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.”
    毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，Jennifer Senior在有煸動(dòng)意味的的雜志封面故事中表達(dá)了她的獨(dú)到見解， “我愛我的孩子們，我討厭我的生活”——這喚起了人們的談興。人們一談到養(yǎng)孩子就會(huì)覺(jué)得這是一件完全令人愉悅、生活充實(shí)的事情。Jennifer Senior沒(méi)有指出養(yǎng)孩子到底是使得父母快樂(lè)呢還是痛苦呢，她倒是認(rèn)為，我們需要重新定義幸福：幸福不應(yīng)該是一個(gè)個(gè)瞬間的快樂(lè)組合的可以被衡量的東西；我們應(yīng)該把幸福視為一種過(guò)去式的狀態(tài)。盡管撫養(yǎng)孩子的日子漫長(zhǎng)難熬，令人筋疲力盡，但是Jennifer Senior認(rèn)為，正是那些心緒沉重的時(shí)刻，日后卻成為我們歡樂(lè)的源泉。
    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.
    雜志封面上一位給力的母親抱著一個(gè)可愛的嬰兒，這種圣母與圣子（麥當(dāng)娜和孩子）的圖畫這周在雜志上多次出現(xiàn)。例如雜志上講到最近剛收養(yǎng)孩子的母親——有時(shí)是剛變成單身母親——桑德拉布魯克，以及那種很常見的“詹尼弗阿尼斯頓懷孕了”的新聞。實(shí)際上，每周都有至少一位名人母親、或者準(zhǔn)母親在雜志上笑迎讀者。
    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 children. 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.
    在一個(gè)不斷地慶祝生育的社會(huì)中，承認(rèn)自己后悔生育孩子就相當(dāng)于承認(rèn)自己支持殺小貓，這難道不值得反思嗎？把父母的后悔與孩子的后悔相比較，這顯然并不合理。沒(méi)有人會(huì)去讓不情愿養(yǎng)孩子的父母去反思自己是否不該養(yǎng)孩子，但是那不幸福的沒(méi)有孩子的人卻為類似這樣的信息所困擾：“孩子是世上唯一最可珍惜的東西”，顯然，你們的不幸必須通過(guò)生兒育女才能得以消除。
    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.
    當(dāng)然，像美國(guó)周刊與人物這樣的雜志提供的名人父母的形象是非常不切實(shí)際的。特別是像Bullock這樣的單身母親時(shí)更是如此。多項(xiàng)研究表明，有孩子的父母很少比沒(méi)有孩子的夫婦更快樂(lè)，而單親家庭是最不快樂(lè)的。這并不奇怪，因?yàn)橐粋�(gè)人養(yǎng)一個(gè)孩子實(shí)在太麻煩了，沒(méi)有人可以依靠。然而，你聽聽Sandra和Britney說(shuō)的話：自己“一個(gè)人”養(yǎng)孩子，其實(shí)非常簡(jiǎn)單。（她們當(dāng)然覺(jué)得簡(jiǎn)單了，因?yàn)樗齻兪窃谥車�有一幫人全天侯的侯著��。�?br />     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.
    很難想象有的人生孩子就只是很傻很天真因?yàn)镽eese和Angelina這種名流使這種行為變的很光鮮，——多數(shù)成年人其實(shí)理解：養(yǎng)孩子可不是剪頭發(fā)那樣簡(jiǎn)單。但這確實(shí)有趣：反思一下我們每周看到的無(wú)憂無(wú)慮，幸福誘人的為人父母的生活會(huì)不會(huì)從一種微小的，無(wú)意識(shí)的方面加劇我們對(duì)于現(xiàn)實(shí)生活的不滿。這種方式就好像：我們有那種想成為“ the Rachel”（老友記中的單身媽媽）的心理，這種心理，使得我們看上去有點(diǎn)像詹尼弗安尼斯頓（Rachel 的扮演者）。

    語(yǔ)篇分析：
    源自：2010年9月7日的Newsweek 題目Not On Board With Baby：Parenthood—the condition, not the TV show—sucks. Or so everyone keeps saying.這篇文章是典型的觀點(diǎn)議論文了。抓住觀點(diǎn)很重要。一二段引入，后面表明作者的觀點(diǎn)。
36.Jennifer Senior suggests in her article that raising a child can bring
    [A]temporary delight           [B]enjoyment in progress
    [C]happiness in retrospect     [D]lasting reward
    解析：題干關(guān)鍵詞是：suggest這個(gè)題在問(wèn)觀點(diǎn)，那我們就找觀點(diǎn)：在第一段Jennifer Senior兩處表明了觀點(diǎn)：信號(hào)詞：suggests we need to redefine happiness: we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition 和Senior writes that “the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight.”the very things that in the moment dampen our moods=題干中的raising a child同意改寫，你懂得。can later be sources of intense gratification and delight.= happiness in retrospect （回看）這樣答案鎖定為C.
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.
    解析：二段第一句：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 ?：后面的話語(yǔ)是圍繞這句展開的。[D]having children is highly valued by the public.對(duì)于要孩子的事情這個(gè)社會(huì)是關(guān)注的，以至于作者會(huì)在后文質(zhì)疑這樣做不是合理所以答案就是D.主題優(yōu)先啊。
38.It is suggested in Paragraph 3 that 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.
    解析：這個(gè)題有一定的難度，主要是有個(gè)對(duì)比：
Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to…
unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message
    都是被動(dòng)態(tài)，所以這里都和外界的影響有關(guān)系：第一個(gè)不受外界影響；第二個(gè)受到影響。只是這個(gè)message在答案中改寫為了criticism,同學(xué)不是很習(xí)慣而已了。
39.According to Paragraph 4, the message conveyed by celebrity magazines is
    [A]soothing.         [B]ambiguous.
    [C]compensatory.     [D]misleading.
    解析：Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic,這句話中的unrealistic 有理由讓我們覺(jué)得其他選項(xiàng)都是浮云。
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.
    解析：又是段落推理題，需要看全部的選項(xiàng)。
    [A]Having children contributes little to the glamour of celebrity moms.
完整句需要和原文的主謂賓對(duì)應(yīng)，
    [C]Having children intensifies our dissatisfaction with life.
    文章中說(shuō)道了我們對(duì)生活的不滿，但是有沒(méi)有講有孩子加劇了我們對(duì)生活的不滿，這就是我經(jīng)常在課上講到的一定要對(duì)應(yīng)主謂賓消除視覺(jué)上的干擾。落實(shí)到動(dòng)作是否有發(fā)生，動(dòng)作的施動(dòng)者和受動(dòng)者分別是誰(shuí)。
把那個(gè)句子的主干搞出來(lái)就是：
    the images are contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience
    就是加劇了對(duì)于我們現(xiàn)實(shí)生活的不滿的也是那些image 狀語(yǔ)都去了！
    [D]We sometimes neglect the happiness from child rearing.
    同樣的方法和視角來(lái)處理這個(gè)選項(xiàng)。正確選項(xiàng)B 來(lái)自兩個(gè)地方：
    首先是but的轉(zhuǎn)折：
    前面說(shuō)我們不會(huì)傻到由于這些明星的形象而要孩子的。
    那么轉(zhuǎn)折就應(yīng)該是：但是我們確實(shí)受了他們的影響。這樣由轉(zhuǎn)折而起的推理在我的閱讀課堂中可以說(shuō)是比比皆是。
    其次是最后一句：
    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.
    要是看過(guò)老友記的同學(xué)應(yīng)該能知道，Rachel 是個(gè)單生媽媽，但是這樣的方法不推薦。