Low wages, chronic unemployment and underemployment lead to low income, lack

游客2023-12-31  9

问题    Low wages, chronic unemployment and underemployment lead to low income, lack of property ownership, absence of savings, absence of food reserves in the home, and a chronic shortage of cash. These conditions reduce the possibility of effective participation in the larger economic system. As a response to these conditions, we find in the culture of poverty a high incidence of pawning personal goods, borrowing from local money-lenders at higher rates of interest, spontaneous informal credit devices organized by neighbors, the use of second-hand clothing and furniture, and the pattern of frequent buying of small quantities of food many times a day as the need arises.
   People with a culture of poverty produce very little wealth and receive very little in return. They have a low level of literacy and education, usually do not belong to labor unions, are not members of political parties, generally do not participate in the national welfare agencies, and make very little use of banks, hospitals, department stores, museums or art galleries. They have a critical attitude toward some of the basic institutions of the dominant classes, hatred of the police, mistrust of government and those in high position, and a cynicism which extends even to the church. This gives the culture of poverty a high potential for protest and for being used in political movements aimed against the existing social order.
   People with a culture of poverty are aware of middle-class values, talk about them and even claim some of them as their own, but on the whole, they do not live by them. Thus, it is important to distinguish between what they say and what they do. For example, many will tell you that marriage by law, by the church, or by both is the ideal form of marriage, but few will marry. To men who have no steady jobs or other sources of income, who do not own property and have no wealth to pass on to their children, who are present-time-oriented and who want to avoid the expense and legal difficulties involved in formal marriage and divorce, free unions or consensual marriages make a lot of sense. Women will often turn down offers of marriage because they feel it ties them down to men who are immature, punishing and generally unreliable. Women feel that consensual union gives them a better break; it gives them some of the freedom and flexibility that men have. By not giving the fathers of their children legal status as husbands, the women have a stronger claim on their children if they decide to leave their men. It also gives women exclusive rights to a house or any other property they may own. [br] The word "incidence" underlined in Paragraph 1 means______.

选项 A、inflation
B、reference
C、occurrence
D、accident

答案 C

解析    词义界定。一般而言,incidence不属于生词。即使部分读者不认识,也可以从语境推知。本句为“We find in the culture of poverty a high incidence of…,,后面举实例进行解释,都是贫困人口的日常表现。也可以通过构词推导词义,incident是偶发事件,那么incidence为事件发生的概率。因此可以猜知其词义。【知识拓展】词义猜测一般有如下技巧:①依据构词,如impassable,根据前缀与词根可得知词义;②依据语境,如本题;③依据近义词,如“botany, or the scientific study of plants”,后者是对前者的解释,可知词义为植物学;④依据因果关系,如“As it got warmer, the snow began to thaw”,可知thaw为积雪融化;⑤依据比较关系,如“The economy was no longer stable,and there appeared vibrations”。
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