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  3. For a quarter of a century, surveys of reading habits by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally-funded body, hav

For a quarter of a century, surveys of reading habits by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally-funded body, hav

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问题     For a quarter of a century, surveys of reading habits by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally-funded body, have been favorite material for anyone who thinks America is dumbing down. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, for example, cites the 2007 NEA report that "the proportion of 17-year-olds who read nothing (unless required to do so for school) more than doubled between 1984 and 2004."
    So it is a surprise that this trend seems to have taken a turn for the better. This week the NEA reported that, for the first time since 1982 when its survey began, the number of adults who said they had read a novel, short story, poem or play in the past 12 months had gone up, rising from 47％ of the population in 2002 to over 50％ in 2008.
    The increase, modest as it is, has thrown educationalists into excitement. "It’s just a temporary change," one professor said. It is certainly a snapshot. But it is not statistically insignificant. As the NEA’s research director, Sunil Iyengar, points out, almost every ethnic group seems to be reading more. The increase has been most marked in groups whose reading had declined most in the past 25 years, African-Americans and Spanish Americans (up by 15％ and 20％ respectively since 2002). It has also been larger among people at lower levels of education: reading among college graduates was flat, but among those who dropped out of high school it rose from under a quarter to over a third.
    Most remarkable of all has been the rebound among young men. The numbers of men aged 18-24 who say they are reading books (not just online) rose 24％ in 2002-08. Teachers sometimes despair of young men, whose educational performance has lagged behind that of young women almost across the board. But the reading gap at least may be narrowing. Dana Gioia, the NEA’s outgoing chairman, thinks the reason for the turnaround is the public reaction to earlier reports which had sounded the alarm. "There has been a measurable change in society’s commitment to literacy," he says. "Reading has become a higher priority."
    It may also be benefiting from the growing popularity of serious-minded leisure pursuits of many kinds. Museums, literary festivals and live opera transmissions into cinemas are all reporting larger audiences. Mr. Iyengar thinks the division between those who read a lot and those who don’t is eroding. What has not changed, though, is America’s "functional illiteracy" rate. Fully 21％ of adult Americans did not read a book last year because they couldn’t, one of the worst rates in the rich world.
It can be inferred from the last two paragraphs that ________.
选项 A、the trend of reading more results from self-examination
B、reading has become the final aim in people’s daily life
C、the gap between book lovers and those who don’t read widens
D、America’s functional illiteracy rate remains high
答案D
解析 根据题干可直接定位到文章最后两段。本文最后一段最后一句提到美国功能性文盲(functional illiteracy)的比率保持不变，这个比例在发达国家是非常高的(worst rates in the rich world)，因此D项为正确答案。最后一段首句提到，上升的原因来自serious-minded…pursuits“对高雅艺术的追求”，与A项中的self-examination无关，故A项错误。B项“阅读已经变成了人们日常生活的最终目标”对阅读的重要性引申过度。最后一段第三句提到读很多书的人和不读书的人之间的差距正在缩小(is eroding)，而非扩大 (widens)，C项与文意不符，故可排除。
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