单选题
Marriage, and its many ups and downs, still often
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the headlines on newspapers, magazines and the airwaves. Nearly 23m Americans watched Prince William being joined in holy marriage to Kate Middleton. Millions more have
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in the break-up of Arnold Schwarzenegger"s marriage after revelations that he fathered a son with a maid.
Less
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are revelations about the sorry state of marriage across the United States. Data from the Census Bureau show that married couples, for the first time, now make up
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than half (45%) of all households.
The
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American family, with morn, dad and kids under one roof, is
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. In every state the numbers of unmarried couples, childless households and single-person households are growing faster than
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comprised of married people with children, finds the 2010
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. The latter accounted
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43% of households in 1950, but now just 20%. And the trend has a distinct
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dimension. Traditional marriage has
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from a universal rite to a luxury for the educated and the
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There
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was a marriage gap in 1960: only four percentage points separated the wedded ways of college and high-school graduates (76% versus 72%). The gap has since
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to 16 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Centre. A Census Bureau analysis released this spring found that brides are significantly more
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to have a college degree than they were in the mid-1990s.
"Marriage has become much more
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, and that"s why the divorce rate has come down," said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The project found that divorce rates for couples with college degrees are only a third as high as for those with a high-school degree.
"Less marriage means less income and more poverty," reckons Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She and other researchers have
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as much as half of the inequality of wealth
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in America to changes in family
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: single-parent families (mostly those with a high-school degree or less) are getting poorer while married couples (with educations and dual incomes) are increasingly
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. "This is a striking gap that is not well understood by the public," she says.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[考点] 固定搭配
[解析] 根据下文说“2011年威廉王子大婚吸引了接近2300万美国人观看”，可以判断空格处这句话的意思是说“婚姻现在仍然经常是报纸杂志以及广播等媒体关注的焦点”。headline一词的意思是“头条新闻”，mark/grab/hit the headline是固定搭配，表示“登上头版头条”，即“受到广泛关注”之意。因此本题考查的是固定短语搭配，正确答案应该选A。
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[考点] 根据上下文辨析词义
[解析] 第一段第一句话中说“婚姻，伴随着其中的起起伏伏(ups and downs)仍然经常是大众所关注的焦点”。后举了两个例子，分别对应ups和downs两个词，一个是正面的例子，即威廉王子大婚；而另一个例子则是负面的，即施瓦辛格的丑闻，他在结婚多年之后突然爆出和仆人发生关系并且育有一个私生子。根据上下文的意思，我们首先可以将A选项relieved和B选项defended排除，relieve表示“宽慰”，defend表示“为……辩护”，这两个词不符合句义。C和D两个选项在意思上都可以讲得通，但是obsessed一词往往用在被动语态中，且和介词with搭配，因此正确答案应该选C，indulged一词的意思表示“纵情于……，放纵自己……”。这句话的意思是说“许多人对谈论施瓦辛格的家丑乐此不疲”。
【答案解析】[考点] 逻辑关系
[解析] 第二段中第一句话说“美国普通老百姓的婚姻虽然不及明星婚姻那么轰动，但是状况也令人担忧”。根据sorry state这个短语，可以推测文章主要讲美国婚姻率下降的现象。根据美国人口数据统计中心对美国人婚姻状况的调查，历史上首次以来，美国所有的家庭中，结婚的家庭率跌破一半(less than haft)，因此正确答案应该选A。
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[考点] 根据上下文辨析词义
[解析] 空格处要填一个形容词来形容后面的American family, with mom, dad and kids under one roof，由妈妈、爸爸和孩子组成的家庭应该是传统意义上的核心家庭，因此首先可以把A选项unusual排除。B选项commonplace表示“普通的，常见的”，强调某个事物“没有任何特别之处，不足为奇的”，用在这里不恰当。C选项conservative表示“保守的，守旧的，不愿做出改变的”，这里只是想要表达传统家庭这个概念，并没有保守或守旧之意，因此也不恰当。只有D选项是正确的，characteristic作为形容词表示“典型的，有代表性的”。
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[考点] 同义词辨析
[解析] 根据上下文判断，空格处这一句话的意思应该是“典型的美国三口之家正在逐渐没落和消失”。A选项evaporating，原词evaporate意指水汽的蒸发，引申义往往表示某一种情绪逐渐消失，例如：His courage had evaporated away. 他的勇气逐渐消失殆尽。因此该词用在本文形容某一种传统的家庭形式消失不太恰当。B选项disappearing，表示消失这个结果，这个词和appear一样，往往作为瞬时动词，不和进行时连用。C选项vanish一词语气强烈，表示“某个事物完全地消失，不留任何蛛丝马迹”。例如：Many species have now vanished from the earth. 许多物种已在地球上绝迹了。D选项fading一词强调逐渐消失的过程，用在空格处最为恰当。例如：Hopes of a peaceful settlement ate now fading. 和平解决的希望正在消失。因此正确答案应该选D。
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[考点] 指代词
[解析] 该句空格处的内容应该是the numbers of households，用指代词替代的话应该用those，而不是that，正确答案选C。
【答案解析】[考点] 固定搭配
[解析] account是英语里的一个基本词汇，既可作名词，也可作动词，词义也非常多。作动词的时候往往和for连用，account for有两个意思，第一个意思表示“占……比例”，横线处就是这个用法，例如：Afro-Americans account for 12% of the US population. 非洲裔美国人占美国总人口的12%。第二个意思是“为……作解释”，例如：Recent pressure at work may account for his behavior. 最近工作压力大可能导致了他的这一行为。
【答案解析】[考点] 同义词辨析
[解析] 根据上下文意思判断，空格处的这句话应该是说“比起90年代中期，现在新娘拥有大学学历的比例要高得多”。因此空格处应该填一个词表示“倾向于，可能的”。四个选项都有这层含义，A选项probable表示“可能性”，一般不用表人的词作主语。例如：It seems probable that the accident has damaged her brain. 很可能车祸损伤了她的大脑。B选项likely表示“可能性”，可用it作形式主语，也可由物或人充当主语。例如：I"m hardly likely to finish it within a week. 我不可能在一周内把它干完。因此本题应该选B。C选项liable表示“有……倾向的”，往往用来表示易于产生某种(对主语)不利的后果，例如：The car is liable to overheat in the summer. 车在夏天总是容易过热。D选项possible表示“可能性”，往往不用表人的词作主语，例如：It is quite possible that he will stay for another term. 他很可能会连任。