More than half of rich Americans have not shown their full wealth to their children, a new survey showed last Tuesday.
The survey, published by the Bank of America, studied the rich with＄3 million or more in possessions. It found that “surprisingly few of those surveyed have well-developed plans to preserve and pass on their possessions to their children”.
The majority of the 457 people surveyed are self-made, first-generation rich. Fifty-two percent of parents have not chosen not to tell their children just how wealthy they are，and 15 percent have given away nothing about the family wealth. One in three parents said they had never thought to do it.
They are worried that their children would become lazy, spend money freely，make bad decisions and even become a target for attractive women who use their looks to get money from rich men.
Only 34 percent strongly agreed that their children would be able to handle any inheritance（遗产）they plan to leave them.
“There is an expectation about the wealthy parents that they have a responsibility to pass down their fortune to the next generation,” said Sallie Krawcheck，president of the Global Wealth and Investment Management of the Bank of America. “Our research, however, uncovered changing views of what one generation owes the next.”
The trend is led by the world’s richest man Bill Gates, who promised in 2008 that he would leave his $58 billion fortune to the charity started by him and his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation（基金会），and not to his children.
“ We want to give it back to society in the way that it will have the most positive effect,” he said.
Of his plans for his children , Gates said: “I will give the kids some money but not a meaningful percentage… they will need to work but they will feel reasonably taken care of.”
小题1:We can learn from the passage that .A．rich parents may not know how to manage their inheritanceB．rich parents don’t equal rich kids, at least in the USC．American children don’t get to inherit their parents’ wealthD．poor children don’t expect themselves to be as rich as their parents小题2:According to the survey, most rich Americans．A．think they owe their children nothingB．think it best to give their money back to societyC．doubt their children’s ability to handle wealthD．are confident of their children’s ability to handle wealth小题3:The underlined word “they” in Paragraph 6 refers to．A．responsible childrenB．Bill Gates and his wifeC．first-generation richD．rich parents小题4:From the last paragraph，we can see that Bill Gates wants to show .A．the trend of leaving no inheritance to childrenB．the positive effect of charity on societyC．the way of giving back to societyD．the importance of independence for children