What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?A. To testify to the experts’ analysis of America’s problems. B. To offer a feasible solution to the structural unemployment. C. To show the urgent need for the government to take action. D. To alert American workers to the urgency for adaptation. E. Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)(2017.6) F. Section A G. irections: In this section, there is a passage withten blanks. You are required to select one word foreach blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passagethrough carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line throughthe centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once. Let's all stop judging people who talk to themselves. New research says that those who can'tseem to keep their inner monologues (独白) in are actually more likely to stay on task, remain__26__ better and show improved perception capabilities. Not bad, really, for some extramuttering. ccording to a series of experiments published in the Quarterly Journal of ExperimentalPsychology by professors Gary Lupyan and Daniel Swignley, the act of using verbal clues to__27__ mental pictures helps people function quicker. In one experiment, they showed pictures of various objects to twenty __28__ and asked themto find just one of those, a banana. Half were __29__ to repeat out loud what they werelooking for and the other half kept their lips __30__. Those who talked to themselves found thebanana slightly faster than those who didn't, the researchers say. In other experiments, Lupyan and Swignley found that __31__ the name of a common product when on the hunt forit helped quicken someone's pace, but talking about uncommon items showed no advantageand slowed you down. ommon research has long held that talking themselves through a task helps children learn, although doing so when you've __32__ matured is not a great sign of __33__. The twoprofessors hope to refute that idea, __34__ that just as when kids walk themselves through aprocess, adults can benefit from using language not just to communicate, but also to help"augment thinking". Of course, you are still encouraged to keep the talking at library tones and, whatever you do, keep the information you share simple, like a grocery list. At any __35__, there's still such athing as too much information. apparently arrogance brilliance claiming dedicated focused incur H) instructed I) obscurely J) sealed K) spectators L) trigger M) uttering N) volume O) volunteers Section B You may choose a paragraph more than once. Eachparagraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter onAnswer Sheet 2. Rich Children and Poor Ones Are Raised Very Differently The lives of children from rich and poor American families look more different than everbefore. Well-off families are ruled by calendars, with children enrolled in ballet, soccer and after-school programs, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. There are usually twoparents, who spend a lot of time reading to children and worrying about their anxiety levelsand hectic schedules. In poor families, meanwhile, children tend to spend their time at home or with extendedfamily. They are more likely to grow up in neighborhoods that their parents say aren't great forraising children, and their parents worry about them getting shot, beaten up or in trouble withthe law. The class differences in child rearing are growing—a symptom of widening inequality withfar-reaching consequences. Different upbringings set children on different paths and candeepen socioeconomic divisions, especially because education is strongly linked to earnings. Children grow up learning the skills to succeed in their socioeconomic stratum (阶层), but notnecessarily others. "Early childhood experiences can be very consequential for children's long-term social, emotional and cognitive development," said Sean Reardon, professor of poverty andinequality in education at Stanford University. "And because those influence educationalsuccess and later earnings, early childhood experiences cast a lifelong shadow." The cyclecontinues: Poorer parents have less time and fewer resources to invest in their children, whichcan leave children less prepared for school and work, which leads to lower earnings. American parents want similar things for their children, the Pew report and past researchhave found: for them to be healthy and happy, honest and ethical, caring and compassionate. There is no best parenting style or philosophy, researchers say, and across income groups, 92% of parents say they are doing a good job at raising their children. Yet they are doing itquite differently. Middle-class and higher-income parents see their children as projects in needof careful cultivation, says Annette Lareau, whose groundbreaking research on the topic waspublished in her book Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life. They try to develop theirskills through close supervision and organized activities, and teach children to questionauthority figures and navigate elite institutions. Working-class parents, meanwhile, believe their children will naturally thrive, and give themfar greater independence and time for free play. They are taught to be compliant andrespectful to adults. There are benefits to both approaches. Working-class children arehappier, more independent, complain less and are closer with family members, Ms. Lareaufound. Higher-income children are more likely to declare boredom and expect their parents tosolve their problems. Yet later on, the more affluent children end up in college and on the wayto the middle class, while working-class children tend to struggle. Children from higher-incomefamilies are likely to have the skills to navigate bureaucracies and succeed in schools andworkplaces, Ms. Lareau said. H) "Do all parents want the most success for their children? Absolutely," she said. "Do somestrategies give children more advantages than others in institutions? Probably they do. Willparents be damaging children if they have one fewer organized activity? No, I really doubt it." I) Social scientists say the differences arise in part because low-income parents have less moneyto spend on music class or preschool, and less flexible schedules to take children to museumsor attend school events. Extracurricular activities reflect the differences in child rearing in thePew survey, which was of a nationally representative sample of 1,807 parents. Of familiesearning more than 75,000 a year, 84% say their children have participated in organizedsports over the past year, 64% have done volunteer work and 62% have taken lessons inmusic, dance or art. Of families earning less than 30,000, 59% of children have done sports, 37% have volunteered and 41% have taken arts classes. J) Especially in affluent families, children start young. Nearly half of high-earning, college-graduate parents enrolled their children in arts classes before they were 5, compared with one-fifth of low-income, less- educated parents. Nonetheless, 20% of well-off parents say theirchildren's schedules are too hectic, compared with 8% of poorer parents. K) Another example is reading aloud, which studies have shown gives children biggervocabularies and better reading comprehension in school. 71% of parents with a college degreesay they do it every day, compared with 33% of those with a high school diploma or less. Whiteparents are more likely than others to read to their children daily, as are married parents. Mostaffluent parents enroll their children in preschool or day care, while low-income parents aremore likely to depend on family members. Discipline techniques vary by education level: 8% ofthose with a postgraduate degree say they often beat their children, compared with 22% ofthose with a high school degree or less. L) The survey also probed attitudes and anxieties. Interestingly, parents' attitudes towardeducation do not seem to reflect their own educational background as much as a belief in theimportance of education for upward mobility. Most American parents say they are notconcerned about their children's grades as long as they work hard. But 50% of poor parentssay it is extremely important to them that their children earn a college degree, compared with39% of wealthier parents. [B ] What Nijay didn't realize about his school—Tennessee State University—was its frighteningly low graduation rate:a mere 29 percent for its first-generation students. At the end of his first year, Nijay lost his Pell Grant of over 5,000 after narrowly missing the 2.0 GPA cut-off, making it impossible for him to continue paying for school. [C ] Nijay represents a large and growing group of Americans: first-generation college students who enter school unprepared or behind. To make matters worse, these schools are ill-equipped to graduate these students—young adults who face specific challenges and obstacles. They typically carry financial burdens that outweigh those of their peers, are more likely to work while attending school, and often require significant academic remediation (补习). [D] Matt Rubinoff directs I'm First, a nonprofit organization launched last October to reach out to this specific population of students. He hopes to distribute this information and help prospective college-goers find the best post-secondary fit. And while Rubinoff believes there are a good number of four-year schools that truly care about these students and set aside significant resources and programs for them, he says that number isn't high enough. M) Less-educated parents, and poorer and black and Latino parents are more likely to believethat there is no such thing as too much involvement in a child's education. Parents who arewhite, wealthy or college- educated say too much involvement can be bad. Parental anxietiesreflect their circumstances. High- earning parents are much more likely to say they live in agood neighborhood for raising children. While bullying is parents' greatest concern over all, nearly half of low-income parents worry their child will get shot, compared with one-fifth ofhigh-income parents. They are more worried about their children being depressed or anxious. n. O) Children were not always raised so differently. The achievement gap between children fromhigh- and low-income families is 30-40% larger among children born in 2001 than those born25 years earlier, according to Mr. Reardon's research. People used to live near people ofdifferent income levels; neighborhoods are now more segregated by income. More than aquarter of children live in single-parent households—a historic high, according to Pew—andthese children are three times as likely to live in poverty as those who live with married parents. Meanwhile, growing income inequality has coincided with the increasing importance of a collegedegree for earning a middle-class wage. P) Yet there are recent signs that the gap could be starting to shrink. In the past decade, evenas income inequality has grown, some of the socioeconomic differences in parenting, likereading to children and going to libraries, have narrowed. Q) Public policies aimed at young children have helped, including public preschool programs andreading initiatives. Addressing differences in the earliest years, it seems, could reduceinequality in the next generation.