题目内容
Joy Mangano was 33 and divorced, had three kids under age 7, and was barely keeping up payments on her small two-bedroom home by working extra weekend hours as a waitress, "There were times when I would lie in bed and think, I don't know how I'm going to pay that bill," Mangano says.
But she had a special ability for seeing the obvious. She knew firsthand how hard it was to mop the floor. "I was tired of bending down, putting my hands in dirty water, wringing out a mop," Mangano says. "So, I said, 'There's gotta be a better way."'
How about a "self-wringing" mop? She designed a distinctive tool you could twist in two directions at once, and still keep your hands clean and dry. She set out to sell it, first a few at flea markets.
Then Mangano met with the media. But would couch potatoes(泡在电视机前的人) buy a mop? The experts on shopping TV were less than certain. They gave it a try, and it failed. Mangano was sure it would sell if they'd let her do the on-camera demonstration. "Brave little me. I said, 'Get me on that stage, and I will sell this mop because it's a great item."'
So QVC, a multinational corporation specializing in televised home shopping, took a chance on her. "I got onstage and the phones went crazy. We sold every mop in minutes."
Today she's president of Ingenious Designs, a multimillion-dollar company, and one of the stars of HSN, the Home Shopping Network. Talking about her household inventions is "as natural for me as it is for a parent to talk about their child," Mangano says.
Today one of her favorite products is Huggable Hangers. The thin, space-saving implements are the most successful goods ever sold on HSN, with 100 million hanging out there in closets across the US A.Of course, you couldn't possibly sell hangers on TV.
56. The two items that Mangano designed and produced are .
A. welcomed by housewives B. bought by multinational con)orations
C. seen at flea markets D. found by the media
57. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A. Mangano once had to work seven days a week to support her family.
B. Mangano got the idea of self-wringing mop from her own experience.
C. The experts on shopping TV were confident about Mangano's mop.
D. QVC is a business organization that sells goods on TV.
58. From the passage we can know that Mangano now .
A. sells her goods mostly at markets
B. has become famous and got rich
C. has stopped household inventions
D. has sold her two-bedroom home
59. Huggable Hanger is the thing that people can use .
A. to clean the floor
B. to take pictures like a camera
C. to make phone calls like a cellphone
D. to put their clothes on it to keep their shape
ACBD
In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book "Stumbling(跌撞) on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital(婚姻的) satisfaction decreases after the birth of the first child and increases only when the last child has left home. He also declares that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids.
The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our kids. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University’s Robin Simon, a sociology professor.
Simon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research,which isn’t surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of what we’ve been raised to believe is true. In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. But which parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable?
Is it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned(有幻觉的)? In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their kids also served a purpose—to work the farm, contribute to the household. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated work and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. Raising children has not only become more complicated, it has become more expensive as well. The National Marriage Project’s 2006 report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations.
As for those of us with kids, all the news isn’t bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who’ve never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify.
【小题1】.
What’s the main idea of the book Stumbling on Happiness?
A.Parents are happier shopping than looking after their children. |
B.Once they have children, the couples can never be as happy as before. |
C.Compared with their childless peers, parents are leading a sad life. |
D.The adding of children at home brings down marital satisfaction. |
. What can we infer from Para.3?
A.The Newsweek Poll shows that people think Prof. Simon’s finding is right. |
B.Many people can’t accept the fact that they are not happy with their children. |
C.It isn’t surprising that Professor Simon’s controversial research made her famous. |
D.Simon’s findings are based on the belief passed down from generation to generation. |
What can we learn about American’s families in the past?
A.People had very good parents-children relationship in the family. |
B.Having children could be partly out of some practical purposes. |
C.Parents loved their children but they still asked them to work a lot. |
D.Children had to work very hard to make their parents love them. |
What’s the author’s opinion about having children?
A.The author doesn’t think having children is a good thing to the family. |
B.The author feels children make the life of a family happy. |
C.The author thinks parenting can still be rewarding in a certain way. |
D.The author believes that parents sacrifice a lot for having children. |