I first became aware of the unemployment problem in 1928. At that time I had just come back from Burma, where unemployment was only a word, and I had gone to Burma when I was still a boy and the post-war boom was not quite over. When I first saw unemployed men at close quarters, the thing that horrified and amazed me was to find that many of them were ashamed of being unemployed. I was very ignorant, but not so ignorant as to imagine that when the loss of foreign markets pushes two million men out of work, those two million are to blame. But at that time nobody cared to admit that unemployment was inevitable, because this meant admitting that it would probably continue. The middle classes were still talking about "lazy idle loafers on the dole" and saying that "these men could all find work if they wanted to," and naturally these opinions affected the working class themselves. I remember the shock of astonishment it gave me, when I first met with tramps and beggars, to find that a fair proportion, per- haps a quarter, of these beings whom I had been taught to regard as cynical parasites, were decent young miners and cotton workers gazing at their destiny with the same sort of dumb amazement as an animal in trap. They simply could not understand what was happening to them. They had been brought up to work, but it seemed as if they were never going to have the chance of working again. In their circumstance it was inevitable, at first, that they should be filled with a feeling of personal degradation. That was the attitude towards unemployment in those days: it was a disaster which happened to you as an individual and for which you were to blame. The reason why their unemployment so confused the young miners and cotton workers is that _______.
A. they had been brought up on the assumption that they had work to do
B. they had not previously realized how degrading it would feel to be out of work
C. they were definitely not going to be able to work again
D. they did not expect to be the objects of middle-class criticism
It was an early September day, cool and bright for running, and I was in the first few miles of a 10.5-mile race over a course through steep, exhausting hills. Still, I felt rested and springy; despite the hills it was going to be a fine run. Just ahead of me was Peggy Mimno, a teacher from Mount Kisco, New York. She too was running easily, moving along efficiently at my speed. The pace felt comfortable, so I decided to stay where I was; why bother concentrating on pace when she was setting such a nice one I’d overtake her later on when she was tired. So I was running behind her. The course headed north for five miles, wandered west for a hilly mile, then turned south again along a winding road. The race was getting tougher. We had four miles left and already it was beginning to be real work. I was breathing hard, and my legs were turning to mush. Peggy overtook a young male runner. Apparently she knew him, for they exchanged a few cheerful words as she passed him. Their exchange worried me. You don’t chat during a race unless you are feeling good, and Peggy plainly was. There was still a noticeable bounce in her stride, but whatever resilience I’d once possessed had long since left me. Still, I was close enough to overtake her if she tired, so I didn’t give up hope completely. We were approaching a long, punishing hill now and it would be the test. We were a mile from the finish line, so whatever happened on the hill would almost certainly determine who crossed it first. As I moved up the hill, working hard, my attention wandered for a few minutes. When I looked up, Peggy was moving away--first five yards, then ten, then it was clear that there was no hope of catching her. She beat me decisively. There is an important lesson in that race. Much of what you read about running makes a sharp distinction between the sexes. Women are assumed to be weaker slower and not nearly as adept athletically. Yet as Peggy Mimno so clearly demonstrated, the similarities between male and female runners are more important than the differences. I have run with a number of women, both in training and in competition, and I can testify that it is often hard work. The important lesson the narrator has learned from that race is that
A. there is a sharp distinction between the sexes in running.
B. women are weaker, slower, and less adept but Peggy is an exception.
C. Male and female runners have much in common and that accounts more for their success in a race.
D. he has been unable to outdo women runners any more since that rac