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  3. This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the contours of modern marria

This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the contours of modern marria

admin2014-09-05  50
问题     This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the contours of modern marriage and the new American family. And of all the transformations our family structures have undergone in the past 50 years, perhaps the most profound is the marriage differential that has opened between the rich and the poor. In 1960 the median household income of married adults was 12% higher than that of single adults, after adjusting for household size. By 2008 this gap had grown to 41% . In other words, the richer and more educated you are,the more likely you are to marry,or to be married — or, conversely, if you’re married, you’re more likely to be well off.
    To begin the question of why the wealth disparity between the married and the unmarried has grown so much,it might be useful to take a look at the brief but illustrative marriage of golfer Greg Norman and tennis star Chris Evert, who married in June 2008 and divorced 15 months later. From all reports, their union had many of the classic hallmarks of modern partnerships. The bride and groom had roughly equal success in their careers. Being wealthy, sporty and blond,they had similar interests.
    This is typical of the way many marriages start. Americans are increasingly marrying people who are on the same socioeconomic and educational level. Since more women than men have graduated from college for several decades, it’s more likely than it used to be that a male college graduate will meet, fall in love with, wed and share the salary of a woman with a degree. Women’s advances in education have roughly paralleled the growth of the knowledge economy, so the slice of the family bacon she brings home will be substantial.
    On the face of it, this might explain why fewer people are married. They want to finish college first. In 2010 the median age of men getting hitched for the first time is 28. 2 ,and for women it’s 26. 1. It’s gone up about a year every decade since the ’60s.
    But here’s the rub. In the past two decades, people with only a high school education started to get married even later than college graduates. In 1990 more high-school-educated couples than college graduates had made it to the altar by age 30. By 2007 it was the other way around. What has brought about the switch? It’s not any disparity in desire. According to the Pew survey, 46% of college graduates want to get married, and 44% of the less educated do.
    Promising publicly to be someone’s partner for life used to be something people did to lay the foundation of their independent life. It was the declaration of adulthood. Now it’s more of a finishing touch,the last brick in the edifice,sociologists believe. "Marriage is the capstone for both the college-educated and the less well educated," says Johns Hopkins’ Cherlin. " The college-educated wait until they’re finished with their education and their careers are launched. The less educated wait until they feel comfortable financially. " But that comfort keeps getting more elusive. "The loss of decent-paying jobs that a high-school-educated man or woman could get makes it difficult for them to get and stay married," says Cherlin. As the knowledge economy has overtaken the manufacturing economy, couples in which both partners’ job opportunities are disappearing are doubly disadvantaged. So they wait to get married.
Which of the following may be agreed both by the well-educated and less-educated nowadays?
选项 A、One should not get married until he is fully prepared,economically or psychologically.
B、Marriage is a good opportunity for one to climb up social ladder.
C、Woman should go outside to bring back home her share of slice of bacon.
D、Marriage is just not as necessary as it used to be in practical terms.
答案A
解析 本题考查对文中多处细节内容的理解。教育程度的高低会影响一个人的很多观点，但是受教育程度高的人和受教育程度低的人的观点也有很多交集。[A]出现在文章最后一段。最后一段前三句话指出了现代年轻人婚姻观的变化。以往的年轻人觉得婚姻好像一场成人礼，是成长过程中的一个仪式；而现在的年轻人更倾向于将婚姻看做是“压顶石”，也就是自己经济上成熟、心理上成熟之后才会作出的一个决定。而且不管是受教育程度高或低，年轻人对于这个问题的看法都倾向于一致。因此[A]正确。[B]错误。文中二至四段明确提出，越来越多的人倾向于选择和自己门当户对的人结婚，这意味着婚姻促进社会流动性的功能正在减弱，想要通过婚姻而改变自己社会地位的人越来越少。[B]属于受教育程度高的人和受教育程度低的人都不会同意的观点。[C]利用文章第三段的内容设置干扰项，第三段最后一句话提到，随着妇女受教育程度的提升，越来越多的女性对家庭财政的贡献越来越大。至于人们是否认为女性就应该出去工作挣钱，文中并未提及。[D]讨论婚姻的必要性，虽然从字面意思上看，“婚姻非必需”这样的观点应该有很多美国年轻人会同意，但这绝不是每个年轻人的看法，而且文中第五段中的数据显示，仍然有接近一半的年轻人想要结婚，而且这一数据在不同学历背景人群中差不多，因此[D]错误。
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