单选题 More surprising, perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and (67) . As Skolnick notes, Americans are a marrying people: (68) to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. (69) , after a decline in the early 1970s, the (70) of marriage in the United States is now (71) . Even the divorce rate needs to be taken in this pro-marriage context — some 80 percent of (72) individuals remarry. (73) , marriage remains, by far, the preferred way of life for the vast majority of people in our society.
What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twenty-five years ago, the (74) American family consisted of a husband, a wife, and two or three children. (75) , there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children. And there are many marriages where at (76) some of the children are from the wife's (77) marriage, or the husband's, or both. Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the 78 marriage; (79) they are shared between the two former parents.
Thus, one can find the very type of family arrangement. There are marriages (80) children; marriages with children from only the (81) marriage; (82) with "full-time" children from the present marriage and "part-time" children from former marriages. There are stepfathers, stepmothers, half-brothers, and half-sisters. It is not all that (83) for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! These are (84) changes from the traditional nuclear family. (85) even so, even in the midst of all this, there (86) one constant — most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 语义衔接题。本句的主、从句之间是对比关系。前一句提到二十世纪七十年代结婚率下降，故本句应该是结婚率上升了，比率的上升用动词increase，故答案为B)。improve表示“改善，改进”。raise表示“上升，举起”，通常不与rate连用。

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 逻辑衔接题。空前的句子提到结婚率上升，空后的句子提到婚姻仍是大多数人所喜欢的生活方式，故前后两个句子之间是因果关系，只有D) Thus能够构成因果关系，故为答案。
[点睛] A)Again表递进；B)Whereas表转折；C)Then表顺接。

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 语义衔接题。上句提到比婚姻(marriage)变化更大的是核心家庭，即小家庭(the nuclear family)。与此相比，25年前由丈夫、妻子和两三个孩子组成的家庭应该是典型的美国家庭，故选A)typical。B)conservative“保守的”；C)traditional“传统的”；D)：fashionable“时尚的”。

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 语义衔接题。根据上下文可推知，许多家庭里至少有几个孩子是来自其父母以前的婚姻家庭，这里考查的是对at构成的短语的辨析。at least“至少”符合语义，故答案为A)。at most“最多”；at best“至多”：at worst“在最坏的情况下”。

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 语义衔接题。本空所在句与后面几个分句之间用分号隔开表明，它们之间是并列关系，介绍的都是家庭的类型。后面几个句子介绍的都是有孩子的家庭，并提到了孩子的来源。该句没有讲到孩子来自何处，由此可知这里介绍的是没有孩子的家庭，故答案为C)without。

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 语义衔接题。经分析可知这四个分句是按照孩子的情况由简单到复杂的顺序来排列的。上一句讲到没有孩子的家庭，后边两句讲到既有现在的婚姻中生的孩子，又有原来的婚姻中生的孩子的情况，依次递进。因此这里应该讲目前婚姻中生的孩子，故答案为C)present。

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 语义衔接题。从文中所描述的现代婚姻的情况来看，现在的家庭和传统的核心家庭有很大的区别，A) enormous“巨大的，极大的”，用来修饰changes，符合文意。B)considerable“相当大的”，通常与不可数名词或amount之类表数量的词连用。C)numerous“许多的，无数的”通常指数量。D)giant“巨大的”一般用来修饰体积。

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 逻辑衔接题。前文提到美国的家庭状况相比从前发生了很大的变化，后文指出大多数美国人都会结婚，由此可知这两个句子之间是转折关系，故答案为B)But，与even so(即使如此)在语气上保持一致。
[点睛] A)Or表选择：C)And表并列；D)As表原因。