Text 4

It’s no surprise that Jennifer Senior’s insightful, provocative magazine cover story, “I Love My Children, I Hate My Life,” is arousing much chatter – nothing gets people talking like the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling, life-enriching experience. Rather than concluding that children make parents either happy or miserable, Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition. Even though the day-to-day experience of raising kids can be soul-crushingly hard, Senior writes that “the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight.”

The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the only Madonna-and-child image on newsstands this week. There are also stories about newly adoptive – and newly single – mom Sandra Bullock, as well as the usual “Jennifer Aniston is pregnant” news. Practically every week features at least one celebrity mom, or mom-to-be, smiling on the newsstands.

In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation, is it any wonder that admitting you regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing? It doesn’t seem quite fair, then, to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of the childless. Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldn’t have had kids, but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the single most important thing in the world:obviously their misery must be a direct result of the gaping baby-size holes in their lives.

Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic, especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock. According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples, single parents are the least happy of all. No shock there, considering how much work it is to raise a kid without a partner to lean on; yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it, raising a kid on their “own” (read: with round-the-clock help) is a piece of cake.

It’s hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just because Reese and Angelina make it look so glamorous: most adults understand that a baby is not a haircut. But it’s interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren’t in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience, in the same way that a small part of us hoped getting “the Rachel” might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston.

36. Jennifer Senior suggests in her article that raising a childcan bring

[A] temporary delight.                                                  [B] enjoyment in progress.  

[C] happiness in retrospect.                                            [D] lasting reward.

37.We learn from Paragraph 2 that

[A] celebrity moms are a permanent source for gossip.      

[B] single mothers with babies deserve greater attention.

[C] news about pregnant celebrities is entertaining.           

[D] having children is highly valued by the public.

38. It is suggested in Paragraph 3 that聽childless folks

[A] are constantly exposed to criticism.                            [B] are largely ignored by the media.

[C] fail to fulfill their social responsibilities.                     [D] are less likely to be satisfied with their life.

39.According to Paragraph 4, the message conveyed by celebrity magazines is

[A] soothing.                                                              [B] ambiguous.     
[C] compensatory.                                                       [D] misleading.

40.Which of the following can be inferred from the last paragraph?

[A] Having children contributes little to the glamour of celebrity moms.

[B] Celebrity moms have influenced our attitude towards child rearing.

[C] Having children intensifies our dissatisfaction with life.

[D] We sometimes neglect the happiness from child rearing.

36.C

解析：细节题。题目“Jenifer Senior在她的文章中认为养育孩子可以带来_______________”。定位到第一段第二句“Senior suggests that we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition”，意思是说我们应该把幸福看作为一种“过去时”的状态，而不应该把它看作为一种可以即时即地的快乐。最后一句补充道，那些一开始让我们情绪低落的事情，后来可能会是强烈的满足和快乐感的来源。由此可知，选项[C] happiness in retrospect(幸福的回忆、回顾往事时的幸福感)为正确答案。

37.D

解析：推断题。题目“由第二段可知_______________”。定位到第二段。第二段是承接第一段中心“养育孩子能成为后来幸福快乐的源泉”而来的，符合中心表达的意思。而且在第三段首句接着第二段提到“in a society that so persistently celebrates procreation(在一个如此赞扬生育的社会中)”，这是一个承上启下的句子，是对第二段的总结，也符合第一段以及第二段对养育孩子的正面评价。故选项[D] having children is highly valued by the public (养育孩子受到大众的高度重视)，是对原文赞扬生育的同义替换，为正确答案。

38.A

解析：细节推断题。题目“由第三段可知，无儿女的人们会_______________”。第三段最后一句but后面的信息提到，不幸福但育有儿女的父母很少会遭到挑衅，而去思考他们当初是不是不应该要孩子，但是不幸福且无儿女的人们经常会受到一个信息的困扰，即孩子是世界上唯一最重要的事情。后面又补充道，很明显正是没有孩子这一人生中的空白导直接导致了他们的痛苦。故选项[A] are constantly exposed to criticism (常常是指责的对象)符合此意，为正确答案。

39.D

解析：细节题。题目中“名人杂志传达的信息是_______________”。定位到原文第四段第一句“the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic”，名人杂志中为人父母的形象是非常不现实的。选项[D] misleading(误导的)是对原文unrealistic的同义替换。干扰选项：[A] soothing (抚慰的，令人宽心的)、[B] ambiguous (模糊的)、[C] compensatory (补偿的)均为无中生有。

40.B

解析：推断题。题目“从最后一段我们可以推断出如下哪个选项”。定位到最后一段转折处“But it’s interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren’t in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own satisfactions with the actual experience, in the say way that a small part of us hoped getting ‘the Rachel’ might make us just a little bit like Jennifer Anniston”，意思为我们每周看到的名人形象(没有压力、提升幸福感的名人形象)会使我们潜意识中对现实经历有所不满。由此可知，选项[B] Celebrity moms have influenced out attitude towards child rearing (名人妈妈形象影响了我们对抚养孩子的态度)是正确的。

干扰选项：[A] Having children contributes little to the glamour of celebrity moms(生育孩子对名Part B