首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nation’s Jewish popu
According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nation’s Jewish popu
admin
2010-05-14
61
问题
According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nation’s Jewish population is in shrinking. The study, the National Jewish Population Survey, found 5.2 million Jews living in the United States in 2000, a drop of 5 percent, or 300,000 people, since a similar study in 1990. What’s truly startling is that the reported decline is not tree. Worse still, the sponsor of the $6 million study, United Jewish Communities, knows it.
Both it and the authors have openly admitted their doubts. They have acknowledged in interviews that the population totals for 2000 and 1990 were reached by different methods and are not directly comparable. The survey itself also cautions readers, in a dauntingly technical appendix, that judgment calls by the researchers may have led to an undercount. When the research director and project director were asked whether the data should be construed to indicate a declining Jewish population, they flatly answered no. In addition, other survey researchers interviewed pointed to other studies with population estimates as high as 6.7 million.
Despite all this, the two figures --5.2 million now, 5.5 million then --are listed by side in the survey, leaving the impression that the population has shrunk. The result, predictably, has been a rash of headlines trumpeting the illusionary decline, in turn touching off jeremiads by rabbis and moralists condemning the religious laxity behind it. Whether out of ideology, ego, incompetence or a combination of all three, the respected charity has invented a crisis.
United Jewish Communities is the coordinating body for a national network of Jewish philanthropies with combined budgets of $2 billion. Its population surveys carry huge weight in shaping community policy. This is not the first time the survey has set off a false alarm. The last one, conducted by a predecessor organization, found that 52 percent of American Jews who married between 1985 and 1990 did so outside the faith. That number was a fabrication produced by including marriages in which neither party was Jewish by anyone’s definition, including the researchers.
Its publication created a huge stir, inspiring anguished sermons, books and conferences. It put liberals on the defensive, emboldened conservatives who reject full integration into society and alienated ordinary folks by the increasingly xenophobic tone of Jewish communal culture. The new survey, to its credit, retracts that figure and offers the latest survey has spawned a panic created by the last one.
So why did the organization flawed figures once again? Some scholars who have studied the. survey believe the motivation then came partly out of a desire to shock straying Jews into greater observance. It’ s too early to tell if that’ s the case this time around. What is clear is the researchers did their job with little regard to how their data could be misconstrued. They used statistical models and question formats that, while internally sound, made the new survey incompatible with the previous one. For example, this time the researchers divided the population of 5.2 million into two groups--"highly involved" Jews and "people of Jewish background"- and posed most questions only to the first group. As a result, most findings about belief and observance refer only to a subgroup of American Jews, making comparisons to the past impossible.
We can’ t afford to wait a decade before these figures are revised. The false population decline must be corrected before it further sours communal discourse. The United Jewish Communities owes it to itself and its public to step forward and state plainly what it knows to be true: American Jews are not disappearing.
How does the population survey get it wrong in 2000?
选项
A、The population total in 2000 was reached by different method from that in 1990.
B、There might be some problems with the judgment calls by the researchers.
C、United Jewish Communities offered not enough financial support to the survey.
D、It is the result of the rash of headlines leaving the impression that the population has declined.
答案
B
解析
答案在第二段:judgment calls by the researchers may have led to an undercount.
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/1OqO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、$400million.B、Over$4billion.C、Nolessthan$14billion.D、$40billion.B
Recently,AlexStenner,asophomoreattheUniversityofWisconsin-GreenBay,savedhundredsofdollarsontuitionandhoursspe
Modernintelligencetestingbeganin【B1】______.FrenchpsychologistBinetbasedhistestonthetheorythatintelligenceincreas
Bymostmeasures,reportsofAmerica’sdecliningpower,relativetotherestoftheworld,haveagainprovedpremature.TheU.S
A、ReconstructtheframeworkforenhancingintegrationwithintheWestAfricanregion.B、Anationalfromonecountrycannotstay
WhenEnochPowell,aConservativeMP,gaveaspeechin1968callingforanendtoimmigration,hereceivedsomanylettersofsu
Aroundtheworld,rumblesofcomplaintaboutglobalizationaregrowinglouder—andtheserumblesarenotconfinedtoactivistmov
OnceshamewasaveryBritishemotion.Itgovernedpeople’sliveslongafterstocksandduckingstoolswereabolished.Shakespea
A、Becauseofthegreatamountofratsshecaught.B、Becauseofhergoodmanner.C、Becauseofhersuddenattackontheburglars.
Isthestudyofsciencesimplyadisciplineinsearchoflawsrelatingtotheexistenceofmaterialtruths?Orisitalsoasear
随机试题
临床上导致血小板输注无效最常见的抗体是
主要在回肠段出现底部平整、四周隆起的“堤状溃疡”,是()的特征。
智力低下是指智商(IQ)值
下列关于桥孔布置原则的说法中,错误的是()。
具有抗折强度高、耐磨损、耐酸碱、不变色、寿命长等优点的外墙饰面材料是()。
甲公司2019年初的递延所得税资产借方余额为50万元,与之对应的预计负债贷方余额为200万元;递延所得税负债无期初余额。甲公司2019年度实现的利润总额为9520万元,适用的企业所得税税率为25%,且预计在未来期间保持不变;预计未来期间能够产生足够的应纳
下列关于细节测试中运用非统计抽样评价样本结果的相关说法中,错误的是()。
早在1898年,就有科学家指出.燃烧煤炭和石油产生的二氧化碳将导致地球变暖。随后,人类为防止地球变暖进行了漫长的探究和实践。时至2009年,大气中二氧化碳已由工业革命前的280ppm(1ppm为百万分之一)升至390ppm,然而在哥本哈根会议上,各国在应对
计算机内部采用二进制表示数据信息,二进制主要优点是
A、Agoodstrainhitabuscarryingmanypassengers.B、Twopassengertrainscrashedintoeachother.C、Apassengertraincollided
最新回复
(
0
)