? ?One of the most striking findings of a recent poll in the UK is that of the people interviewed, one in two believes that it is becoming more difficult to meet someone to start a family with.
? ?Why are many finding it increasingly difficult to start and sustain intimate relationships? Does modern life really make it harder to fall in love? Or are we making it harder for ourselves?
? ?It is certainly the case today that contemporary couples benefit in different ways from relationships. Women no longer rely upon partners for economic security or status. ?A man doesn’t expect his spouse to be in sole charge of running his household and raising his children.
? ?But perhaps the knowledge that we can live perfectly well without a partnership means that it takes much more to persuade people to abandon their independence.
? ?In theory, finding a partner should be much simpler these days. Only a few generations ago, your choice of soulmate (心上人) was constrained by geography, social convention and family tradition. Although it was never explicit, many marriages were essentially arranged.
? ?Now those barriers have been broken down. You can approach a builder or a brain surgeon in any bar in any city on any given evening. When the world is your oyster (牡蛎) ,you surely have a better chance of finding a pearl.
? ?But it seems that the old conventions have been replaced by an even tighter constraint: the tyranny of choice.
? ?The expectations of partners are inflated to an unmanageable degree, good looks, impressive salary, kind to grandmother, and right socks. There is no room for error in the first impression.
? ?We think that a relationship can be perfect. If it isn’t, it is disposable. We work to protect ourselves against future heartache and don’t put in the hard emotional labor needed to build a strong relationship. Of course, this is complicated by realities. The cost of housing and child-rearing creates pressure to have a stable income and career before a life partnership.

Which of the following is NOT expected of a partner according to this passage?

A:Good looks. B:An impressive career. C:A high salary. D:A fine sense of humor.

One of the most striking findings of a recent poll in the UK is that of the people interviewed, one in two believes that it is becoming more difficult to meet someone to start a family with.
Why are many finding it increasingly difficult to start and sustain intimate relationships Does modern life really make it harder to fall in love Or are we making it harder for ourselves
It is certainly the case today that contemporary couples benefit in different ways from relationships. Women no longer rely upon partners for economic security or status. A man doesn’t expect his spouse to be in sole charge of running his household and raising his children.
But perhaps the knowledge that we can live perfectly well without a partnership means that it takes much more to persuade people to abandon their independence.
In theory, finding a partner should be much simpler these days. Only a few generations ago, your choice of soulmate (心上人) was constrained by geography, social convention and family tradition. Although it was never explicit, many marriages were essentially arranged.
Now those barriers have been broken down. You can approach a builder or a brain surgeon in any bar in any city on any given evening. When the world is your oyster (牡蛎), you surely have a better chance of finding a pearl.
But it seems that the old conventions have been replaced by an even tighter constraint: the tyranny of choice.
The expectations of partners are inflated to an unmanageable degree: good looks, impressive salary, kind to grandmother, and right socks. There is no room for error in the first impression.
We think that a relationship can be perfect. If it isn’t, it is disposable. We work to protect ourselves against future heartache and don’t put in the hard emotional labor needed to build a strong relationship. Of course, this is complicated by realities. The cost of housing and child-rearing creates pressure to have a stable income and career before a life partnership.
Which of the following is NOT expected of a partner according to this passage

A:Good looks. B:An impressive career. C:A high salary. D:A fine sense of humor.

第4篇 Trying to Find a Partner One of the most striking findings of a recent poll in the UK is that of the people interviewed, one in two believes that it is becoming more difficult to meet someone to start a family with. Why are many finding it increasingly difficult to start and sustain intimate relationships Does modern life really make it harder to fall in love Or are we making it harder for ourselves It is certainly the case today that contemporary couples benefit in different ways from relationships. Women no longer rely upon partners for economic security or status. A man doesn’t expect his spouse to be in sole charge of running his household and raising his children. But perhaps the knowledge that we can live perfectly well without a partnership means that it takes much more to persuade people to abandon their independence. In theory, finding a partner should be much simpler these days. Only a few generations ago, your choice of soulmate (心上人) was constrained by geography, social convention and family tradition. Although it was never explicit, many marriages were essentially arranged. Now those barriers have been broken down. You can approach a builder or a brain surgeon in any bar in any city on any given evening. When the world is your oyster (牡蛎) ,you surely have a better chance of finding a pearl. But it seems that the old conventions have been replaced by an even tighter constraint: the tyranny of choice. The expectations of partners are inflated to an unmanageable degree, good looks, impressive salary, kind to grandmother, and right socks. There is no room for error in the first impression. We think that a relationship can be perfect. If it isn’t, it is disposable. We work to protect ourselves against future heartache and don’t put in the hard emotional labor needed to build a strong relationship. Of course, this is complicated by realities. The cost of housing and child-rearing creates pressure to have a stable income and career before a life partnership.Which of the following is NOT expected of a partner according to this passage

A:Good looks. B:An impressive career. C:A high salary. D:A fine sense of humor.

第4篇 Trying to Find a Partner One of the most striking findings of a recent poll in the UK is that of the people interviewed, one in two believes that it is becoming more difficult to meet someone to start a family with. Why are many finding it increasingly difficult to start and sustain intimate relationships Does modern life really make it harder to fall in love Or are we making it harder for ourselves It is certainly the case today that contemporary couples benefit in different ways from relationships. Women no longer rely upon partners for economic security or status. A man doesn’t expect his spouse to be in sole charge of running his household and raising his children. But perhaps the knowledge that we can live perfectly well without a partnership means that it takes much more to persuade people to abandon their independence. In theory, finding a partner should be much simpler these days. Only a few generations ago, your choice of soulmate (心上人) was constrained by geography, social convention and family tradition. Although it was never explicit, many marriages were essentially arranged. Now those barriers have been broken down. You can approach a builder or a brain surgeon in any bar in any city on any given evening. When the world is your oyster (牡蛎) ,you surely have a better chance of finding a pearl. But it seems that the old conventions have been replaced by an even tighter constraint: the tyranny of choice. The expectations of partners are inflated to an unmanageable degree, good looks, impressive salary, kind to grandmother, and right socks. There is no room for error in the first impression. We think that a relationship can be perfect. If it isn’t, it is disposable. We work to protect ourselves against future heartache and don’t put in the hard emotional labor needed to build a strong relationship. Of course, this is complicated by realities. The cost of housing and child-rearing creates pressure to have a stable income and career before a life partnership.Which of the following is NOT expected of a partner according to this passage

A:Good looks. B:An impressive career. C:A high salary. D:A fine sense of humor.

It vanished in 2002, a result of a bad fall. As my neurosurgeon explained, when my head hit the ground, my brain sloshed around, which smashed delicate nerve endings in my olfactory system. Maybe they’ll repair themselves, she said (in what struck me as much too casual a tone ), and maybe they won’t, If I had to lose something, it might as well have been smell; at least nothing about my personality or my memory had changed, as can happen with head trauma. So it seemed almost churlish to feel, as the months went on, so devastated by this particular loss.
But I was heartbroken. My sense of smell was always something I took pleasure in. Without scent, I felt as ff I were walking around the city without my contact lenses, dealing with people while wearing earplugs, moving through something sticky and thick. The sharpness of things, their specificity, diminished. I couldn’t even tell when the milk had gone bad. Oddly, my sense of taste remained perfectly fine, but I was still nervous about opening a carton of yogurt without having someone nearby to sniff it for me. I had been stripped of the sense we all use, often without realizing it, to negotiate the world, to know which things are safe and which are dangerous.
After nearly a year, I talked to a colleague savvying about neuro-science, who suggested I try to retrain my sense of smell on the assumption that the nerve endings had repaired themselves but that something was still broken along the pathway from nose to brain, where odor molecules activate olfactory receptors (the subject of this year’s Nobel-winning research) . Her advice was to expose myself to strong, distinctive fragrances, asking the person I was with to tell me exactly what I was smelling even if I wasn’t conscious of smelling anything at all.
I began sticking my nose into everything that seemed likely to have a scent-the cumin in the spice cabinet, freshly ground coffee, red wine. I interrupted friends midsentence if we happened to be walking past a pizza place or a garbage truck and asked, stupidly, "What are you smelling now"
Slowly, the smell therapy started to work. At first, distressingly, all I could smell were unnatural scents: dandruff shampoo, furniture polish, a cloud of after-shave from a stocky young man. The first time I smelled cut grass again, in the small park near the American Museum of Natural History, was almost exactly two years after my fall. It made me cry. The tears embarrassed me, but cut grass is one of those fragrances that transport me directly to the landscape of childhood. And that’s what I had been missing, really, and why getting back my sense of smell was so precious: a visceral connection to the person I used to be.
Why was the author nervous about opening a carton of yogurt

A:Her sense of taste remained perfectly fine. B:She was fed up with it. C:She could not sniff out whether it had gone had. D:She could not tell the safe things from the dangerous ones.

It vanished in 2002, a result of a bad fall. As my neurosurgeon explained, when my head hit the ground, my brain sloshed around, which smashed delicate nerve endings in my olfactory system. Maybe they’ll repair themselves, she said (in what struck me as much too casual a tone ), and maybe they won’t, If I had to lose something, it might as well have been smell; at least nothing about my personality or my memory had changed, as can happen with head trauma. So it seemed almost churlish to feel, as the months went on, so devastated by this particular loss.
But I was heartbroken. My sense of smell was always something I took pleasure in. Without scent, I felt as ff I were walking around the city without my contact lenses, dealing with people while wearing earplugs, moving through something sticky and thick. The sharpness of things, their specificity, diminished. I couldn’t even tell when the milk had gone bad. Oddly, my sense of taste remained perfectly fine, but I was still nervous about opening a carton of yogurt without having someone nearby to sniff it for me. I had been stripped of the sense we all use, often without realizing it, to negotiate the world, to know which things are safe and which are dangerous.
After nearly a year, I talked to a colleague savvying about neuro-science, who suggested I try to retrain my sense of smell on the assumption that the nerve endings had repaired themselves but that something was still broken along the pathway from nose to brain, where odor molecules activate olfactory receptors (the subject of this year’s Nobel-winning research) . Her advice was to expose myself to strong, distinctive fragrances, asking the person I was with to tell me exactly what I was smelling even if I wasn’t conscious of smelling anything at all.
I began sticking my nose into everything that seemed likely to have a scent-the cumin in the spice cabinet, freshly ground coffee, red wine. I interrupted friends midsentence if we happened to be walking past a pizza place or a garbage truck and asked, stupidly, "What are you smelling now"
Slowly, the smell therapy started to work. At first, distressingly, all I could smell were unnatural scents: dandruff shampoo, furniture polish, a cloud of after-shave from a stocky young man. The first time I smelled cut grass again, in the small park near the American Museum of Natural History, was almost exactly two years after my fall. It made me cry. The tears embarrassed me, but cut grass is one of those fragrances that transport me directly to the landscape of childhood. And that’s what I had been missing, really, and why getting back my sense of smell was so precious: a visceral connection to the person I used to be.

Why was the author nervous about opening a carton of yogurt（）

A:Her sense of taste remained perfectly fine. B:She was fed up with it. C:She could not sniff out whether it had gone had. D:She could not tell the safe things from the dangerous ones.