单选题 Singletons, referring to those who live alone, are being comforted by well-meaning friends and family and told that not having a partner is not the end of the world. So, it would seem that they can say, yes, it is not. But no, in fact, it is the end.
A gloomy study has just been released that says that the international trend towards living alone is putting an unprecedented strain on our ecosystem.
For a number of reasons--relationship breakdown, career choice, longer life spans, smaller families—the number of individual households is growing. And this is putting intolerable pressure on natural resources, and accelerating the extinction of endangered plant and animal species. And there is worse news. Running a refrigerator, television, cooker, plumbing system just for selfish little you is a disastrous waste of resources on our over-populated planet. "The efficiency of resource consumption" is a lot higher in households of two people or more, simply because they share everything. Well imagine that. Just when you thought living alone was OK, you would find that all the time you were the enemy of mankind. Every time you put the kettle on the stove for a cup of coffee you were destroying Mother Earth. Indeed, it is not just your mother who is a bit worried by your continuing single status—you are letting down the entire human race by not having a boyfriend or girlfriend. The trouble is that society has a group instinct and people panic and hit out when they see other people quietly rebelling and straying away from the "standard" of family and coupledom.
The suggestion is that singledom should be at best a temporary state. Unless you are assimilated into a larger unit, you can never be fully functional.
Try "communal living." There are all these illustrations of young attractive people having a "great time," laughingly bumping into each other. It looks like an episode of the TV series "Friends. "
And the message is clear: Togetherness is good, solitude is bad, and being single on your own is not allowed.
单选题 Well-meaning friends and family members often tell those who live alone that ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章一开始作者说:好心的朋友和家人都在安慰独居的人,并跟他们说没有人做伴,天也不会塌下来的。singleton意为独居者,原是超纲词汇,但文中已有解释,考生可明白其意思。
单选题 Which of the following may NOT be the reason for the increasing number of households as mentioned in the passage?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】第三段第一句作者说:由于种种原因如婚姻关系破裂、职业的选择、寿命的延长、家庭小型化等,单人家庭的数量在增加。这里面没有提到因收入的增长人们可以一个人维持一个家庭的开销。
单选题 The author thinks living alone is disastrous mainly because singledom is ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】第二段作者说:刚刚发表的一项令人沮丧的研究说全球倾向于独居的趋势正在给我们的生态系统造成前所未有的压力。第三段第二句作者又说:独居给自然资源造成不可忍受的压力,加速了濒危动植物的灭绝。
单选题 It is implied in the passage that singletons are usually ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】第三段第四句作者说:独居的人很自私,他们自己一个人用一个冰箱、电视、饭锅和上下水系统,这对我们这个过于拥挤的星球上的自然资源来说是一个灾难性的浪费。
单选题 When seeing others living alone, some people panic because they think singledom is ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】第三段的最后一句作者说:我们的社会是本能的群体社会,当人们看到其他人在不露声色地违反群体社会原则并与“标准”的家庭和夫妻关系原则背道而驰就会大惊小怪,并且猛烈地抨击他们。
单选题 The author suggests that singletons should ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章的最后两段作者劝独居者说:尝试一下与别人合住。有很多这方面的例子,漂亮的青年人笑着相遇,共同度过美好时光,就像电视连续剧《六人行》中描写的那样。这些信息清楚地告诉我们:合住好,孤独不好,单身独居是不被社会允许的。