Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.
“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’”says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”
Music was not gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversation on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”
But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents.
“There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,”says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourage everyone to have a say.
“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,”explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”
1.The underlined word gulf in Para.3 most probably means _______.
A. interest B. distance C. difference D . separation
2. Which of the following shows that the generation gap is disappearing?
A. Parents help their children develop interests in more activities.
B. Parents put more trust in their children’s abilities.
C. Parents and children talk more about sex and drugs.
D. Parents share more interests with their children.
3. The change in today’s parent-child relationship is _______.
A. more confusion among parents
B. new equality between parents and children
C. less respective for parents from children
D. more strictness and authority on the part of parents
4.By saying“today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” the author means that today’s parents _______.
A. follow the trend of the change
B. can set a limit to the change
C. fail to take the change seriously
D. have little difficulty adjusting to the change.
5.The purpose of the passage is to _______.
A. describe the difficulties today’s parents have met with
B. discuss the development of the parent-child relationship
C. suggest the ways to handle the parent-child relation ship
D. compare today’s parent-child relationship with that in the past
“A good book for children should simply be a good book in its own right,”says Mollie Hunter. Born and brought up near Edinburgh, Mollie has devoted her talents to writing primarily for young people. She firmly believes that there is and should always be a wider audience for any good book whatever its main market is. In Mollie’s opinion it is necessary to make full use of language and she enjoys telling a story, which is what every writer should be doing, “If you aren’t telling a story, you’re a very dead writer indeed.”she says. With the chief function of a writer being to entertain, Mollie is indeed an entertainer. “I have this great love of not only the meaning of language but of the music of language,”she says. “This love goes back to early childhood. I’ve told stories all my life. I had a school teacher who used to ask us what we would like to be when we grew up and, because my family always had dogs, and I was very good at handling them. I said I wanted to work with dogs, and the teacher always said‘Nonsense, Mollie; dear, you’ll be a writer.’So finally I thought that this woman must have something, since she was a good teacher and I decided when I was nine that I would be a writer.”
This childhood intention is described in her novel, A Sound of Chariots, which although written in the third person is clearly autobiographical (自传体的)and gives a picture both of Mollie’s ambition and her struggle towards its achievement. Thoughts of her childhood inevitably(不可避免的)brought thoughts of the time when her home was still a village with buttercup meadows and strawberry fields-sadly now covered with modern houses. “I was once taken back to see it and I felt that somebody had lain dirty hands all over my childhood. I’ll never go back,”she said.“Never.”“When I set one of my books in Scotland,”she said,“I can recall my romantic feelings as a child playing in those fields, or watching the village blacksmith at work. And that’s important, because children now know so much so early that romance can’t exist for them, as it did for us.”
1. What does Mollie Hunter feel about the nature of a good book?
A. It should not aim at a narrow audience.
B. It should be attractive to young readers.
C. It should be based on original ideas.
D. It should not include too much conversation.
2. In Mollie Hunter’s opinion, which of the following is one sign of poor writer?
A. Being poor in life experience
B. Being short of writing skill.
C. The weakness of description
D. The absence of a story.
3.What do we learn about Mollie Hunter as a young child？
A. She didn’t expect to become a writer.
B. She didn’t enjoy writing stories.
C. She didn’t have any particular ambition.
D. She didn’t respect her teacher’s view.
4.In comparison with children of earlier years, Mollie feels that children now are _____.
A. more intelligent
B. better informed
C. less eager to learn
D. less interested in reality
5. What’s the writer’s purpose in this text?
A. To share her enjoyment of Mollie Hunter’s book.
B. To introduce Mollie Hunter’s work to a wider audience.
C. To provide information for Mollie Hunter’s existing readers.
D. To describe Mollie Hunter’s most successful books.
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Armed with two over-packed suitcases, we arrived at the airport just in time for my flight. As I watched her unload my luggage, I could see the ___36___ in her eyes. One last hug and a final good-bye, and I would be on my way to a new life ___37____. “You'd better go or you'll miss your flight,”she said.
“I'll __38_____ you,”I replied , and with those words I __39___. By the time I reached the customs I was __40__. While boarding the plane I was still crying. I did not have the ___41__ to put my bag in the overhead locker, so I put it on the empty seat next to mine.
Born barely fifteen months __42___, we not only looked alike, we were alike. We both had that same mix of ___43___ and fear of all things unknown to us. One sunny summer day I was playing outside when she came ___44___ to me and said, “Want to come to the attic(阁楼)?”The answer was always “___45__”. We were frightened of the attic but also ___46_____ by its smells and sounds. Together we would flight many spiders and battle through the numerous boxes __47_____ we found what we needed.
The plane shook ___48___ and my bag fell on the floor. My aspirin, hairbrush and some other things were __49___ on the floor. I __50_____ over to gather them up when I saw a (an) ___51___ little book in the middle of my belongings. It was a diary.
Immediately I __52___ my sister's handwriting. “Hi Sis. What a day it has been today. You let me know that you are moving abroad...”Only __53___ did I realize that my sister had been ___54___ a diary for the past month.
I read about my sister's coming and going during the flight. Even though a large ocean ____55___ us, at some point it felt like she was actually there.
1.A. honesty B.concern C.sadness D.satisfaction
2.A.abroad B.home C.again D.along
3.A.remember B.remind C.miss D.think of
4.A.was cut B.was off C.left off D.left away
5.A.smiling B.sneezing C.sighing D.sobbing
6. A.courage B.energy C.idea D.spirit
7.A.before B.after C.between D.apart
8.A.curiosity B.anxiety C.sympathy D.worry
9.A.about B.across C.down D.up
10.A.No B.Yes C.Sorry D.Certain
11. A.surprised B.bored C.attracted D.interested
12.A.until B.unless C.though D.since
13. A. hardly B.slightly C.weakly D.heavily
14.A. spread B.thrown C.dropped D.pushed
15.A. turned B. went C. bent D. looked
16.A. familiar B. unfamiliar C.important D.unimportant
17.A. knew B. saw C.observed D.recognised
18.A.when B.that C.then D.this
19. A.keeping B.writing C.using D.making
20.A.faced B.separated C.surrounded D.blocked
--- Was he sorry for what he'd done?
--- _____________.
A. No wonder B. Well done C. Not really D. Go ahead
Neither side is prepared to talk to ________ unless we can smooth things over between them.
A. others B. the other C. another D. one other
Accustomed to _______ the steep mountains, she had no difficulty reaching top.
A. climbing B. climb C. having climbed D. have climbed
