Question 23 is based on the recordinh you have just heard.

Recording Three

听力原文

    We often hear people say that America is a land of opportunity, a country built on hope to aspire to greatness on the American dream. But is the dream as we once knew it dying? (22) Today’s demographics show that the middle-class is disappearing and now the richest one percent of the population has amassed more wealth than the bottom ninety percent.

    (23) Once upon a time, Americans thought that if they worked hard enough, even in the phase of adversity, they would be rewarded with success. These days though, the divide between rich and poor is greater than it has ever been. The question is: what is it going to take to change things? Maybe one day soon, real change will actually be made in our nation and the gap will be eradicated. But what happens in the meantime? Is there something that we can do to help close the gap? Is there something that we can do to prove that a little compassion goes a long way? If we want to fix the problem of the income gap, first, we have to understand it. It is a grim reality that you can have one person who only makes around 13,000 dollars a year, while across town, another is making millions. For me, it is kind of astonishing.

    (24) And if you ask low-income people, what’s the one thing that would change the life, they’ll say “a full-time job”. That’s all they aspire to. So, why is it so difficult for so many people to find employment? It partly comes down to profit-driven business models that are built around low-wage work and part-time jobs that don’t provide benefits. (25) Businesses, in order to boost their profits, hire employees as part-time workers only. This means they are paid the lowest legal wage and receive no health care or other benefits provided to full-time employees.

    Simultaneously, technological advancement and a global economy has reduced the demand for well-paying blue-collar jobs here in the United States. The cumulative effect of these two factors is that many Americans are forced to take two or more part-time jobs, just to make ends meet. What has become obvious to me when it comes to the income gap is that there needs to be an opportunity for the people at the bottom to push them back up and push them into the middle-class to give them hope in their lives.

23. What did Americans use to believe?

解析：B。录音提到，曾经，美国人认为如果他们工作足够努力，即使在逆境中也会赢得成功。其中if they worked hard enough与through hard work对应，they will be rewarded with success与They could realize their dreams对应，因此B正确。