1 . A scientific approach to reducing poverty’s many harmful effects via field experiments in schools and other real-world settings has won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both of MIT, and Michael Kremer of Harvard University will receive equal shares of the prize of 9 million Swedish kronor. Duflo is only the second woman ever to be awarded the economics Nobel. “Poverty has deep roots, and we use an experimental approach to examine particular aspects of this problem and determine what interventions (干预) work.” Duflo said.
More than 700 million people globally live in extreme poverty. Half of the world’s children leave school without basic language or math skills. Roughly 5 million children under age 5 annually die from diseases that could have been prevented with inexpensive treatments.
The three winners design and test interventions aimed at specific ways to alleviate poverty’s effects on education, health care and other areas. Such studies are especially important because policies intended to fight poverty can often cause opposite results.
In the mid-1990s, Kremer led a team that tested a range of interventions aimed at improving learning among students attending schools in western Kenya. Banerjee and Duflo, often with Kremer, then performed similar studies in other countries. One important line of research developed “Teaching at the Right Level” programs, which enable teachers in low-income, developing nations to target instruction to students’ learning levels. Teachers in these programs learn ways to keep students from falling behind rather than forcing them through a one-size-fits-all curriculum for each grade.
A 2011 study led by Duflo, for instance, found that grade 1 test scores in a Kenyan school increased when teachers divided students into smaller classes based on their initial learning levels.
A string of studies in the. same vein led by the 2019 winners took randomized controlled trials and field experiments from ignored status to standard practice in developing nations.
These studies showed that the virtually unanswerable question “How can we fight global poverty?” could be broken into smaller, testable questions such as “Why do children not attend school?” and “Why do small-scale farmers not use technologies such as modern seeds and fertilizer (肥料) that are known to be profitable?”
1. What does the underlined word “alleviate” in Paragraph 4 most probably mean?| A．relieve |
| B．remove |
| C．control |
| D．transform |
| A．is more suitable for high-level students |
| B．is an intervention initially created by Duflo |
| C．will surely get rid of the deep roots of poverty |
| D．takes into consideration students learning levels |
| A．The authorities concerned should make policies based on scientific findings. |
| B．Field experimenting is the most scientific way to find whether interventions work. |
| C．Education should be paid more attention to due to its important part in fighting poverty. |
| D．It may be helpful to narrow down the scale of a problem by focusing on specific aspects. |
2 . One of the most outspoken supporters that I know of women and girls is actually a man. As co-founder of the ONE Campaign, my friend Bono spends a lot of time speaking out against global poverty (贫困). Together, we’re working to get out a simple, powerful message: poverty is sexist.
Women and girls are more likely to be in poverty, less likely to get an education and more likely to suffer bad health. And when they are born into poverty, it is much more difficult for them to lift themselves and their families out of it.
Why? One reason is that breaking out of poverty takes time-and that is a resource women around the world are short on. On average, women spend about twice as much time as men in doing the unpaid work that makes life possible for everyone, like cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping and caring. In developing countries, the gap is even much bigger. As a result, women have no time to finish their education, learn new skills, open a business, develop personal relationships or even go to the doctor. They dream of creating a better future for their children, but they can not spare the hours to put those dreams that they have into action.
The fact that the potential of so many women and girls is going unrealized is a sad thing-but it is also an opportunity for us. We need to recognize, reduce and redistribute the burden of work that is holding them back. Because if women have time to invest (投资) in themselves and their ideas, they could transform the world.
1. According to the author, what makes it more difficult for women to climb out of poverty?| A．Sexist prejudice. | B．Heavy burden of housework. |
| C．Impossible dreams. | D．Bad health. |
| A．Casual. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Why poverty is sexist. |
| B．What global poverty is. |
| C．How to reduce female poverty. |
| D．How to break down sexist prejudice. |
