A recent poll indicated that half the teenagers in the United States believe that communication between them and their parents is 1 and further that one of the prime causes of this gap is 2 listening behavior. As a(an) 3 in point, one parent believed that her daughter had a severe 4 problem. She was so 5 that she took her to an audiologist to have her ear tested. The audiologist carefully tested both ears and reported back to the parent: "There's nothing wrong with her hearing. She's just 6 you out."
A leading cause of the 7 divorce rate (more than half of all marriages end in divorce) is the failure of husbands and wives to 8 effectively. They don't listen to each other. Neither person 9 to the actual message sent by the other.
In 10 fashion, political scientists report that a growing number of people believe that their elected and 11 officials are out of 12 with the constituents they are supposedly 13 . Why? Because they don't believe that they listen to them. In fact, it seems that sometimes our politicians don't even listen to themselves. The following is a true story. At a national 14 conference held in Albuquerque some years ago, then Senator Joseph Montoya was 15 a copy of a press release by a press aide shortly before he got up before the audience to 16 a speech. When he rose to speak, 17 the horror of the press aide and the 18 of his audience, Montoya began reading the press release, not his speech. He began, "For immediate release. Senator Joseph M. Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, last night told the National..." Montoya read the entire six—page release, 19 with the statement that he "was repeatedly 20 by applause."

A、 scarce
B、 little
C、 rare
D、 poor

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】 本题考查考生通过上下文选择适当的形容词的能力。空格处填入的形容词在句子中充当表语，说明“青少年与父母的交流是______”。首先排除C项rare“稀罕的，珍贵的”，因为它强调事物因罕见而珍贵，而文中需要的是表贬义的词。空格后面部分提到，造成这种隔阂(gap)的首要原因是听的行为。由此可知，这里讨论的是昕对人与人之间交流效果的影响，不是交流少，而是交流不好，所以D项poor“质差的，效率低的，不理想的”正确。scarce“缺乏的，不足的”；little“很少的，几乎无”。