单选题 What makes Americans spend nearly half their food dollars on meals away from home? The answers lie in the way Americans live today. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, canned and other convenience foods freed the family cook from full-time duty at the kitchen range. Then, in the 1940s, work in the wartime defense plants took more women out of the home than ever before, setting the pattern of the working wife and mother.
Today about half of the country's married women are employed outside the home. But, unless family members pitch in with food preparation, women are not fully liberated from that chore. Instead, many have become, in a sense, prisoners of the completely cooked convenience meals. It is easier to pick up a bucket of fried chicken on the way home from work or take the family out for pizzas or burgers than to start opening cans or heating up frozen dinners after a long, hard day.
Also, the rising divorce rate means that there are more single working parents with children to feed. And many young adults and elderly people, as well as unmarried and divorced mature people, have been alone rather than as part of a family unit and don't want to bother cooking for one.
Fast food is appealing because it is fast, it doesn't require any dressing up, it offers a "fun" break in the daily routine, and the expense of money seems small. It can be eaten in the car—sometimes picked up at a drive-in window without even getting out—or on the .run. Even ff it is brought home to eat, there will never be any dirty dishes to wash because of the handy disposable wrappings. Children, especially, love fast food because it is finger food, no struggling with knives and forks, no annoying instructions from adults about table manners.

单选题 Americans enjoy fast food now mainly because ______.
A. women are busy with their work B. there are more single-parent families
C. it can be eaten in the car or on the run D. it is time-saving and convenient

单选题 It can be inferred that children ______.
A. want to have more freedom at table B. never wash dishes after meal
C. like using forks and knives while eating D. take eating time as a fun break

单选题 People who live alone prefer not to cook at home on the ground that ______.
A. they are too busy working to think of cooking
B. they consider cooking for one person is too troublesome
C. they think eating outside from time to time is enjoyable
D. they want to share every meal with the friends

单选题 According to the passage, a drive-in window is ______.
A. a car window from which you can see the driver
B. a window in the restaurant from which you get your takeout in the car
C. a place where you can buy unprepared food back home to cook
D. an entrance where you return the used plates after eating

单选题 The expression "pitch in with" (Line 2, Para. 2) probably means ______.
A. complain B. enjoy C. help D. deny