题目内容
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项A、B、C和D中，选出最佳选项。
Work, for most American and Chinese women aged 55 and under, is mixed with their responsibility (责任) for their household, the care of a child or children, and a job outside the home as well. It all adds up to a busy life. How is it going for them——for us?
It has been observed that life for women forms a more different sort of pyramid in China than in the United States. In China, nearly all young mothers are employed outside the home, with their numbers tapering off as women come nearer to old age. The reasons are clear: the second income of the woman is a necessity for a young family with a child or two. Later on, when the children are grown, the older couple can more easily live on the husband's earning plus the wife's pension(退休金), and fewer middle-aged women continue in employment.
The pyramid for American women is the opposite, with fewer young women employed, and the number increasing at older ages. Many young mothers have found it more suitable to stay home and care for the children themselves and then find employment later when the children are older and more independent. But rising costs of living are requiring more young American women who want to help support their families to have jobs. They enjoy the adult relationships with others at work and feel excited by the demands and challenges (挑战) of being employed. Staying at home with only a child or two, as even American size is now, can be unchanging and lonely. What's more, a woman's paycheck can provide her with stronger voting power in family matters.
But the American working mother often feels troubled by her life. Childcare's unreliable(不可靠) and expensive. Childcare workers have low social positions, are not well educated and are poorly paid——they are often women unable to get better jobs. Thus the American working mother always has the worry that her child is not being as well cared for as she hopes, and the cost of babysitters or some daycare centers can eat up half or more of her salary. Other worries make her employer think if she has to stay home with a sick child. What if the car, necessary to get the child to the daycare center and herself to and from her job, breaks down? Few people live close enough to their work or childcare center to finish this perfectly on foot or by bicycle, as in China.
1．We can know from the first paragraph that ________.
[ ]
A．for most Chinese and American women, life is a combination(结合) of a household and a job outside the home
B．women of all age are busy
C．children are the cause of women's busy life
D．the writer is male
2．The phrase “taper off” in the second paragraph means ________.
[ ]
A．become shorter, smaller or less
B．remain the same
C．slightly change
D．increase slowly
3．What can we learn from the passage?
[ ]
A．Americans would be shocked to have to work at jobs that kept husband and wife separated for months.
B．Chinese men seem to be performing more in housework than the American men.
C．Chinese women are freer of the competition than American women.
D．American women are more interested in their social positions.
4．What may come just after the last paragraph of this passage?
[ ]
A．In China, grandparents take care of children.
B．On the job, Chinese women have more chances.
C．Certainly it is true that in both countries males are given preference in education, job selection and higher positions.
D．Women doing the same jobs as men should get the same money.
