复合题

Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.

Text 3

Not too many decades ago it seemed “obvious” both to the general public and to sociologists that modern society has changed people’s natural relations, loosened their responsibilities to kin and neighbors, and substituted in their place superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. However, in recent years a growing body of research has revealed that the “obvious” is not true. It seems that if you are a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your neighbors than you do if you are a resident of a smaller community. But, for the most part, this fact has few significant consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few of your neighbors you will know no one else.

Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and quality of meaningful relationships do not differ between more and less urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin than are big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by developing friendships with people who share similar interests and activities. Urbanism may produce a different style of life, but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor are residents of large communities any likelier to display psychological symptoms of stress or alienation, a feeling of not belonging, than are residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do worry more about crime, and this leads them to a distrust of strangers.

These findings do not imply that urbanism makes little or no difference. If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living next door or keep an eye out for young trouble makers. Moreover, as Wirth suggested, there may be a link between a community’s population size and its social heterogeneity. For instance, sociologists have found much evidence that the size of a community is associated with bad behavior including gambling, drugs, etc. Large-city urbanites are also more likely than their small-town counterparts to have a cosmopolitan outlook, to display less responsibility to traditional kinship roles, to vote for leftist political candidates, and to be tolerant of nontraditional religious groups, unpopular political groups, and so- called undesirables. Everything considered, heterogeneity (异质性） and unusual behavior seem to be outcomes of large population size. 

单选题 Which of the following statements best describes the organization of the first paragraph?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】本题考查的是第一段的结构。 第一段主要写了现代社会改变了人们的自然关系， 人们只是肤浅的熟人过客的关系。 但是近来越来越多的研究显示这并不正确。 由段中however可知， 第一段展示了两种不同观点， 故答案为A。
单选题 According to the passage, it was once a common belief that urban residents _____.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由文章第一段“substituted in their place superficial relationships with passing acquaintances.”可知人们以往认为城市居民是不可能发展长久的友谊的。
单选题 One of the consequence of urban life is that impersonal relationships among neighbors _____.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】由文章第三段 “If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living next door or keep an eye out for young trouble makers.”可知邻里之间很可能出现彼此都不关心的现象。 C选项符合题意。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that the bigger a community is, _____.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章最后 “Large-city urbanites are also more likely…to have a cosmopolitan outlook...”说明社区越大， 人们思想也越开放， 越容易变得包容。 故答案为C。
单选题 What is the passage mainly about?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】本篇文章将大城市与小城镇中的人际关系进行对比， 但并没有强调大城市比小城镇更优越， B项不对； 文中提到了很多在大城市居住的负面影响， C项以偏概全； 文章第二段中的 “nor are residents...psychological symptoms of stress or alienation”说明D项也不对。 因此A选项正确。