a series of polls that have shown us lagging behind our First World peers.
Most experts agree that the relative complexity of the U. S. political system makes it hard for Americans to keep up. In many European countries, parliaments have proportional representation, and the majority party rules without having to "share power with a lot of subnational governments," notes Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker. In contrast, we're saddled with a nonproportional Senate; a tangle of state, local, and federal bureaucracies; and near-constant elections for every imaginable office (judge, sheriff, school-board member, and so on). "Nobody is competent to understand it all, which you realize every time you vote," says Michael Schudson, author of The Good Citizen. "You know you're going to come up short, and that discourages you from learning more. "
It doesn't help that the United States has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world, with the top 400 households raking in more money than the bottom 60 percent combined. As Dalton Conley, an NYU sociologist, explains, "it's like comparing apples and oranges. Unlike Denmark, we have a lot of very poor people without access to good education, and a huge immigrant population that doesn't even speak English. " When surveys focus on well-off, native-born respondents, the U. S. actually holds its own against Europe.
For more than two centuries, Americans have gotten away with not knowing much about the world around them. But times have changed—and they've changed in ways that make civic ignorance a big problem going forward. We suffer from a lack of information rather than a lack of ability. Whether that's a treatable affliction or a terminal illness remains to be seen. But now's the time to start searching for a cure.

单选题 Back in Truman's day, Americans
[A] were well aware of what was going on around them.
[B] already showed much ignorance about public affairs.
[C] did not know as much about civil rights as they do now.
[D] lamented the ignorance of the pollsters involved in surveys.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】第一、二段提到美国人对公共事务是多么的无知，其中第二段第三句提到，自从民意测验者在杜鲁门总统时代开始发表那些令人沮丧的调查结果以来，美国人对自己的同胞的无知感到悲哀。从这句话中我们了解到，在杜鲁门总统执政时代，美国人就开始对公共事务表现出很大的无知，现代的美国人一直对那个时代的无知感到悲哀，殊不知他们自己也是同样的无知。
单选题 The author implies in Paragraph 3 that
[A] it is all the more important for Americans to know the less friendly world.
[B] the risks in remaining ignorant in a fasting changing world will be costly.
[C] America should learn from Europe in training and educating its citizens.
[D] Americans' knowledge about the world has been increasing slowly each year.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】第三段提到，世界变了，变得对美国更加不友好，因此，为了充分认识这种变化所带来的危险，我们就需要知道美国人的无知来自何处。这几句话的意思是，因为世界变得对美国不友好起来，因此美国人更需要了解国内外事务。
单选题 Jacob Hacker implies that the British political system
[A] is much less complicated than that of America.
[B] is more centralized in terms of power and government.
[C] is less democratic and ignores a lot of civil rights.
[D] is less bureaucratic and works more efficiently.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】第四、五段解释了造成美国人对公共事务无知的原因。第四段首先提到美国政治体制的相对复杂性。在这里，作者虽然没有明确把美国的政治制度与英国的政治制度对照，但提到了欧洲的政治制度，提到了按比例的代议制等典型的议会制特征(在议会制制度中，议会中的席位多寡决定了权力的分配比例)。英国在政治上是典型的议会制国家。
单选题 Paragraphs 4 and 5 are written to
[A] explain how American political system works.
[B] explain how to root out income inequality in America.
[C] propose a solution to America's civic ignorance.
[D] explore the roots of America's civic ignorance.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】第四段提到了美国政治制度的复杂性，比如美国比欧洲的议会制多一个不按比例代表制形成的参议院(参议院不按议员席位比例分配权力)，各种各样的公共职务都需要选举产生。政治过程非常复杂。美国人知道他们无论怎样努力到头来都是令人失望(come up short意为“付出最大努力后仍然可能失败”，这里指美国人无论怎样想努力了解美国的政治过程，到头来还是不能掌握其复杂过程)，所以他们就干脆不去了解这些政治过程了。第五段提到第二个原因，即美国穷人多，移民人口多，这些人受教育程度低，因此对政治问题不了解。
单选题 America's civic ignorance
[A] is largely attributable to its unwillingness to learn.
[B] can not be corrected by any kind of method.
[C] has become an affliction in the fast-changing world.
[D] can be traced back to its rising dominance in the world's affairs.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】最后一段提到，两个多世纪以来，美国一直对外界不了解，但这对他们没有造成什么伤害。但是世界变化了，使得公民的无知成为一个问题。这究竟是一个可以医治的病痛还是一个无法医治的病痛(terminal illness指无法医治的晚期病或绝症)，现在还很难说，但是现在是一个应该寻找治疗方法的时候了。可见，作者把美国人对公共事务的无知看做是一个必须尽快解决的问题。