What Is It About Friendships That Is So Powerful? 完整註解
閱讀前你該知道的事
作者 David Brooks 在文中探討了跨越階級的友誼對於提升經濟地位的影響，這個影響甚至大過學校教育品質、就業機會等等。是什麼讓跨階級的友誼這麼強大？
閱讀前你該知道的詞彙
poverty「貧困、貧窮」
poverty line 貧困線，為滿足生活標準而需的最低收入水平
affluent 「富裕的」
class 文中指「社會階級」
perceive (v.)「感知」，「看..某事物..」
perception (n.)
常用句型：perceive ...A... as ....
Ex. She perceived his silence as indifference（無動於衷）
她把他的沈默看作是無動於衷。
shape (v.)「塑造」
閱讀全文 >> What is it about friendships that is so powerful?
If you had asked me a few years ago what we should focus on to expand economic opportunity in America, I would have trotted out the usual suspects: early childhood education, improved schools, stable families, neighborhood jobs. Friendships would not have been on the top of my list.
Ex. When the teacher asked him why he didn't do his homework, he trotted out, "My dog ate it."
suspect 字本身有「被認為、被懷疑」的人事物，通常用來代表「嫌疑犯」。
文中用來指被認為會影響的經濟機會的「因素、原因」或「建議」。
如果幾年前你問我，如果要提高在美國的 economic opportunity（指提升自身經濟地位的機會）我們應該專注於哪方面，我可能會列出一些常見的建議：早期教育、改善學校、穩定的家庭、社區就業等等。而友誼可能不會是我列在首位的選項。
But as you may have seen, a giant new study led by Raj Chetty of Harvard and three others found that poor children who grew up in places where people have more friendships that cut across class lines earn a lot more as adults than children who don’t. One of the most powerful predictors of whether you rise out of poverty is how many of the people you know are well off.
但你可能有看到，由哈佛大學的 Raj Chetty 和其他三人領導的一項巨大新研究顯示，在有許多跨越階級界限 (class lines) 的友誼的地方長大的貧困兒童，成年後的收入比那些沒有這種友誼的兒童要高得多。你是否能脫離貧困 (poverty) 的一個最有力的預測因素 (predictor) 是你認識的人當中有多少人是富裕的 (well off)。
The size of the effect is astounding. Cross-class friendships are a better predictor of upward mobility than school quality, job availability, community cohesion or family structure. If these results are true, then we have largely ignored a powerful way to help people realize the American dream.
這種效應的大小是令人驚訝的 (astounding)。比起學校教育品質、工作機會、社區凝聚力 (cohesion) 或家庭結構，跨階級的友誼是預測階級層向上流動更好的指標。如果這些結果屬實，那麼我們很大程度上忽略了一個幫助人們實現 (realize) "美國夢"的強大方式。