【原文】
Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy, i.e. Government by people selected according to merit. But this self-image is a fantasy: America actually stands out as a the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.
And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the Western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.
The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.
【参考译文】
美国人可能比任何其他国家的人都更相信他们生活在一个精英制度之下，人们推选的政府也是据其优势。然而，这个自我形象是一种幻想：作为先进国家，实际上美国的突出特点是出身至关重要，在这个国度里，来自社会底层的人几乎没有机会爬到社会中层，更不用说社会顶层。
如果你要问为什么实际上美国比其他西方国家都要阶级分明，主要原因就是我们的政府在创造公平机会方面的失败。
这种不公平很早以前就开始了：在美国，由于社会安全网存在漏洞，这就意味着低收入的母亲和他们的孩子完全有可能存在营养不良，得不到足够的医疗服务。孩子到了上学年龄这种情况也不会得到改观，他们所遇到的体制是富人可以送自己的孩子到资金充足的好的公立学校上学，如果愿意，还可以从送到私立学校上学，而穷人孩子接受的教育却非常差。
【评析】
这篇文章出自克鲁格曼《纽约时报》专栏文章America‘s Unlevel Field（“并不公平的美国竞技场 ”），继续抨击共和党总统候选人罗姆尼。同学平时备考选材多注意这些外国报刊文章。这篇文章的难度比较适中，其中第一个长句是难点，也是理解整个短文的重点。
关键词
meritocracy 英才教育(制度)，精英 理的社会
self-image 自我形象，自我定位
stand out 突出，引人注目
affluent 富裕的，丰富的
（责任编辑:秩名）
