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  3. WHERE do the world’s poor live? The obvious answer: in poor countries. But in a recent series of articles Andy Sumner of Britain

WHERE do the world’s poor live? The obvious answer: in poor countries. But in a recent series of articles Andy Sumner of Britain

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问题     WHERE do the world’s poor live? The obvious answer: in poor countries. But in a recent series of articles Andy Sumner of Britain’s Institute of Development Studies showed that the obvious answer is wrong. Four-fifths of those surviving on less than $2 a day, he found, live in middle-income countries with a gross national income per head of between $1,000 and $12,500, not poor ones. His finding reflects the fact that a long but inequitable period of economic growth has lifted many developing countries into middle-income status but left a minority of their populations mired in poverty. Since the countries involved include giants like China and India, even a minority amounts to a very large number of people.
    That matters because middle-income countries can afford to help their own poor. If most of the poverty problem lies within their borders, then foreign aid is less relevant to poverty reduction. A better way to help would be to make middle-income countries’ domestic policies more "pro-poor".
    Now Mr. Sumner’s argument faces a challenge. According to Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution and Andrew Rogerson of Britain’s Overseas Development Institute, "by 2025 most absolute poverty will once again be concentrated in low-income countries." They argue that as middle-income countries continue to make progress against poverty, its incidence there will fall. However, the number of poor people is growing in "fragile" states, which the authors define as countries which cannot meet their populations’ expectations or manage these through the political process (sounds like some European nations, too). The pattern that Mr. Sumner describes, they say, is a passing phase.
    Messrs Kharas and Rogerson calculate that the number of poor in "non-fragile" states has fallen from almost 2 billion in 1990 to around 500m now; they think it will go on declining to around 200m by 2025. But the number of poor in fragile states is not falling—a testament both to the growing number of poor, unstable places and to their fast population growth. This total has stayed flat at about 500m since 1990 and, the authors think, will barely shift until 2025. As early as next year, the number of poor in what are sometimes called FRACAS (fragile and conflict-affected states) could be greater than the number in stable ones. That would imply something different to Mr. Sumner’s view: instead of being irrelevant to poverty reduction, foreign aid will continue to be vital, since fragile states (unlike middle-income ones) cannot afford to help the poor but instead need help themselves.
According to Kharas and Rogerson, what will happen to the number of poor in "non-fragile" states?
选项 A、Now there are 2 billion poor people.
B、The number of poor in fragile states is not falling.
C、It has reduced by 500m now.
D、It reduced to 200m in the past quarter-century.
答案D
解析 选项D对应第四段第一句后半段：it will go on declining to around 200m by 2025，选项中的“past quarter-century"意思是“过去25年”。选项A对应这一段的第一句前半段，但是这一句中说的是穷人从1990年的20亿到现在的5亿左右，也就是说，选项A的时间弄错了。选项C说的是本段第二句话的内容，也就是发生在fragile states的情况，而题目问的是“non-fragile”states的情况，因此所问非所答。选项C对应这一段的第一句前半部分，其中的短语reduce by的意思是“减少了”，但是文章的情况是“减少到(…has fallen…to…)”，因此C不对。
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