Ielts Hôm Nay
Ielts Hôm Nay
Ielts Hôm Nay
Americans worry that the distribution of income is increasingly unequal. Examining leisure
A. Are you better off than you used to be? Even after six years of sustained economic growth,
Americans worry about that question. Economists who plumb government income statistics
agree that Americans’ incomes, as measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, have risen more slowly
in the past two decades than in earlier times, and that some workers’ real incomes have actually
fallen. They also agree that by almost any measure, income is distributed less equally than it used
to be. Neither of those claims, however, sheds much light on whether living standards are rising
or falling. This is because ‘living standard’ is a highly amorphous concept. Measuring how much
people earn is relatively easy, at least compared with measuring how well they live.
B. A recent paper by Dora Costa, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
looks at the living-standards debate from an unusual direction. Rather than worrying about cash
incomes, Ms Costa investigates Americans’ recreational habits over the past century. She finds
that people of all income levels have steadily increased the amount of time and money they
devote to having fun. The distribution of dollar incomes may have become more skewed in
C. Ms Costa bases her research on consumption surveys dating back as far as 1888. The
industrial workers surveyed in that year spent, on average, three-quarters of their incomes on
food, shelter and clothing. Less than 2% of the average family’s income was spent on leisure but
that average hid large disparities. The share of a family’s budget that was spent on having fun
rose sharply with its income: the lowest-income families in this working-class sample spent
barely 1% of their budgets on recreation, while higher earners spent more than 3%. Only the
latter group could afford such extravagances as theatre and concert performances, which were
D. Since those days, leisure has steadily become less of a luxury. By 1991, the average
household needed to devote only 38% of its income to the basic necessities, and was able to
spend 6% on recreation. Moreover, Ms Costa finds that the share of the family budget spent on
leisure now rises much less sharply with income than it used to. At the beginning of this century,
a family’s recreational spending tended to rise by 20% for every 10% rise in income. By 1972-
73, a 10% income gain led to roughly a 15% rise in recreational spending, and the increase fell to
only 13% in 1991. What this implies is that Americans of all income levels are now able to
E. One obvious cause is that real income overall has risen. If Americans, in general, are richer,
their consumption of entertainment goods is less likely to be affected by changes in their income.
But Ms Costa reckons that rising incomes are responsible for, at most, half of the changing
structure of leisure spending. Much of the rest may be due to the fact that poorer Americans have
more time off than they used to. In earlier years, low-wage workers faced extremely long hours
and enjoyed few days off. But since the 1940s, the less skilled (and lower paid) have worked
cheaper and more accessible. So too has technological innovation. Where listening to music used
to imply paying for concert tickets or owning a piano, the invention of the radio made music
accessible to everyone and virtually free. Compact discs, videos and other paraphernalia have
G. At a time when many economists are pointing accusing fingers at technology for causing a
widening inequality in the wages of skilled and unskilled workers, Ms Costa’s research gives it a
much more egalitarian face. High earners have always been able to afford amusement. By
lowering the price of entertainment, technology has improved the standard of living of those in
the lower end of the income distribution. The implication of her results is that once recreation is
taken into account, the differences in Americans’ living standards may not have widened so
H. These findings are not water-tight. Ms Costa’s results depend heavily upon what exactly is
classed as a recreational expenditure. Reading is an example. This was the most popular leisure
activity for working men in 1888, accounting for one-quarter of all recreational spending. In
1991, reading took only 16% of the entertainment dollar. But the American Department of
Labour’s expenditure surveys do not distinguish between the purchase of a mathematics tome
and that of a best-selling novel. Both are classified as recreational expenses. If more money is
being spent on textbooks and professional books now than in earlier years, this could make
when tricky categories, such as books, are removed from the sample, the difficulty is not entirely
eliminated. Nonetheless, her broad conclusion seems fair. Recreation is more available to all and
less dependent on income. On this measure at least, inequality of living standards has fallen.
Questions 15-21
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.
List of headings
ix. Two factors have led to a broader range of options for all
x. Have people’s lifestyles improved? A
Example Answer
15. Paragraph A x
16. Paragraph B iv
17. Paragraph C i
19. Paragraph F ix
20. Paragraph G vi
21. Paragraph H ii
Questions 22-26
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company, walked into a medical center in New York to bring information and free samples of
her company's latest products. That day she was lucky- a doctor was available to see her. 'The
last rep offered me a trip to Florida. What do you have?' the physician asked. He was only half
joking.
B. What was on offer that day was a pair of tickets for a New York musical. But on any given
day what Schaefer can offer is typical for today's drugs rep -a car trunk full of promotional gifts
and gadgets, a budget that could buy lunches and dinners for a small county hundreds of free
drug samples and the freedom to give a physician $200 to prescribe her new product to the next
six patients who fit the drug's profile. And she also has a few $ 1,000 honoraria to offer in
walk the line between the common practice of buying a prospect's time with a free meal, and
bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs. They work in an industry highly criticized for its sales
and marketing practices, but find themselves in the middle of the age-old chicken-or-egg
question - businesses won't use strategies that don't work, so are doctors to blame for the
D. The explosion in the sheer number of salespeople in the Reid- and the amount of funding used
to promote their causes- forces close examination of the pressures, influences and relationships
between drug reps and doctors. Salespeople provide much-needed information and education to
physicians. In many cases the glossy brochures, article reprints and prescriptions they deliver are
primary sources of drug education for healthcare givers. vVith the huge investment the industry
has placed in face-to-face selling, sales people have essentially become specialists in one drug or
group of drugs - a tremendous advantage in getting the attention of busy doctors in need of quick
information.
E. But the sales push rarely stops in the office. The flashy brochures and pamphlets left by the
sales reps are often followed up with meals at expensive restaurants, meetings in warm and
sunny places, and an inundation of promotional gadgets. Rarely do patients watch a doctor write
with a pen that isn't emblazoned with a drug's name, or see a nurse use a tablet not bearing a
promotional products like coffee mugs, shirts, umbrellas, and golf balls. Money well spent? It's
hard to tell. I've been the recipient of golf balls from one company and I use them, but it doesn't
make me prescribe their medicine,' says one doctor.' I tend to think I'm not influenced by what
F. Free samples of new and expensive drugs might be the single most effective way of getting
doctors and patients to become loyal to a product. Salespeople hand out hundreds of dollars'
worth of samples each week-$7.2 billion worth of them in one year. Though few comprehensive
studies have been conducted, one by the University of Washington investigated how drug sample
availability affected what physicians prescribe. A total of 131 doctors self-reported their
prescribing patterns-the conclusion was that the availability of samples led them to dispense and
they do in research and development. And patients are the ones who pay-in the form of sky-
rocketing prescription prices for every pen that's handed out, every free theatre ticket, and every
steak dinner eaten. In the end, the fact remains that pharmaceutical companies have every right
to make a profit and will continue to find new ways to increase sales. But as the medical world
continues to grapple with what's acceptable and what's not, it is clear that companies must
List of Headings
i Not all doctors are persuaded
ii Choosing the best offers
iii Who is responsible for the increase in promotions?
iv Fighting the drug companies
v An example of what doctors expect from drug companies
vi Gifts include financial incentives
vii Research shows that promotion works
viii The high costs of research
ix The positive side of drugs promotion
x Who really pays for doctors’ free gifts?
Paragraph A
Paragraph B
Paragraph C
Paragraph D
Paragraph E
Paragraph F
Paragraph G