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  3. For this generation of young people, the future looks bleak. Only one in six is working full time. Three out of five live with t

For this generation of young people, the future looks bleak. Only one in six is working full time. Three out of five live with t

admin2011-02-03  75
问题     For this generation of young people, the future looks bleak. Only one in six is working full time. Three out of five live with their parents or other relatives. A large majority—73 percent— think they need more education to find a successful career, but only half of those say they will definitely enroll in the next few years.
    No, they are not the idle youth of Greece or Spain or Egypt. They are the youth of America, the world’s richest country, who do not have college degrees and aren’t getting them anytime soon.
    Whatever the sob stories about recent college graduates spinning their wheels as baristas or clerks, the situation for their less-educated peers is far worse. For this group, finding work that pays a living wage and offers some sense of security has been elusive.
    Despite the continuing national conversation about whether college is worth it given the debt burden it entails, most high school graduates without college degrees said they believed they would be unable to get good jobs without more education.
    Getting it is challenging, though, and not only because of formidable debt levels.
    Ms. McClour and her husband, Andy, have two daughters under 3 and another due next month. She said she tried enrolling in college classes, but the workload became too stressful with such young children. Mr. McClour works at a gas station. He hates his work and wants to study phlebotomy, but the nearest school is an hour and a half away.
    Many of these young people had been expecting to go to college since they started high school, perhaps anticipating that employers would demand skills high schools do not teach. Just one in ten high school graduates without college degrees said they were "extremely well prepared by their high school to succeed in their job after graduation."
    These young people worried about getting left behind and were pessimistic about reaching some of the milestones that make up the American dream.
    More than half—56 percent—of high school graduates without college diplomas said that their generation would have less financial success than their parents. By contrast, just 14 percent said they expected to do better than their parents.
    About the same share believed they would find work that offered health insurance within that time frame. Slightly less than half of respondents said the next few years would bring work with good job security or a job with earnings that were high "enough to lead a comfortable life." They were similarly pessimistic about being able to start a family or buy a home.
    The online survey was conducted between March 21 and April 2, and covered a nationally representative survey of 544 high school graduates from the classes of 2006-11 who did not have bachelor’s degrees. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
                                            From The New York Times, June 6, 2012
What does the phrase "spinning their wheels" mean in Paragraph 3?
选项 A、fastening the pace
B、confusing the situation
C、asking for help
D、scooting out
答案A
解析 本题为语义题。spin the wheel意为“加快脚步，抓紧时间做”，因此正确答案为A。
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