问答题

Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle. And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity. The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education. Once they reach college age, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to go to college—and vastly less likely to go to a top-tier school—than those luckier in their parentage. At the most selective, "tier 1" schools. 74 percent of the entering class comes from the quarter of households that have the highest "socioeconomic status"; only 3 percent comes from the bottom quarter. And if children from our society’s lower rungs do manage to make it into a good college, the lack of financial support makes them far more likely to drop out than the children of the affluent, even if they have as much or more native ability. One long-term study by the department of education found that students with high test scores but low-income parents were less likely to complete college than students with low scores but affluent parents—loosely speaking, that smart poor kids are less likely than dumb rich kids to get a degree. It’s no wonder, then, that Horatio Alger stories, tales of poor kids who make good, are much less common in reality than they are in legend—and much less common in America than they are in Canada or Europe. Which brings me back to those who claim to believe in equality of opportunity. Where is the evidence for that claim Think about it: someone who really wanted equal opportunity would be very concerned about the inequality of our current system. He would support more nutritional aid for low-income mothers-to-be and young children. He would try to improve the quality of public schools. He would support aid to low-income college students. And he would support what every other advanced country has, a universal health care system, so that nobody need worry about untreated illness or crushing medical bills.

【参考答案】

美国人比其他国家的民众更有可能相信自己生活在精英管理的社会里。但是，这种自期是一种虚妄的想象：正如《泰晤士报》上周的一篇......

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Some people would say that the Englishman’s home is no longer his castle; that it has become his workshop. This is partly because the average English is keen on working with his own hands and partly because he feels, for one reason or another, that he must do for himself many household jobs for which, some years ago, he would have hired professional help. The main reason for this is a financial one: the high cost of labour has meant that the builders’ and decorators’ costs have reached a level which makes them prohibitive for house. proud English people of modest means. So, if they wish to keep their houses looking bright and smart, they have to tackle some of the repairs and decorating themselves. As a result, there has grown up in the post-war years what is sometimes referred to as the Do-it-yourself Movement .The Do-it-yourself Movement began with home decorating but has since spread into a much wider field. Nowadays there seem to be very few things that cannot be made by the do-it-yourself method. A number of magazines and handbooks exist to show hopeful handymen of all ages just how easy it is to build anything from a coffee table to a fifteen-foot(4.5 meters) sailing dinghy. All you need, it seems, is a hammer and a few nails. You follow the simple instructions step by step and, before you know where you are, the finished article stands before you, complete in every detail.Unfortunately, alas, it is not always quite as simple as it sounds! Many a budding do-it-yourself has found to his cost that one cannot learn a skilled craftsman’s job overnight. How quickly one realizes, when doing it oneself, that a job which takes the skilled man an hour or so to complete takes the amateur handyman five to six at least. And then there is the question of tools. The first thing the amateur learns is that he must have the right tools for the job. But tools cost money. There is also the wear and tear on the nerves. It is not surprising then that many people have come to the conclusion that the expense of paying professionals to do the work is, in the long run, more economical than do-it-yourself .

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A woman goes to work for a large corporation like IBM. She is intelligent, ambitious and hard-working. She is also good at solving problems. She likes the security of a definite salary and the security of knowing that there will always be a defined job to be done, a definite direction in which to exert her abilities. Perhaps the consciousness that ability will be rewarded is also important.A man goes to work for the government service. He is competent and hard-working, but he is not ambitious. He does not like to work under pressure or in a competitive environment. His real interests lie outside work in his lore of music.A brash young man who wants only to work for himself proceeds to set up his own business, starting with a hamburger franchise for which he borrows money. His satisfaction is to see things happen. He wants to be able to make things happen. He wants to look at the accounts at the end of the month and see what has happened. He wants the maximum responsibility and the maximum reward; he does not mind the risk.It is the urge to bring something about that defines the entrepreneur. This urge is not unlike that of the painter or writer. There is an urge to make something happen, something that was not there before. The medium chosen by the entrepreneur is action or operation. The aesthetic satisfaction is that of seeing something happening effectively, of seeing decisions correctly made. This satisfaction is made concrete by money. Money is the indicator of success but not necessarily the driving factor. The test would be simple: if an entrepreneur were suddenly given as much money as he wanted, would he stop his activities or use the money to develop new ones History is very much on the side of the new activities.The entrepreneur seeks out opportunities; he tries things out; he makes decisions based as much on hunch as on analysis. Quite often he starts up a successful business which grows to such a size that his entrepreneurial style of management is no longer the best and he has to resign if the company is to survive.Entrepreneurs are the risk element in society, the evolutionary element that brings about change as distinct from the operating element that keeps things ticking over. In too many countries they are discouraged as being greedy and selfish.