单选题 Forget Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? The theme song of this recession might well be "Mother, Can You Write a Check?" The distressing economy has resulted in increasing numbers of parents and grandparents helping out their strapped adult children and grandldds with home down payments, credit-card bailouts(紧急救助), and spare cash--often at the same time as parents are trying to confront new retirement budgets.
"We are seeing a ton of this," says Ross Levin, a financial adviser. "Sometimes it's a great idea and sometimes it is not. You have to make sure you put on your own oxygen mask first. "
Some 62 percent of visitors to Grandparents. com have helped their kids financially in the past year, with 70 percent of that group handing over cash to help their adult children and grandchildren with dally expenses, says the site's CEO, Jerry Shereshewsky. Another popular category is housing ; in the last year many parents have coughed up down payments to help their kids get into homes while the $ 8 000 first-time home buyer's credit was in effect.
Then there's the debt-bailout situation. A survey recently conducted by Creditcards. com for Newsweek found that 42 percent of folks with adult children have helped them pay off car loans, credit cards, medical bills, and more.
None of this is surprising to Shereshewsky, who sees the trend as a natural result of changing families and the distribution of wealth. "This is where all the money is--and it's where the money is, despite the fact that we've had this meltdown. '" In general, the baby-boom generation is far wealthier than their children are, and has a lower unemployment rate than 20-somethings. He says that the vast majority of multi-generation households now involve adult children ( and sometimes their children) moving in with aging parents. Baby-boom parents generally aspire to helping their kids and their grandchildren and don't want to walt until they are dead to do it.
"You should give while you're young enough to enjoy the fruits of what you're doing," says Shereshewsky, who is personally considering getting a reverse mortgage on his home when it comes time to help his. 20-something kids with home purchases.

单选题 According to the passage, people are regarded as "strapped" if they are ______
A. jobless in the recession B. in financial difficulties
C. dependent on their parents D. troubled by credit card debt
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】定位到第1段最后一句。该句提到父母对成年子女的帮助，包括为他们付买房首付款，偿还信用卡欠款，给他们一些闲钱，这些都是经济上的帮助，由此可推断strapped adult应该是指经济上陷入困境的人，因此，本题应选B。第一段提到了recession一词，但没有提到关于jobless的信息，因此，A不正确；c说“依赖他们的父母”，且不说子女从父母、祖父母处获得帮助是否等同于“依赖父母”，本题是问的trapped people的定义，应该是指陷入经济困难的人；D提到的信用债务在原文中只是trapped adults遇到的经济困难之一，该选项以偏概全，不正确。
单选题 Ross Levin thinks that sometimes, it is not a great idea that ______
A. parents help out their adult children B. adult children spend more than they earn
C. parents have confronted new retirement budget D. adult children disregard parents' difficulties
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】定位到第2段第2句。本题考查第2段第2句it的所指。该句中的it和第一句的this其实指的都是同一件事，即第一段讨论的内容。第一段是说越来越多的父母和祖父母开始为他们陷入经济危机的成年子女和孙子孙女提供帮助，A的内容与此最为相近，本题答案为A。关键是要将题干内容对回原文中，找到原文中该句it所指，那么其他三项均可排除。
单选题 With the first-time home buyer's credit, ______
A. children did not have to turn to parents for help B. children found it easier to deal with down payment
C. parents still had to help pay for the down payment D. parents felt relieved from expense on housing
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】定位到第3段最后一句。题干是第3段末尾的时间状语从句的内容，但事实上，本题要求查找parents做了什么事，在该句中，虽然考生可能不知道原文中cough up的意思，但结合上下文和该段最后一句提到的housing和…down payments to help their。kids get into homes，可以推断父母帮助子女付房子的首付，而句末的时间状语从句表明在子女获得$8 000的首次购房抵税额的同时，父母仍需帮助他们付首期款，因此本题应选C。A与原文提及的情况相反；第3段末尾的时间状语从句及其前面的主句并没有提到父母和子女的感受，B和D表达的感受均无原文依据。
单选题 What do we know about the people of the baby-boom generation?
A. Most of them become parents in their twenties. B. Most of them prefer to live with their children.
C. They are willing to take care of their aging parents. D. They have a higher employment rate than their kids.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】定位到第5段第3句。该句中的20-somethings指的是20来岁的年轻人，结合上下文也可推断这些年轻人就是babyr-boom generation(指第二次世界大战后1946一1964年间生育高峰时期出生的一代)的子女，由此可见，D是对原文该句中对失业率的比较的同义改写，故为本题答案。其他选项都是对原文某些字眼进行随意拼凑，如A利用了原文的20-somethings，c则利用了原文的aging parents，而事实上，这三项的内容并没有在原文中提及。
单选题 Shereshewsky is most likely to agree that ______
A. parents should help out their adult kids B. young people should be independent
C. parents should enjoy their own lives D. young people should help their parents
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】定位到最后一段。根据最后一段Shereshewsky所做的事可推断该段开头的you应该是指parents，由此可见，Shereshewsky认为父母应该在自己还年轻的时候给子女提供帮助，因此，本题选A。其实从第5段第1句以及Shereshewsky为这些现象做的合理性解释都可以看出Shereshewsky理解并赞同父母资助子女的行文，其他三项均无原文依据。