Waking Up from the American Dream There has been much talk recently about the phenomenon of "Wal-Martization" of America, wh

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问题                 Waking Up from the American Dream
    There has been much talk recently about the phenomenon of "Wal-Martization" of America, which refers to the attempt of America’s giant Wal-Mart chain store company to keep its cost at rock-bottom levels. For years, many American companies have embraced Wal-Mart-like strategies to control labor costs, such as hiring temps (temporary workers) and part-timers, fighting unions, dismantling internal career ladders and outsourcing to lower paying contractors at home and abroad.
    While these tactics have the admirable outcome of holding down consumer prices, they’re costly in other ways. More than a quarter of the labor force, about 34 million workers, is trapped in low-wage, of-ten dead-end jobs. Many middle-income and high-skilled employees face fewer opportunities, too, as companies shift word to subcontractors and temps agencies and move white-collar jobs to China and India.
    The result has been an erosion of one of America’s most cherished value: giving its people the ability to move up the economic ladder over their lifetimes. Historically, most Americans, even low-skilled ones, were able to find poorly paid janitorial or factory jobs, then gradually climbed into the middle class as they gained experience and moved up the wage curve. But the number of workers progressing upward began to slip in 1970s. Upward mobility diminished even more in the 1980s as globalization and technology slammed blue-collar wages.
    Restoring American mobility is less a question of knowing what to do than of making it happen. Experts have decried schools’ inadequacy for years, but fixing them is a long, arduous struggle. Similarly, there have been plenty of warnings about declining college access, but finding funds was difficult even in eras of large surpluses.
The American dream in this passage mainly refers to____.

选项 A、there are always possibilities offered to people to develop themselves in the society
B、Americans can always move up the pay ladder
C、American young people can have access to college, even they are poor
D、the labor force is not trapped in low-wage and dead-end jobs

答案B

解析 题目问:美国梦主要指什么?通过阅读文章可知,文章内容主要讲述了沃尔玛公司的一系列降低劳动成本的行为对人们的预期收入造成了很大影响。人们希望的随着服务年限、能力、熟练程度的提高等逐渐实现收入的提升的愿望受到打击。所以,“American Dream”指的是人们能逐渐在薪水上实现攀升。据此可知。应该选择B。
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