单选题 During the recession, job losses were not equitably shared; employment rates fell more for some groups than others. It is also well-known that job losses were greater among men than among women—the so-called mancession—largely because men had been more likely to work in the residential construction and manufacturing industries that were hit hardest.
What I"m going to reveal is the employment rates separately for married women and unmarried women who were heads of households. Not surprisingly, the latter are somewhat more likely to work. More surprising is that employment rates fell so much more for these unmarried women who were heads of household. Employment per capita fell 4.7 percentage points among the latter, compared with 1.6 percentage points among the former. The job-loss gap associated with marital status turns out to be as large as the more widely recognized job loss gap associated with gender.
Neither group of women had many members working in construction, so the decline of construction cannot explain these differences. An "added-worker effect" has been observed during a number of recessions: more married women worked during a recession than during an expansion because wives sometimes begin work to help replace the income lost by their unemployed husbands.
The employment rate among nonelderly married men fell 4 percentage points, to 83 percent from 87 percent. While that is a large decline by historical standards, it still means that roughly 95 percent of wives whose husbands were employed in 2007 had husbands who continued their employment during the recession. Among the 5 percent of wives who were not so fortunate, roughly two-thirds of them had already been working before the recession and therefore could not react to their husband"s unemployment by starting work. Therefore the added-worker effect is much too small to explain the sharply different job-loss rates by marital status.
What seems to be especially different between married and unmarried women is their propensity to be unemployed for long periods. The point is that married and unmarried women enter unemployment at about the same rate, but unmarried women leave it more slowly. Part of the difference in labor-market experiences has to do with the safety net. Many safety-net programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, and Medicaid, base eligibility on family income. A married woman is usually ineligible for a number of safety-net programs because her family"s income is above the poverty line regardless of her employment status.
Unmarried household heads, on the other hand, are usually the sole breadwinner for the family, and when their income falls to zero, the household income essentially does, too. For this reason, more unmarried women who are heads of households can expect anti-poverty programs to help them when they are out of work than married women can. An unintended but unavoidable consequence of providing someone a cushion when they are without work is that they are provided with less incentive to get back to work.

单选题 The job-loss gap between male and female is closely associated with ______.

单选题 The most surprising gap between unmarried woman and married is ______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】细节事实题
[解析] 这一题有一定的难度。第二段中提到，在经济危机之前，未婚女性的就业率略高于已婚女性，这是因为前者在供养家庭方面没有配偶的帮助，这一点不足为奇(Not surprisingly)。因此，我们可以首先将A排除。B、C需要放在一起进行辨析。第二段中提到，令人大跌眼镜的是，在萧条时期，那些要养家糊口的未婚女性的就业率出现了大幅下滑。未婚女性的人均就业率下降了4.7%，而已婚女性的下降比例仅为1.6%。很多同学会根据这一段话选择B。但是如果读到下文第五段处，就会发现B并不准确。第五段中明确指出，What seems to be especially different, between married and unmarried women is their propensity to be unemployed for long periods(已婚女性和未婚女性最令人感到惊异的差异是她们在经济危机之后持续失业的比率。)经济危机开始时，两者的失业率大致相当，但未婚女性脱离失业状态的速度较慢。因此，根据这一段的内容，我们可以做出判断，B错误，而C才是正确的。D已婚女性和未婚女性的择业倾向差异，是错误答案，因为文章第三段中明确指出他们在职业方面并不存在明显差异。

单选题 An "added-worker-effect" refers to ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】细节事实题
[解析] 文章第三段处第一次出现了“added-worker-effect”这个概念，并且给出了概念：more married women worked during a recession than during an expansion because wives sometimes begin work to help replace the income lost by their unemployed husbands. 与经济繁荣时期相比，在不景气的年代里，更多的已婚女性走进职场，因为有时候妻子需要一份工作以弥补因丈夫失业而损失的收入。A具有一定的迷惑性，但是根据文章第五段的内容，我们可以知道safety net一词的意思并不像它字面看起来那样表示“安全网”，而是指“社会福利所提供的保障”。因此A是错误的。B准确表达了“附加工人效应”的内涵。C错误，“附加工人效应”是针对只有一方工作的家庭提出来的概念，原来只有一人工作，但是经济危机之后，另一方也出去工作，从而带来“附加工人效应”，这个概念不是针对双收入家庭提出的。D错误，“工作的女性带来的额外社会财富”完全无法表达“附加工人效应”这一概念的基本内涵。

单选题 Which of the following statements is true according to Paragraph 4?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】判断题
[解析] A错误，第四段第一句话就指出，在这一次经济危机中，美国已婚男性的就业率由87%降至83%。按照历史标准来看，4%已经可以看成大幅下跌(that is a large decline by historical standards)，因此，A错误。B错误，第四段提到，约有95%的女性的丈夫并未在大萧条中丢掉饭碗，很多人可能就此判断经济危机会使剩下的5%的女性重回劳动大军，但问题是在剩下的这5%的女性中，其中已经有三分之二早在经济危机之前就有工作，因此“附加工人效应”在这一次经济危机中可谓微乎其微，大概只有1.6%左右的女性因为丈夫失业而重新回归工作岗位。C说家庭妇女回归工作岗位的比率比人们想象中低，这一说法是正确的。D错误，这一段并没有就除了丈夫下岗之外的其他的促使女性回归工作岗位的原因进行解释。

单选题 It can be inferred from the last two paragraphs that ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】推理题
[解析] 文章最后两段作者主要讨论了造成已婚女性和未婚女性失业率差异的最主要原因——社会福利项目。为数众多的社会保障项目都将家庭收入作为资格标准。因此有配偶的已婚女性被许多社会保障项目拒之门外。而未婚女性因为享有很多的社会福利项目的保障，因此削弱了她们重返职场的愿望。由此判断A错误，政府针对社会福利项目设定的一些门槛确实使得未婚女性的利益得到了最大化保障，而已婚女性的利益则在某种程度上受到了忽视。但是我们不能基于这一点就得出结论说政府制定的政策总是无法将大多数人的意愿考虑在内，这属于夸大其词。B是正确的，社会福利过于慷慨，会削弱人们工作的意愿，这就是现代社会福利的双刃剑效应。C错误，作者自始至终也没有将已婚女性和未婚女性在享受社会福利保障方面出现的差异称为不公现象，因为这种政策的制定本身情有可原，不能称之为社会不公。D过度引申，社会福利项目在某种程度上削弱了人们重返职场的愿望，但是政府不能削足适履，因此停止给一段时间之后仍然找不到工作的人发放失业金的说法属于对文章内容的过度引申。