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  3. For a quarter of a century, surveys of reading habits by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally-funded body, hav

For a quarter of a century, surveys of reading habits by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally-funded body, hav

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问题     For a quarter of a century, surveys of reading habits by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally-funded body, have been favorite material for anyone who thinks America is dumbing down. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, for example, cites the 2007 NEA report that "the proportion of 17-year-olds who read nothing (unless required to do so for school) more than doubled between 1984 and 2004."
    So it is a surprise that this trend seems to have taken a turn for the better. This week the NEA reported that, for the first time since 1982 when its survey began, the number of adults who said they had read a novel, short story, poem or play in the past 12 months had gone up, rising from 47% of the population in 2002 to over 50% in 2008.
    The increase, modest as it is, has thrown educationalists into excitement. "It’s just a temporary change," one professor said. It is certainly a snapshot. But it is not statistically insignificant. As the NEA’s research director, Sunil Iyengar, points out, almost every ethnic group seems to be reading more. The increase has been most marked in groups whose reading had declined most in the past 25 years, African-Americans and Spanish Americans (up by 15% and 20% respectively since 2002). It has also been larger among people at lower levels of education: reading among college graduates was flat, but among those who dropped out of high school it rose from under a quarter to over a third.
    Most remarkable of all has been the rebound among young men. The numbers of men aged 18-24 who say they are reading books (not just online) rose 24% in 2002-08. Teachers sometimes despair of young men, whose educational performance has lagged behind that of young women almost across the board. But the reading gap at least may be narrowing. Dana Gioia, the NEA’s outgoing chairman, thinks the reason for the turnaround is the public reaction to earlier reports which had sounded the alarm. "There has been a measurable change in society’s commitment to literacy," he says. "Reading has become a higher priority."
    It may also be benefiting from the growing popularity of serious-minded leisure pursuits of many kinds. Museums, literary festivals and live opera transmissions into cinemas are all reporting larger audiences. Mr. Iyengar thinks the division between those who read a lot and those who don’t is eroding. What has not changed, though, is America’s "functional illiteracy" rate. Fully 21% of adult Americans did not read a book last year because they couldn’t, one of the worst rates in the rich world.
Sunil Iyengar, the NEA’s research director points out that _____.
选项 A、Spanish Americans are formerly considered the most reluctant readers before 2002
B、college graduates have dramatically increased their reading ranges
C、the increase has compensated for the decrease during the past 25 years
D、it seems that American people as a whole are reading more than before
答案D
解析 根据Sunil Iyengar可定位到第三段。在该段第五句，Iyengar指出几乎每个民族(every ethnic group)的阅读量都有所增加，D项是对此句中almost every．．．reading more的同义转换，故为正确答案。
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