单选题
Text 2
Miserabilists' fear of change; idealists' hope for a better world; an all-purpose adult nostalgia for lost youth: all these things ensure a ready hearing for claims that childhood is in crisis. Britons are especially worried. They fear that the young today are sadder than previous generations—stressed, and turned off learning by too much testing. Children may be nastier as well: bullying is an "epidemic" in schools, according to one recent survey. They seem in danger like never before.
No wonder a report published on February 2nd by the Children's Society, entitled "A Good Childhood", claiming that far too few British children have one, has received widespread notice. Children suffer because adults put their own needs first, the panel concluded, and only a wholesale shift away from competitiveness and individualism can save them. Right-wing commentators agreed with its criticism of single parents and working mothers, left-wing ones with its call for more redistribution of income and less-advertising to children. Both overlooked one striking finding: that most children are doing just fine.
Amid the statistics on teenage pregnancy rates (higher than elsewhere in Europe, lower than in America), mental illness (a tenth of 5-16-year-olds are sufferers) and drunkenness (a third of 13-15-year-olds have been drunk at least twice, a share three times higher than the European average), came some more heartening figures: 70% of ll-16-year-olds say they are very, or completely, happy, and only 4% say that they are at all unhappy. The report rolls the latter in with the 9% of children who describe themselves as neither happy nor unhappy to claim that 13% are "less than happy". But clearly, very few children agree with adults that they are in deep trouble.
In "Reclaiming Childhood", Helene Guldberg, a child psychologist at the Open University, examines the same facts and draws different conclusions. Rising rates of mental illness among the young, she argues, reflect readier diagnosis, and bullying has increased because the word is now used to mean the infliction of even the slightest emotional bruise. She thinks many attempts to improve children's lives, such as anti-bullying campaigns, and the parenting lessons proposed by the Children's Society, are likely to be counterproductive. "Suggesting that all parents need to be taught how to do their job risks creating a self-fulfilling belief in parents' incompetence and children's lack of resilience," she says.
Britain is no Utopia, of course. As in other rich countries, children find it too easy to sit indoors, staring at screens and overeating. They lack the protection afforded by the Nordic belief in the sacredness of outdoor play, or the shared family meals of Mediterranean countries. A large minority ape their elders' drinking habits and a few, but still too many, become parents while still children themselves.
单选题
Britons are worried about the following EXCEPT that
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“英国人不关心下面的哪一项?”。
根据第一段中“They fear that the young today are sadder than previous generations—stressed, and turned off learning by too much testing. Children may be nastier as well: bullying is an 'epidemic' in schools, according to one recent survey. They seem in danger like never before.”可看出英国的孩子面临着一些困难,暴力是其中之一,故排除B,C项。英国人担心年轻的一代会更悲观,故排除D项。他们担心的不是对孩子进行的填鸭式的教育,而是害怕孩子压力太大,拒绝学习,故选A。
单选题
The report published by the Children's Society
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“关于儿童协会中一篇报告的问题。”根据第二段最后一句“Both overlooked one striking finding: that most children are doing just fine.”可知,右翼和左翼势力都忽视了报告中的这一点,即大多数孩子都表现很好。故选C。
单选题
According to statistics, teenagers in Britain
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“根据文中提供的数据,我们可以得到的关于英国青少年的什么信息?”。由“Amid the statistics on
teenage pregnancy rates (higher than elsewhere in Europe, lower than in America),”可看出英国青少年的怀孕率低于美国,故排除A项。由“But clearly, very few children agree with adults that they are in deep trouble.”可知,很少有孩子说他们陷入到麻烦中,故排除B项。由“the 9% of children who describe themselves as neither happy nor unhappy”可知,只有9%的孩子说他们既不开心也不痛苦,“9%”跟“in great numbers”不是一个概念,故排除C项。根据第三段第一句“...drunkenness (a third of 13-15-year-olds have been drunk at least twice, a share three times higher than the European average)”可知,在英国的13岁至15岁的青少年中,每个年龄段酗酒率都是高于欧洲国家平均水平的,故选D。
单选题
In "Reclaiming Childhood", the author argues that
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“在找回童年的测试中,作者主张了什么?”。文中第四段“Suggesting that all parents need to be taught how to do their job risks creating a self-fulfilling belief in parents' incompetence and children's lack of resilience.”,父母应该学些关于父母的责任的知识,故选D。
单选题
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 推理题。题目问的是“从最后一段我们可以推测出什么?”。英国的孩子不能像别的国家的孩子那样享受童年的乐趣,文中有“A large minority ape their elders' drinking habits and a few, but still too many, become parents while still children themselves.”,可以看出,作为父母,他们逃避责任,甚至有些父母自己还是孩子,就做了父母,没有做好表率作用,故选B。