Contrary to the impression that grandmothers are delighted to help their grown daughters and care for their grandchildren, a study of multigenerational families shows that many older women hate the frequent demands that the younger generations make on their time and energy.

  “Young women with children are under a lot of pressure these days, and they expect their mothers to help them pick up the pieces,” noted Dr. Bertram J. Cohler, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago. “This is often the strongest source of complaint on the part of Grandmother, who has finished with child caring and now has her own life to live. Grandmothers like to see their children and grandchildren, but on their own time.”

  Dr. Cohler is director of a study, sponsored by the National Institute of Aging, of 150 workingclass families that live in a Midwestern suburb. He and Dr. Henry U. Gruebaum of Harvard Medical School, have already completed their study of four such families in New England.

  Dr. Cohler tells of a middle-aged Boston woman who works as a cook all week and for her parish (教区) on Sundays. Every Saturday, her one day off, her daughter and family visit, expecting mother to make lunch, shop, and visit. “That's not how she wants to grow old,” said Dr. Cohler, who was told by the older woman, “My daughter would never speak to me if she knew how angry and unhappy I get.”

  In all the four New England families studied, the older women disliked the numerous phone calls and visits from their grown daughters, who often turned to the mothers for advice, physical resources, love, and companionship as well as baby-sitting services. “American society keeps increasing the burdens for older people, particularly those in their 50s and 60s,” Dr. Cohler said in an interview here. “They're still working and they're taking care of their grown children and maybe also their aged parents. Sometimes life gets to be too much.”

Which of the following is closest in meaning to the expression “pick up the pieces” in the second paragraph?

   A. Save a bad situation.              B. Put children's toys in their proper places.

   C. Gather up pieces of clothing.       D. Keep the room in good order.

The middle-aged Boston woman ______.

   A. expects her mother to cook lunch for her

   B. enjoys the room in good order  

   C. visits an older woman every Saturday

   D. works six days a week

The passage is mainly about ______.

   A. young women's inability to look after their children

   B. Grandmothers' attitudes toward helping their grown daughters

   C. average American women's family life

   D. grandmother should give more help to their daughters

From Dr. Cohler's study we may reach the conclusion that ______.

   A. daughters should be independent of their old grandmothers

   B. grandmother should give more help to their daughters

   C. mothers and daughters should support each other

   D. daughters should be more considerate toward their mothers

Why do 33% of the households in the USA have cats? And how do you explain why there are 16 million more pet cats than dogs? Yes, kittens are adorable (讨人喜欢的).Yes, they can grow up to be good mousers and are very entertaining to watch.And yes, cats are independent and don't require as much care as dogs.But research shows cats can also be caretakers for us and our families, improve our health and teach us and our children to be kinder, gentler souls.

       Theodora Wesselman is 94 and has lived the past two years with her elderly cat, Cleo, at TigerPlace, a retirement community in Columbia, Mo.Their enduring friendship is a classic example of how humans and animals can become family and look out for each other.

       Wesselman visits other residents, and her children stop by, but Cleo is her best friend, she says.They've been together nearly 21 years.

       "She sleeps on her own pillow right beside mine," Wesselman says."In the morning, she pecks on my cheek to wake me up.It's really sweet.I pet her, tell her I love her and take her to the kitchen to prepare her food."

       Research shows that being able to care for a pet improves our morale (士气;精神状态), helps validate us and encourages us to take care of ourselves, says Rebecca Johnson, director of the University of Missouri's Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction.The body of research is leading more retirement communities and universities to roll out the welcome mat for pets

According to the context, where do you think the sentence “They start and end the day together” should appear in the passage?

       A.Between para.1 and para.2 B.Between para.2 and para.3

       C.Between para.3 and para.4 D.Between para.4 and para.5

Which of the following words best describe the author’s attitude towards keeping pet cats?

       A.Favorable B.Critical     C.Reserved   D.Doubtful

Why does the author take 94-year-old Theodora Wesselman as an example in the passage?

       A.To show that the elderly like Theodora Wesselman in the USA have pet cats.

       B.To suggest to what degree humans and pet cats can be caretakers for each other.

       C.Because Theodora Wesselman has been living with a pet cat for the past two years.

       D.Because Theodora Wesselman pets her cat Cleo and tells her she loves her.

What does “to roll out the welcome mat for pets” in the last paragraph imply?

       A.To give a special welcome to pets.

       B.To make the welcome mat flat on the ground for pets.

       C.To open out the welcome mat for pets to sleep.

       D.To wrap the welcome mat to make room for pets.

The story I am going to tell you happened about three years ago when I started to learn how to drive. At first, I was very frightened, and I thought I could never learn how to drive a car. Driving a car frightened me because in my home country women never drive, but in the United States every woman has to know how to drive. My husband paid an instructor to teach me how to drive. After that, my husband practiced with me for a long time. My husband always told me that I had to learn. It was important to me and my family.
However, I couldn’t get my license right away. I failed my driving test two times. After practicing for a long time, I decided to go for my third driving test. I had failed my first test because I was very nervous. Everybody encouraged me to continue practicing. Three weeks later, I decided to try it again, but I failed again. After that, I was very embarrassed(困窘的), and I said I couldn’t get it, so I stopped practicing for a while.
Not knowing how to drive was bad because I couldn’t do anything. I had two kids, my husband works, and I have to take care of everything. Driving was so necessary that I decided to try it again. And finally, that time, I passed the test. Now I have my license. I know how to drive, and it has changed my life in some important ways. Now I’m driving to the college, learning English and hoping I will get a good job in the future.
【小题1】Why did the author think that she could never learn how to drive a car?

A.Because she was not an American woman.
B.Because she was afraid of a car or a bus.
C.Because in her own country women never drive.
D.Because her husband didn’t know how to teach her.
【小题2】 The underlined word “instructor” in the first paragraph probably means __________.
A.someone who teaches a special skill
B.someone who teaches a sport skill
C.someone who teaches in an American college
D.the information telling you how to drive a car
【小题3】 How many persons in the author’s family are mentioned except the author herself?
A.2B.3C.4D.5
【小题4】The passage mainly shows us that the author failed for quite a few times but she never gave up and __________.
A.she succeeded in driving her car to send her two children
B.she succeeded in driving to the college to get a good job
C.she succeeded in driving to the college and learned English
D.she succeeded in passing driving test and got her license in the end
【小题5】The best title of this passage should be “__________”.
A.My Driving LicenseB.My Husband and I
C.Passing the TestD.Never Give Up

When Jeanne Calment entered the world in 1875, telephones and automobiles still lay in the future. Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso were not yet born. The Eiffel Tower was 14 years from being built. As a teenager, she met Vincent Van Gogh, near her home in Arles, in the south of France. He was “very ugly, ungracious (举止粗俗的), impolite, sick—I forgive him, they called him loco (精神失常的)”, she recalled. When she died last week at age 122, she was the world’s eldest person. (There are others who claimed to the title, but only Calment had the official documents to prove her age.)

Each February 21, her birthday, she would share the secrets of long life. Some years it was “a sense of humour”, others it was “keeping busy”. “God must have forgotten me,” she once explained. The truth probably was that she had good genes: her mother reportedly lived to be 86 and her father 94.

Her life had its sadness: she outlived her husband, her only daughter and her grandson. According to a friend, she was imperturbable. “If you can’t do anything about it,” she reportedly said, “don’t worry about it.”

In her last years she was nearly blind and deaf, but her health remained good. She ate a few bars of chocolate each week and continued smoking until a few years ago, when she could no longer light her own cigarettes. She never lost her sense of humour. On her 110th birthday, she commented, “I’ve only ever had one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it. “Her longevity made her famous; her spirit made her eternal (永恒的).

1.Why does the author mention Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and the Eiffel Tower?

    A. To show that Calment had seen famous people and things.

    B. To emphasize that Calment was born a long time ago.

    C. To indicate that Calment is just as famous.

    D. To admire the knowledge that Calment had.

2.The author believed that Calment’s longevity is mainly due to ______.

    A. a sense of humor                                        B. being kept busy

    C. belief in God                                           D. good genes

3.The underlined word “imperturbable” means ________.

    A. calm           B. humorous            C. friendly                     D. healthy

4.Toward the end of the story, the author seems to be impressed by Callment ’s _________.

A. spirit       B. religious belief         C. knowledge           D. longevity

 

Recently, one of my best friends, whom I've shared just about everything with since the first day of kindergarten, spent the weekend with me. Since I moved to a new town several years ago,we've both always looked forward to the few times a year when we can see each other.
Over the weekend, we spent hours and hours, staying up late into the night, talking about the people she was hanging around with. She started telling me stories about her new boyfriend, about how he experimented with drugs and was into other self­destructive(自我毁灭的) behavior. I was blown away! She told me how she had been lying to her parents about where she was going and even stealing out to see this guy because they didn't want her around him. No matter how hard I tried to tell her that she deserved better, she didn't believe me. Her self­respect seemed to have disappeared.
I tried to convince her that she was ruining her future and heading for big trouble. I felt like I was getting nowhere. I just couldn't believe that she really  thought it was acceptable to hang out with a group of losers, especially her boyfriend.
By the time she left,I was really worried about her and exhausted by the experience. It had been so frustrating,I had come close to telling her several times during the weekend that maybe we had just grown too far apart to continue our friendship, but I didn't. I put the power of friendship to the final test. We'd been friends for far too long. I had to hope that she valued me enough to know that I was trying to save her from hurting herself. I wanted to believe that our friendship could conquer anything.
A few days later, she called to say that she had thought long and hard about our conversation, and then she told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend. I just listened on the other end of the phone with tears of joy running down my face. It was one of the truly rewarding moments in my life. Never had I been so proud of a friend

  1. 1.

    In the writer's opinion,her friend ________

    1. A.
      was a girl with no self­respect
    2. B.
      could find a better boyfriend
    3. C.
      was brave enough to stick to her own choice
    4. D.
      didn't value the writer's suggestion
  2. 2.

    What did the writer worry about?

    1. A.
      She would lose the friendship with her
    2. B.
      Her friend's parents would be worried about their daughter
    3. C.
      Her friend would get into great trouble with the boy
    4. D.
      Her friend's boyfriend would be in great trouble
  3. 3.

    We may learn from Paragraph 3 that the writer________

    1. A.
      didn't want to go anywhere else
    2. B.
      understood her friend's hanging with her boyfriend
    3. C.
      couldn't believe that her friend's choice was acceptable
    4. D.
      doubted that she could in any way help her friend
  4. 4.

    What can be concluded from the passage?

    1. A.
      Friendship starting from childhood is not reliable
    2. B.
      Friendship is a cure for any injury in life
    3. C.
      Friendship should be everlasting once begun
    4. D.
      Friendship can have magical power in life

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