第5讲:《细节题》课前练习 Read the following two passages. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice. Passage One In 1950, a young man would have found it much easier than it is today to get and keep a job in the auto industry. And in that year the average autoworker could meet monthly mortgage payments (贷款还款) on an average home with just 13.4 percent of his take-home pay. Today a similar mortgage would claim more than twice that share of his monthly earnings. Other members of the autoworker’s family, however, might be less inclined to trade the present for the past. His retired parents would certainly have had less economic security back then. Throughout much of the 1960s, more than a quarter of men and women aged 65 and older lived below the poverty level, compared to less than 10 percent in 2010. In most states, his wife could not have taken out a loan or a credit card in her own name. In 42 states, a homemaker had no legal claim on the earnings of her husband. And nowhere did a wife have legal protection against family violence. Most black workers would not want to return to a time when, on average, they earned 40 percent less than their white counterparts (职位相当的人), while racially restrictive agreements largely prevented them from buying into the suburban neighborhoods being built for white working-class families. Today, new problems have emerged in the process of resolving old ones, but the solution is not to go back to the past. Some people may long for an era when divorce was still hard to come by. The spread of no-fault divorce has reduced the bargaining power of whichever spouse is more interested in continuing the relationship. And the breakup of such marriages has caused pain for many families. The growing diversity of family life comes with new possibilities as well as new challenges. According to a recent poll, more than 80 percent of Americans believe that their current family is as close as the one in which they grew up, or closer. Finding ways to improve the lives of the remaining 20 percent seems more realistic than trying to restore an imaginary golden age. 1. What do we learn about American autoworkers in 1950? A. They had less job security than they do today. B. It was not too difficult for them to buy a house. C. Their earnings were worth twice as much as today. D. They were better off than workers in other industries. 2.What does the author say about retired people today? A. They invariably long to return to the golden past. B. They do not depend so much on social welfare. C. They feel more secure economically than in the past. D. They are usually unwilling to live with their children. 3. Why couldn’t black workers buy a house in a white suburban neighborhood? A. They lacked the means of transportation. B. They were subjected to racial inequality. C. They were afraid to break the law. D. They were too poor to afford it. 4.What is the result of no-fault divorce? A. Divorce is easier to obtain. B. Domestic violence is lessened. C. It causes little pain to either side. D. It contributes to social unrest. 5.What does the author suggest society do? A. Get prepared to face any new challenges. B. Try to better the current social security. C. Narrow the gap between blacks and whites. D. Improve the lives of families with problems Passage Two Two species of deer have been prevalent in the Puget Sound area of Washington State in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The black-tailed deer, lowland, west-side cousin of the mule deer of eastern Washington, is now the most common. The other species, the Columbian white-tailed deer, in earlier times was common in the open prairie (大草原) country; it is now restricted to the low, marshy islands and flood plains along the lower Columbia River. Nearly any kind of plant of the forest understory (低层植被) can be part of a deer’s diet. The black-tailed deer eats huckleberry, dogwood, and almost any other shrub or herb. But this is fair-weather feeding. What keeps the black-tailed deer alive in the harsher seasons of plant decay and dormancy (休眠期)? One compensation for not hibernating (冬眠) is the built-in urge to migrate. Deer may move from high-elevation areas in summer down to the lowland areas in late fall. Even with snow on the ground, the high bushy understory is exposed; also snow and wind bring down leafy branches of cedar, hemlock, red alder, and other trees. The numbers of deer have fluctuated greatly since the entry of Europeans into Puget Sound country. The early explorers and settlers told of abundant deer in the early 1800s and yet almost in the same breath complained the lack of this delicious game (猎物) animal. Famous explorers of the north American frontier, Lewis and Clark had experienced great difficulty finding game west of the Rockies and not until the second of December did they kill their first elk (麋鹿). To keep 40 people alive that winter, they consumed approximately 150 elk and 20 deer. And when game moved out of the lowlands in early spring, the expedition decided to return east rather than face possible starvation. Later on in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Fort Vancouver became the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company, deer populations continued to fluctuate. David Douglas, Scottish explorer of the 1830s found a disturbing change in the animal life around the fort (要塞) during the period between his first visit in 1825 and his final contact with the fort in 1832. Reduction in numbers of game should have boded ill (预示恶兆) for their survival in later times. A worsening of the plight (艰难的境况) of deer was to be expected as settlers encroached (侵入) on the land, logging, burning, and clearing, eventually replacing a wilderness landscape with roads, cities, towns, and factories. No doubt the numbers of deer declined still further. Recall the fate of the Columbian white-tailed deer, now in a protected status. But for the black-tailed deer, human pressure has had just the opposite effect. Wild life zoologist Hulmut Buechner (1953), in reviewing the nature of biotic changes in Washington through recorded time, says that “since the early 1940s, the state has had more deer than at any other time in its history, the winter population fluctuating around approximately 320,000 deer (mule and black-tailed deer), which will yield about 65,000 of either sex and any age annually for an indefinite period.” 6.According to paragraph 1, which of the following is true of the white-tailed deer of Puget Sound? A. It is native to lowlands and marshes. B. It is more closely related to the mule deer of eastern Washington than to other types of deer. C. It has replaced the black-tailed deer in the open prairie. D. It no longer lives in a particular type of habitat that it once occupied. 7.The phrase “in the same breath” in the passage (paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to A. impatiently B. humorously C. continuously D. immediately 8. Which of the following statements about deer populations is supported by the information in paragraph 4? A. Deer populations reached their highest point during the 1940s and then began to decline. B. The activities of settlers contributed in unexpected ways to the growth of some deer populations in later times. C. The cleaning of wilderness land for construction caused biotic changes from which the black-tailed deer population has never recovered. D. Since the 1940s the winter populations of deer have fluctuated more than the summer populations have. 第5讲:《细节题》课后练习 Read the following two passages. Each passage is followed by some questions. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice. Passage One Children are a delight. They are our future. But sadly, hiring someone to take care of them while you go to work is getting more expensive by the year. Earlier this month, it was reported that the cost of enrolling an infant or small kid at a childcare center rose 3% in 2012, faster than the overall cost of living. There are now large strips of the country where daycare for an infant costs more than a tenth of the average married couple’s income. This is not necessarily a new trend, but it is a somewhat puzzling one. The price of professional childcare has been rising since the 1980s. Yet during that time, pay for professional childcare workers has stood still. Actually caregivers make less today, in real terms, than they did in 1990. Considering that labor costs are responsible for up to 80% of a daycare center’s expenses, one would expect flat wages to have meant flat prices. So who’s to blame for higher childcare costs? Childcare is a carefully regulated industry. States lay down rules about how many children each employee is allowed to watch over, the space care centers need per child, and other minute details. And the stricter the regulations, the higher the costs. If it has to hire a caregiver for every two children, it can’t really achieve any economies of scale on labor to save money when other expenses go up. In Massachusetts, where childcare centers must hire one teacher for every three infants, the price of care averaged more than $16,000 per year. In Mississippi, where centers must hire one teacher for every five infants, the price of care averaged less than $5,000. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the daycare-center regulations handy. But I wouldn’t be surprised if as the rules have become more elaborate, prices have risen. The tradeoff (交易) might be worth it in some cases; after all, the health and safety of children should probably come before cheap service. But certainly, it doesn’t seem to be an accident that some of the cheapest daycare available is in the least regulated South. 9.What problem do parents of small kids have to face? A. The ever-rising childcare prices. B. The budgeting of family expenses. C. The balance between work a
点击查看答案
题目内容
（请给出正确答案）
参考答案
十点题库官方参考答案
（由十点题库聘请的专业题库老师提供的解答）
