In 1951, Time magazine set out to paint a portrait of the nation"s youth, those born into the Great Depression. It doomed them as the Silent Generation, and a generally dull lot: cautious and obedient, uninterested in striking out in new directions or shaping the great issues of the day—the outwardly efficient types whose inner agonies the novel Revolutionary Road would analyze a decadelater. "Youth"s ambitions have shrunk," the magazine declared. "Few youngsters today want to mine diamonds in South Africa, ranch in Paraguay, climb Mount Everest, find a cure for cancer, sail around the world or build an industrial empire. Some would like to own a small, independent business, but most want a good job with a big firm, and with it, a kind of suburban idyll." The young soldier "lacks flame,,," students were "docile notetakers." And the young writer"s talent "sometimes turns out to be nothing more than a byproduct of his nervous disposition." "The best thing that can be said for American youth, in or out of uniform, is that it has learned that it must try to make the best of a bad and difficult job, whether that job is life, war, or both," Time concluded. "The generation which has been called the oldest young generation in the world has achieved a certain maturity." Today we are in a recession the depth and duration of which are unknown; Friday"s job loss figures were just the latest suggestion that it could well be prolonged and profound rather than shorter and shallower. So what of the youth shaped by what some are already calling the Great Recession? Will a publication looking back from 2030 damn them with such faint praise? Will they marry younger, be satisfied with stable but less exciting jobs? Will their children mock them for reusing tea bags and counting pennies as if this paycheck were the last? At the very least, they will deal with tremendous instability, just as their Depression forebears did. "The "30s challenged the whole idea of the American dream, the idea of open economic possibilities," said Morris Dickstein, an English professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "The version you get of that today is the loss of confidence on the part of both parent and children that life in the next generation will inevitably be better." How today"s young will be affected 10, 20 or 40 years on will depend on many things. If history is any guide, what will matter most is where this recession generation is in the historical process.
单选题 It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that the novel Revolutionary Road analyzed_____.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】解析:事实细节题。根据题干中的Revolutionary Road可定位至第一段最后一句。只要将第一段最后一句whose引出的定语从句的主谓结构重新整理,就能知道《革命之路》一书分析的是inner agonies,再结合该定语从句的先行词,可知这里的inner agonies是指“沉默的一代”的inner agonies。可见本题应选A项。
单选题 By commenting that "students were "docile notetakers"" (Para. 2), the Time magazine suggested that students should have been _____.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】解析:语义理解题。第二段第一句是该段主题句,其他句子以举例的方式说明主题句的观点,题干的引述来自该段第四句,目的是为了说明第一句的观点:年轻人的野心已经退化,换句话说,《时代周刊》认为年轻人应更具野心,本题应选B项。
单选题 What is the advantage of the Great Depression, according to Time?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】解析:事实细节题。第三段开头的The best thing表明这一段要讲的是大萧条对美国年轻人造成的正面影响,第二句《时代周刊》指出美国年轻人has achieved a certain maturity,由此可见,大萧条使年轻人变得成熟了,因此选C项。
单选题 The author thinks that Time commented on the Silent Generation with _____.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】解析:推理判断题。第五段第二句中的damn…with faint praise表明作者认为《时代周刊》对“沉默的一代”的称赞并非出自真心,或者说这种称赞实际上是批评,因此本题应选C项。
单选题 Morris Dickstein points out that people now _____.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】解析:事实细节题。根据人名Morris Dickstein可定位至第六段。该段最后一句句尾的that life in the next generation…是confidence的同位语从句。而原文的lost of confidence说明人们不相信下一代的生活会更好,D项是对loss of confidence的近义改写,为本题答案。