When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend.A lateral movethat hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming "I wanted to spend more time with my family". Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality, I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all" preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the page of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything. I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life" and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12 hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "duality time". In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshifting — also known in America as "voluntary simplicity" — has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anticonsumerism. There are a number of best-selling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives. There are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their ding-film to making their own soap. There are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-1990s equivalent of dropping out. While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline — after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late-1980s—and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class down-shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives. For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the 1980s, downshifting in the mid-1990s is not so much a search for the mythical good life — growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one — as a personal recognition of your limitations. According to the passage, downshifting emerged in the U.S. as a result of______.
A. the economic situation
B. man’s adventurous spirit
C. the quick pace of modern life
D. man’s search for mythical experiences
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When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend.A lateral movethat hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming "I wanted to spend more time with my family". Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality, I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all" preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the page of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything. I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life" and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12 hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "duality time". In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshifting — also known in America as "voluntary simplicity" — has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anticonsumerism. There are a number of best-selling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives. There are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their ding-film to making their own soap. There are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-1990s equivalent of dropping out. While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline — after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late-1980s—and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class down-shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives. For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the 1980s, downshifting in the mid-1990s is not so much a search for the mythical good life — growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one — as a personal recognition of your limitations. "Juggling one’s life" probably mean______.
A. taking a non-materialistic lifestyle
B. trying out a life with a bit of everything
C. living a life characterized by extreme stress
D. advocating the notion of anti-consumerism
I have long believed that trouble between the races is seldom what it appears to be. It was not hard to see after my first talks with students that racial tension on campus is a problem that misrepresents itself. It has the same look, the typical pattern, of Americas timeless racial conflict.. .white racism and black protest. And I think part of our concern over it comes from the fact that it has the feel of a relapse, illness gone and come again. But if we are seeing the same symptoms, I don’t believe we are dealing with the same illness. For one thing, I think racial tension on campus is the result more of racial equality than inequality. How to live with racial difference has been America’s profound social problem. For the first 100 years or so following emancipation it was controlled by a legally approved inequality that acted as a buffer between the races. No longer is this the case. On campuses today, as throughout society, blacks enjoy equality under the law — a profound social advancement. No student may be kept out of a class or a dormitory or an extracurricular activity because of his or her race. But there is a paradox here: On a campus where members of all races are gathered, mixed together in the classroom as well as socially, differences are more exposed than ever. And this is where the trouble starts. For members of each race — young adultscoming into their own, often away from home for the first time — bring to this site of freedom, exploration, and now, today, equality, very deep fears and anxieties, not fully developed feelings of racial shame, anger, and guilt. These feelings could lie hidden in the home, in familiar neighborhoods, in simpler days of childhood. But the college campus, with its structures of interaction and adult-level competition — the big exam, the dorm, the "mixer" — is another matter. I think campus racism is born of the rub between racial difference and a setting, the campus itself, devoted to interaction and equality. On our campuses, such concentrated micro-societies, all that remains unresolved between blacks and whites, all the old wounds and shames that have never been addressed, present themselves for attention-and present our youth with pressures they cannot always handle. When young adults enter college for the first time,______.
A. they bring freedom and exploration to campus
B. they suffer from racial inequality and differences
C. they bring with them fear, anxiety and other feelings
D. they suffer from competitions in big exams
What he said in the meeting______everybody present.
A. disgusted
B. dismissed
C. disposed
D. disabled
When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend.A lateral movethat hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming "I wanted to spend more time with my family". Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality, I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all" preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the page of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything. I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life" and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12 hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "duality time". In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshifting — also known in America as "voluntary simplicity" — has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anticonsumerism. There are a number of best-selling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives. There are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their ding-film to making their own soap. There are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-1990s equivalent of dropping out. While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline — after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late-1980s—and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class down-shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives. For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the 1980s, downshifting in the mid-1990s is not so much a search for the mythical good life — growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one — as a personal recognition of your limitations. The writer’s experiment shows that downshifting______.
A. enables her to realize her dream
B. helps her mold a new philosophy of life
C. prompts her to abandon her high social status
D. leads her to accept the doctrine of She magazine