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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.
The phrase "dumbing down" (Line 2, Para. 1) is closest in meaning to ________.
选项 A、becoming illiterate
B、becoming noiseless
C、getting clumsy
D、getting inflexible
答案A
解析 根据题干可直接定位到第一段第一句。该句指出NEA的数据一直为美国人正dumbing down的看法提供论据，而由末句可知，该机构的数据显示，“不读书的人数比率成倍增长”，因此dumbing down应与此结论对应，A项中的illiterate“不会读”与文中的read nothing对应，故A项为正确答案。B项利用dumb的字面意义“无声音的”制造干扰，文中并没有提到有声或无声这样的话题。C项“变得笨拙”和D“项变得僵硬”在文中找不到依据，故均可排除。
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