As I was reading a recent story in Slate on 20-somethings complaining about how
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As I was reading a recent story in Slate on 20-somethings complaining about how the economy was ruining their life plans, I couldn’t help but think the 20-somethings sounded like a bunch of spoiled children who grew up expecting everything to be easy for them. As a 20-something myself, I certainly share their disappointment: my husband and I probably won’t be able to buy a house until we’re in our 40s, and we too are burdened by student loans(贷款). But why should it be any different? Being young persons in America, shouldn’t they take up all of the challenges and opportunities that this country offers?
Consider some of these views shared in the Slate story: Jennifer, 29, owner of a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, worries that she won’t be able to have children for at least a decade because they can’t afford to buy a house yet.
I read that, and I thought, what planet is she living on where you need to own a house in order to have kids? Has she ever visited a developing country, or even downtown areas in this one? Home ownership is a luxury(奢华), not a fertility requirement.
A 26-year-old in the story despairs(绝望) that he can’t afford to get a Ph.D. in literature. Well, that sounds a bit like expressing disappointment that no one will pay you to write poetry on the beach in Thailand for five years.
Yes, it’s sad that these young people feel so lost. But I think the problem is their extremely high expectations, not economic reality. Beth Kobliner, author of Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties, says that she thinks people’s expectations are slowly adjusting, but today’s 20-somethings grew up at a time when everyone’s wealth appeared to be expanding. Their parents probably saw their home values rise along with their investments. “So you have people who have grown up in an environment where people had great expectations of what living well means,” says Kobliner.
This recession(衰退) will certainly play a role in forcing those expectations into more realistic group. In the meantime, it seems a lot better for our mental health to focus on being grateful－for our one-bedroom apartments, for living in modern cities, or perhaps just for being able to eat three meals a day－than on longing for some kind of luxury life.
41．What makes the author think the 20-somethings sound like a bunch of spoiled children?
A．They expect everything to be easy for them.
B．They complain that the economy is spoiling their life plans.
C．They are reluctant to face all of the challenges.
D．They are burdened by student loans.
42．The underlined word “fertility” in Paragraph 3 probably means .
A．baby production B．pleasant
C．baby comfort D．essential
43．Which of the following is not one of the complaints of the 20-somethings?
A．They can’t have children for at least a decade to buy a house.
B．They have only one-bedroom apartment to live in.
C．They can’t buy a house until 40 because of student loans.
D．They despair at not being able to afford a Ph.D. in literature.
44．What’s the author’s attitude towards the 20-somthings with high expectation in Paragraph 5?
A．Intolerant.
B．Negative.
C．Unbelieving.
D．Understanding.
45．What is the best title for this passage?
A．How Young People Afford to Continue Their Study
B．Why Young People Can’t Afford to Buy a House
C．When Young People’s High Hopes Create Despair
D．What the 20-somethings’ High Expectations Are |
答案
| 41—45 BABDC |
解析
41．细节理解题，由第一段第一句话可知答案。
42．划线猜词题，根据第三段的上下文语境。You need to own a house in order to have kids. Own a house 是 have kids 的条件。
43．细节理解题。点分散在几段中。
44．分析判断题。第五段中 but 转折。So 表示结果。加上引用 Kobliner 的话““So you have people who have grown up in an environment where people had great expectations of what living well means,” says Kobliner. 还是环境使然。因此不难判断作者对于 20-somethings 的态度是理解的态度
45．分析判断题.。文章的最后一段告诉我们：当我们的高期望变成失望时，我们应当对现在所拥有的一切感恩。 |
举一反三
Anyone who doubts that children are born with a healthy amount of ambition need spend only a few minutes with a baby eagerly learning to walk. No matter how many times the little ones stumble in their first efforts, most keep on trying, determined to master their amazing new skill. It is only several years later, many psychologists and teachers agree, that a good number of kids seem to lose their natural drive to succeed. For the parents of such kids, whose own ambition is often tied to their children’s success, it can be a painful experience.
Figuring out why the fire went out is the first step. Assuming that a kid doesn’t suffer from a learning disability, or isn’t involved in some family crisis(危机) at home, many educators attribute a sudden lack of motivation to a fear of failure or classmate pressure. “Everything is within the kids’ control; their intelligence is changeable,” says Lisa Blackwell, a research scientist atColumbia University. More than any teacher or workshop, Blackwell says, “parents can play a key role in conveying this message to their children by praising their effort, and progress rather than emphasizing their ‘smartness’ or praising high performance alone. Most of all, parents should let their kids know that mistakes are a part of learning.”
Some experts say our education system, with its strong emphasis on testing and separation of students into different levels of ability, also bears blame for the disappearance of drive in some kids. “These programs shut down the motivation of all kids who aren’t considered gifted and talented. They destroy their confidence,” says Jeff Howard, a social psychologist. Howard and other educators say it’s important to expose kids to a world beyond homework and tests, through volunteer work, sports, hobbies and other extracurriculum activities.
“The problem of the issue is that many students experience education as irrelevant to their life goals and ambitions,” says Michael Nakkual, a Harvard education professor. The key to getting kids to aim higher at school is to free them of the idea that class work is irrelevant, to show them how doing well at school can actually help them fulfill their dreams beyond it. They need to understand that you have to learn to walk before you can run.
46．According to the passage, the parents of kids with no ambition .
A．don’t do a very good job teaching them to walk
B．are to blame if the kids do poorly in school
C．feel pain because ambitions are connected to their success
D．should take part in extracurriculum activities with kids
47．The underlined part “the fire went out” probably means .
A．the motivation was suddenly lost
B．the fear of failure was suddenly gone
C．the learning disability was suddenly lost
D．the fire was suddenly gone
48．All the following can contribute to a sudden lack of ambition except .
A．learning disability B．classmate pressure
C．emphasis on testing D．extracurricular activities
49．What is the most important thing for parents in motivating their kids?
A．By punishing kids who don’t display ambition.
B．By emphasizing smartness and high performance.
C．By telling kids that mistakes are a part of learning.
D．By praising the effort and progress they have made.
50．We can infer from the passage that .
A．children who have lost their ambition will never succeed in life
B．school performance has much to do with students’ later success
C．both the parents and the school are to blame for the lost ambition
D．younger kids learning to walk are more ambitious than older ones |
Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were considered as having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.
Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight successes.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine and an attractive man more manly than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally" female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the "manly" qualities required.
This is true even in politics. "When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently," says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of
women, ir o_nler of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.
51. The word "liability" most probably means
A. disadvantage B. advantage C. misfortune D. trouble
52. In traditionally female jobs, attractiveness
A. makes women look more honest and capable
B. strengthens the feminine qualifies required
C. is of no importance to women
D. often enables women to succeed quickly
53. Bowman"s experiment shows that when it comes to polities, attractiveness
A. turns out to be a disadvantage to men
B. is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women
C. affects men and women alike
D. has as little effect on men as on women
54. It can be inferred from the passage that people"s views on beauty are often
A. practical B. supportive C. old-fashioned D. one-sided
55. The author writes this passage to
A. give advice to job-seekers who are attractive
B. discuss the disadvantages of being attractive
C. demand equal rights for women
D. state the importance of appearance |
During the twentieth-century there has been a great change in the lives of women. A woman marrying at the end of the nineteenth century would probably have been in her middle twenties, and would be likely to have seven or eight children, of whom four or five lived till they were five years old. By the time the youngest was fifteen, the mother would have been in her early fifties and would expect to live a further twenty years, during which chance and health made it unusual for her to get paid work. Today women marry younger and have fewer children. Usually a woman"s youngest child will be fifteen when she is forty-five and can be expected to live another thirty-five years and is likely to take paid work until sixty.
This important change in women"s life has only recently begun to have its full effect on women"s economic position. Even a few years ago most girls left school and took a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women marry younger, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Very many more afterwards return to full or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life.
46. We are told that in a family in about 1900 .
A. few children died before they were five
B. seven or eight children lived to be more than five
C. the youngest child would be fifteen
D. four or five children died when they were five
47.One reason why the woman of today may take a job is that she .
A. is younger when her children are old enough to look after themselves
B. does not like children herself
C. needn"t worry about food for her children
D. can be free from family duties when she reaches sixty
48. According to the passage, it is now quite usual for women to .
A. stay at home after leaving school
B. marry men younger than themselves
C. start working again later in life
D. marry while still at school
49.Many girls are now likely to .
A. give up their jobs for good after they are married
B. leave school as soon as they can
C. marry so that they can get a job
D. continue working until they are going to have a baby
50. Now a husband probably .
A. plays a greater part in looking after the children
B. helps his wife by doing more of the housework
C. feels dissatisfied with his part in the family
D. takes a part-time job so that he can help in the home |
Before her 21-year-old daughter died in an accident in early 2007, Pam Weiss had never logged on to Facebook, a social-networking site. At that time, social-networking sites were used almost only by 36 . But she knew her daughter Amy Woolington, a UCLA student, had a(n) 37 , so in her sadness Weiss turned to Facebook to look for photos. She found what she was looking for and more. She was soon communicating with her daughter’s many friends, 38 memories through passages that her daughter had written. “It makes me feel 39 that Amy had a positive effect on so many people, and I wouldn’t have had a clue if it hadn’t been 40 Facebook,” says Weiss.And she wouldn’t have had a 41 if she had waited too long. She managed to copy most of her daughter’s profile in the three months before Facebook 42 .
Like a growing number of sad relatives, Weiss tapped into one of the most powerful treasures of memories available: a loved one’s online presence. As people spend more time at 43 , there’s less being stored away in dusty attics(阁楼).These pieces of our lives that we put online can feel as eternal as the Internet itself, but what happens to our 44 identity after we die?
Facebook 45 its policy a few months after Woolington died. “We first realized we needed a protocol(协定书) for 46 users after the Virginia Tech University shooting, when students were looking for ways to remember and 47 their classmates,” says Facebook spokeswoman Elizabeth Linder.
( ) 36. A. men B. the youthful C. women D. students
( ) 37. A. status B. post C. account D. memory
( ) 38. A. sharing B. storing C. accumulating D. devoting
( ) 39. A. enthusiastic B. upset C. well D. good
( ) 40. A. with B. for C. on D. of
( ) 41. A. blueprint B. poet C. picture D. clue
( ) 42. A. took it up B. took it on C. took it over D. took it down
( ) 43. A. television B. music C. keyboard D. sports
( ) 44. A. digital B. virtual C. real D. false
( ) 45. A. made B. declared C. fixed D. changed
( ) 46. A. dying B. active C. alive D. dead
( ) 47. A. honor B. recognize C. recall D. observe |
237 West Palmdale Boulevard
Fresno, California 93706
AmToy Corporation
Suite 15
TransAm Building
San Francisco, California 94115
November 20, 2008
Dear Sirs,
As a concerned parent, I am writing to protest your recent advertisement for Electro—Robo seen in local media is California. Specifically, I am referring to newspaper and magazine ads（attached to this letter）published the week of November 15.
Children respond to your type of advertising in an immature way; that is, they are unable to understand how expensive some toys are for middle-class parents. Further, you product is violent in nature. Youth advertisement gives children the impression that it’s fine to have “two guns and laser eyes.” You also suggest that children need your toy to protect them “when you go outside.” This is not a healthy attitude for children to have.
I hope you will stop advertising your product in such a way that may harm our children.
Sincerely yours,
（Mrs.） Alma Hernandez
President, Parents for Non-violent Toys
Enc.
|
It’s here! Ready for You, Now! It’s Electro-Robo!
Every boy dreams of being in control of a robot, and AmToy can make your dream come true! Electro-Roho is the world’s first fully automatic robot with radio control. Standing 80 centimeters tall, Electro-Robo is like a friend at home. He can walk, talk, and even shake your hand! He has two guns and laser eyes to help you defend yourself when you go outside with him. Every boy needs Electro-Robo!
Ask your Mom and Dad to buy Electro-Robo for your birthday or for Christmas, which is coming up soon. Imagine that you are in control of your friend for life, Electro-Robo!
Available at all toy stores and department stores NOW!
|
小题1:What is the purpose of the letter? | A．To complain about a broken toy. | B．To oppose the advertising. | | C．To order a gift for Chrismas. | D．To apply for a job in a toy company. |
小题2:Why does the writer of the letter that Electro-Robo is violent? | A．It is controlled by radio water. | B．It is expensive to buy. | | C．It is 80 centimeter tall. | D．It bears arms. |
小题3:What dose “Enc.” at the end of the letter mean? | A．Something attached to the letter. | B．A complaint to the toy company. | | C．A hidden message | D．An encouraging response. |
小题4:Electro-Robo can do all the following EXCEPT ______-. | A．sitting down | B．shaking hands | C．talking | D．walking |
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