Marriage, and its many ups and downs, still exercises a powerful hold over newspapers, magazines and the airwaves. Nearly 23m Americans watched Prince William being joined in holy marriage to Kate Middleton. Millions more have indulged in the break-up of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s marriage after revelations that he fathered a son with a maid.
Less delightful are revelations about the sorry state of marriage across the United States. Data from the Census Bureau show that married couples, for the first time, now make up less than half of all households.
The iconic American family, with mom, dad and kids under one roof, is fading. In every state the numbers of unmarried couples, childless households and single-person households are growing faster than those comprised of married people with children, finds the 2010 census. And the trend has a potent class dimension. Traditional marriage has evolved from a near-universal ritual to a luxury for the educated and affluent.
There barely was a marriage gap in 1960: only four percentage points separated the wedded ways of college and high-school graduates(76％ versus 72％). The gap has since widened to 16 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Centre.
"Marriage has become much more selective, and that’s why the divorce rate has come down," said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The project found that divorce rates for couples with college degrees are only a third as high as for those with a high-school degree.
Americans with a high-school degree or less tell researchers they would like to marry, but do not believe they can afford it. Instead, they raise children out of wedlock. Only 6％ of children born to college-educated mothers were born outside marriage, according to the National Marriage Project. That compares with 44％ of babies born to mothers whose education ended with high school.
"Less marriage means less income and more poverty," reckons Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She and other researchers have linked as much as half of the income inequality in America to changes in family composition: single-parent families (mostly those with a high-school degree or less) are getting poorer while married couples (with educations and dual incomes) are increasingly well-off. "This is a striking gap that is not well understood by the public," she says.
Do not expect the Democratic Party, however, to make an issue of the marriage gap in next year’s elections. Unmarried women voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. "You don’t want to suggest to someone who isn’t married and has children that they should be married," says Ms Sawhill. "That is a scorn on their lifestyle./
The first two paragraphs suggest that______.

A:the public like to spy on celebrities’ marriage B:many celebrities’ marriages are going wrong C:Americans’ marriage is going downhill D:people feel sorry for Americans’ marriage

Everywhere you look in contemporary America you see a people engaged in the pursuit of happiness. You can see it in work habits. Americans on average not only work longer and harder than most Europeans, but endure lengthy commutes to and from work. You can see it in geographical mobility. About 40 m of them move every year. They are remarkably willing to travel huge distances in pursuit of things like bowling conventions and so on. And you can see it in the country’s general hopefulness: two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about the future.
Since Americans are energetic even in deconstructing their own founding principles, there is no shortage of people who have taken exception to the happiness pursuit. They range from conservatives like Robert Bork, believing the phrase summarizes the "emptiness at the heart of American ideology", to liberals who think that it is a justification for an acquisitive society.
One criticism is that the pursuit is self-defeating. The more you pursue the illusion of happiness the more you sacrifice the real thing. The other side of mobility is turmoil and anxiety, broken marriages and unhappy children. Americans have less job security than ever before. They even report having fewer close friends than a few decades ago. And international studies of happiness suggest that people in certain poor countries, such as Mexico, are apparently happier than Americans.
Another criticism is that Americans have confused happiness with material possessions. It is notable that Thomas Jefferson’s call echoes Adam Smith’s phrase about "life, liberty and the pursuit of property". Do all those pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes really make you happy Or are they just a compensation for empty lives like in the soap opera Sex in the City
If opinion polls on such matters mean anything—and that is dubious—they suggest that both these criticisms are flawed. A 2006 Pew Research Centre study—"Are we happy yet"—claims that 84% of Americans are either "very happy" or "pretty happy". The Harris Poll’s 2004 "feel good index" found that 95% are pleased with their homes and 91% are pleased with their social lives. The Pew About sponsorship polls show that money does indeed go some way towards buying happiness. They also suggest that Americans, devotion to religion makes them happier still.
The pursuit of happiness accounts for all sorts of peculiarities of American life: from the $700/m spent on self-help books per year to the irritating dinner guests constantly looking at their BlackBerry cell phones. This pursuit may even help to explain the surge of anti-Americanism. Many people dislike it precisely because it is doing exactly what Jefferson intended. For some Europeans, the pursuit of happiness in the form of monster cars and mansions is objectionable on every possible ground. You cannot pursue happiness with such conspicuous enthusiasm without making quite a lot of people around the world rather unhappy.
The author mentioned Robert Bork to

A:prove Americans are enthusiastic about interpreting their founding principles. B:illustrate that many Americans pursue happiness. C:indicate that some Americans do not favor the happiness pursuit. D:justify the pursuit of happiness in America.

Many Americans are eating out and not cooking at home partially because ______.

A:they want to make a change after eating the same food for years at home B:the food made outside home tastes better than food cooked at home C:many of them live alone or don't like taking trouble to cook D:American women refuse to cook at home due to women's liberation movement

Facial expressions carry meanings that are partly determined by culture. For example, many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do, so teachers in the United States sometimes have trouble knowing whether their Japanese students understand and enjoy their lessons.
Another example is the smile. As a common facial expression, it may show affection, convey politeness, or disguise(掩饰)true feelings. But in different cultures. smiles have different meanings. Many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even a suspicious behavior. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places, for American culture a smile is typically an expression of pleasure. Therefore some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover emotional pain or embarrassment. Vietnamese people may tell the sad story of how they had to leave their country but end the story with a smile.

Which of the following statements is true according to the passage（　）

A:Russians think smiling at strangers is a proper behavior. B:Russians usually smile as frequently as Americans do. C:Many Americans smile freely at strangers in public. D:Russians and Americans have the same opinion of smiles.

Stop Eating Too Much
"Clean your plate!" and "Be a member of the clean-plate club!" Just about every kid in the US has heard this from a parent or grandparent. Often, it’s accompanied by an appeal: "Just think about those starving orphans (孤儿) in Africa! " Sure, we should be grateful for every bite of food. Unfortunately, many people in the US take too many bites. Instead of staying "clean the plate", perhaps we should save some food for tomorrow.
According to news reports, US restaurants are partly to blame for the growing bellies (肚子). A waiter puts a plate of food in front of each customer, with two to four times the amount recommended by the government, according to a USA Today story. Americans traditionally associate quantity with value and most restaurants try to give them that. They prefer to have customers complain about too much food rather than too little.
Barbara Rolls, a nutrition (营养) professor at Pennsylvania State University, told USA Today that restaurant portion sizes began to grow in the 1970s, the same time that the American waistline (腰围) began to expand.
Health experts have tried to get many restaurants to serve smaller portions. Now, apparently, some customers are calling for this too. The restaurant industry trade magazine QSR reported last month that 57 percent of more than 4,000 people surveyed believed restaurants served portions that were too large; 23 percent had no opinion; 20 percent disagreed. But a closer look at the survey indicates that many Americans who can’t afford fine dining still prefer large portions. Seventy percent of those earning at least ＄150,000 per year prefer smaller portions; but only 45 percent of those earning less than ＄25,000 want smaller.
It’s not that working class Americans don’t want to eat healthy. It’s just that, after long hours at low-paying jobs, getting less on their plate hardly seems like a good deal. They live from paycheck (薪金支票) to paycheck, happy to save a little money for next year’s
Christmas presents.
What does the survey indicate

A:Many low-income Americans want large portions. B:Twenty percent of Americans want smaller portions. C:Fifty-seven percent of Americans want large portions. D:Forty-five percent of Americans want smaller portions.

{{B}}第二篇{{/B}}

What does the survey indicate?

A:Many low-income Americans want large portions B:Twenty percent of Americans want smaller portions C:Fifty-seven percent of Americans want large portions D:Forty-five percent of Americans want smaller portions

"Clean your plate !" and "Be a member of the clean-plate club ! " Just about every kid in the US has heard this from a parent or grandparent. Often, it’s accompanied by an appeal: "Just think about those starving orphans in Africa!" Sure, we should be grateful for every bite of food. Unfortunately, many people in the US take too many bites. Instead of staying "clean the plate" , perhaps we should save some food for tomorrow.
According to news reports, US restaurants are partly to blame for the growing bellies. A waiter puts a plate of food in front of each customer, with two to four times the amount recommended by the government, according to a USA Today story. Americans traditionally associate quantity with value and most restaurants try to give them that. They prefer to have customers complain about too much food rather than too little.
Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Pennsylvania State University, told USA Today that restaurant portion sizes began to grow in the 1970s, the same time that the American waistline began to expand.
Health experts have tried to get many restaurants to serve smaller portions. Now, apparently, some customers are calling for this too. The restaurant industry trade magazine QSR reported last month that 57 percent of more than 4,000 people surveyed believe restaurants serve portions that are too large; 23 percent had no opinion; 20 percent disagreed. But a closer look at the survey indicates that many Americans who can’t afford fine dining still prefer large portions. Seventy percent of those earning at least $150,000 per year prefer smaller portions; but only 45 percent of those earning less than $25,000 want smaller.
It’s not that working class Americans don’t want to eat healthy. It’s just that, after long hours at low-paying jobs, getting less on their plate hardly seems like a good deal. They live from paycheck to paycheck, happy to save a little money for next year’s Christmas presents.
What does the survey indicate

A:Many poor Americans want large portions. B:Twenty percent Americans want smaller portions. C:Fifty seven percent Americans earn $150,000 per year. D:Twenty three percent Americans earn less than $25,000 per year.

{{B}}第二篇{{/B}}

What does the survey indicate?

A:Many low-income Americans want large portions B:Twenty percent of Americans want smaller portions C:Fifty-seven percent of Americans want large portions D:Forty-five percent of Americans want smaller portions

下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题。请根据短文内容，为每题确定1个最佳选项。
第一篇

Stop Eating Too Much
"Clean your plate!" and "Be a member of the clean-plate club!" Just about every kid in the US has heard this from a parent or grandparent. Often, it’s accompanied by an appeal: "Just think about those starving orphans (孤儿) in Africa!" Sure, we should be grateful for every bite of food Unfortunately, many people in the US take too many bites. Instead of staying "clean the plate", perhaps we should save some food for tomorrow.
According to news reports, US restaurants are partly to blame for the growing bellies (肚子), A waiter puts a plate of food in front of each customer, with two to four times the amount recommended by the government, according to a USA Today story. Americans traditionally associate quantity with value and most restaurants try to give them that. They prefer to have customers complain about too much food rather than too little.
Barbara Rolls, a nutrition (营养) professor at Pennsylvania State University, told USA Today that restaurant portion sizes began to grow in the 1970s, the same time that the American waistline (腰围) began to expand.
Health experts have tried to get many restaurants to serve smaller portions. Now, apparently, some customers are calling for this too. The restaurant industry trade magazine QSR reported last month that 57 percent of more than 4,000 people surveyed believed restaurants served portions that were too large; 23 percent had no opinion; 20 percent disagreed. But a closer look at the survey indicates that many Americans who can’t afford fine dining still prefer large portions. Seventy percent of those earning at least $150,000 per year prefer smaller portions; but only 45 percent of those earning less than $25,000 want smaller.
It’s not that working class Americans don’t want to eat healthy. It’s just that, after long hours at low-paying jobs, getting less on their plate hardly seems like a good deal. They live from paycheck (薪金支票) to paycheck, happy to save a little money for next year’s Christmas presents.

What does the survey indicate（）

A:Many low-income Americans want large portions B:Twenty percent of Americans want smaller portions C:Fifty-seven percent of Americans want large portions D:Forty-five percent of Americans want smaller portions