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Paragraph 1 In times of economic crisis, Americans turn to their families for support. If the Great Depression is any guide, we may see a drop in our skyhigh divorce rate. But this won’t necessarily represent an increase in happy marriages. In the long run, the Depression weakened American families, and the current crisis will probably do the same.Paragraph 2 We tend to think of the Depression as a time when families pulled together to survive huge job losses. By 1932, when nearly one-quarter of the workforce was unemployed, the divorce rate had declined by around 25% from 1929. But this doesn’t mean people were suddenly happier with their marriages. Rather, with incomes decreasing and insecure jobs, unhappy couples often couldn’t afford to divorce. They feared neither spouse could manage alone.Paragraph 3 Today, given the job losses of the past year, fewer unhappy couples will risk starting separate households. Furthermore, the housing market meltdown will make it more difficult for them to finance their separations by selling their homes.Paragraph 4 After financial disasters family members also tend to do whatever they can to help each other and their communities. A 1940 book, The Unemployed Man and His Family, described a family in which the husband initially reacted to losing his job "with tireless search for work." He was always active, looking for odd jobs to do.Paragraph 5 The problem is that such an impulse is hard to sustain. Across the country, many similar families were unable to maintain the initial boost in morale (士气). For some, the hardships of life without steady work eventually overwhelmed their attempts to keep their families together. The divorce rate rose again during the rest of the decade as the recovery took hold.Paragraph 6 Millions of American families may now be in the initial stage of their responses to the current crisis, working together and supporting one another through the early months of unemployment.Paragraph 7 Today’s economic crisis could well generate a similar number of couples whose relationships have been irreparably (无法弥补地) ruined. So it’s only when the economy is healthy again that we’ll begin to see just how many broken families have been created. What can be inferred from the last paragraph()

A. The economic recovery will see a higher divorce rate.
B. Few couples can stand the test of economic hardships.
C. A stable family is the best protection against poverty.
D. Money is the foundation of many a happy marriage.

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Paragraph 1 You never see him, but they’re with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you’re traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They’re known as the black box.Paragraph 2 When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the device’s homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.Paragraph 3 In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane—the area least subject to impact—from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.Paragraph 4 Modem airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots’ conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft’s final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) ease and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can withstand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged, they’re also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they’re still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane’s black boxes were never recovered. What information could be found from the black box on the Yemeni airliner()

A. Data for analyzing the cause of the crash.
B. The total number of passengers on board.
C. The scene of the crash and extent of the damage.
D. Homing signals sent by the pilot before the crash.

Paragraph 1 Several recent studies have found that being randomly (随机地) assigned to a roommate of another race can lead to increased tolerance but also to a greater likelihood (可能性) of conflict.Paragraph 2 Recent reports found that lodging with a student of a different race may decrease prejudice and compel students to engage in more ethnically diverse friendships.Paragraph 3 An Ohio State University study also found that black students living with a white roommate saw higher academic success throughout their college careers. Researchers believe this may be caused by social pressure.Paragraph 4 In a New York Times article, Sam Boakye—the only black student on his freshman year floor—said that "if you’re surrounded by whites, you have something to prove."Paragraph 5 Researchers also observed problems resulting from pairing interracial students in residences.Paragraph 6 According to two recent studies, randomly assigned roommates of different races are more likely to experience conflicts so strained that one roommate will move out.Paragraph 7 An Indiana University study found that interracial roommates were three times as likely as two white roommates to no longer live together by the end of the semester.Paragraph 8 Grace Kao, a professor at Penn said she was not surprised by the findings. "This may be the first time that some of these students have interacted, and lived, with someone of a different race," she said.Paragraph 9 At Penn, students are not asked to indicate race when applying for housing.Paragraph 10 "One of the great things about freshman housing is that, with some exceptions, the process throws you together randomly," said Undergraduate Assembly chairman Alec Webley. "This is the definition of integration."Paragraph 11 "I’ve experienced roommate conflicts between interracial students that have both broken down stereotypes and reinforced stereotypes," said one Penn resident advisor (RA). The RA of two years added that while some conflicts "provided more multicultural acceptance and melding (融合)," there were also "jarring cultural confrontations."Paragraph 12 The RA said that these conflicts have also occurred among roommates of the same race.Paragraph 13 Kao said she cautions against forming any generalizations based on any one of the studies, noting that more background characteristics of the students need to be studied and explained. What does Grace Kao say about interracial lodging ()

A. It is unscientific to make generalizations about it without further study.
B. Schools should be cautious when making decisions about student lodging.
C. Students’ racial background should be considered before lodging is assigned.
D. Experienced resident advisors should be assigned to handle the problems.

Paragraph 1 Boys’ schools are the perfect place to teach young men to express their emotions and involve them in activities such as art, dance and music.Paragraph 2 Far from the traditional image of a culture of aggressive masculinity (阳刚) , the absence of girls gives boys the chance to develop without pressure to conform to a stereotype, a US study says.Paragraph 3 Boys at single-sex schools were said to be more likely to get involved in cultural and artistic activities that helped develop their emotional expressiveness, rather than feeling they had to conform to the "boy code" of hiding their emotions to be a "real man".Paragraph 4 The findings of the study so against received wisdom that boys do better when taught alongside girls.Paragraph 5 Tony Little, headmaster of Eton, warned that boys were being failed by the British education system because it had become too focused on girls. He criticized teachers for failing to recognize that boys are actually more emotional than girls.Paragraph 6 The research argued that boys often perform badly in mixed schools because they become discouraged when their female peers do better earlier in speaking and reading skills.Paragraph 7 But in single-sex schools teachers can tailor lessons to boys’ learning style, letting them move around the classroom and getting them to compete in teams to prevent boredom, wrote the study’s author, Abigail James, of the University of Virginia.Paragraph 8 Teachers could encourage boys to enjoy reading and writing with "boy-focused" approaches such as themes and characters that appeal to them. Because boys generally have more acute vision, learn best through touch, and are physically more active, they need to be given "hands-on" lessons where they are allowed to walk around. "Boys in mixed schools view classical music as feminine (女性的) and prefer the modem genre (类型) in which violence and sexism are major themes," James wrote.Paragraph 9 Single-sex education also made it less likely that boys would feel they had to conform to a stereotype that men should be "masterful and in charge" in relationships. "In mixed schools, boys feel compelled to act like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means," the study reported. Which of the following is characteristic of boys according to Abigail James’ report()

A. They enjoy being in charge.
B. They conform to stereotypes.
C. They have sharper vision.
D. They are violent and sexist.

Paragraph 1 As you are probably aware, the latest job markets news isn’t good: Unemployment is still more than 9 percent, and new job growth has fallen close to zero. That’s bad for the economy, of course. And it may be especially discouraging if you happen to be looking for a job or hoping to change careers right now. But it actually shouldn’t matter to you nearly as much as you think.Paragraph 2 That’s because job growth numbers don’t matter to job hunters as much as job turnover (人员更替) data. After all, existing jobs open up every day due to promotions, resignations, terminations (解雇), and retirements. (Yes, people are retiring even in this economy.) In both good times and bad, turnover creates more openings than economic growth does. Even in June of 2007, when the economy was still moving ahead, job growth was only 132,000, while turnover was 4.7 million!Paragraph 3 And as it turns out, even today—with job growth near zero—over 4 million job hunters are being hired every month.Paragraph 4 I don’t mean to imply that overall job growth doesn’t have an impact on one’s ability to land a job. It’s true that if total employment were higher. It would mean more jobs for all of us to choose from (and compete for). And it’s true that there are currently more people applying for each available job opening, regardless of whether it’s a new one or not.Paragraph 5 But what often distinguishes those who land jobs from those who don’t is their ability to stay motivated. They’re willing to do the hard work of identifying their valuable skills; he creative about where and how to look; learn how to present themselves to potential employers; and keep going, even after repeated rejections. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that 2.7 million people who wanted and were available for work hadn’t looked within the last four weeks and were no longer even classified as unemployed.Paragraph 6 So don’t let the headlines fool you into giving up. Four million people get hired every month in the U.S. You can be one of them. What do we learn from the passage about the unemployment figures in the U.S.()

A. They clearly indicate how healthy the economy is.
B. They provide the public with the latest information.
C. They warn of the structural problems in the economy.
D. They exclude those who have stopped looking for a job.

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