Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?
I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room -- a women's group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening one man had been particularly talkative frequently offering ideas and anecdotes while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don't talk to them. This man quickly concurred. He gestured toward his wife and said "She's the talker in our family." The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. "It's true" he explained. "When I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn't keep the conversation going we'd spend the whole evening in silence."
This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage。
The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late '70s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book "Divorce Talk" that most of the women she interviewed -- but only a few of the men --- gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year --- a virtual epidemic of failed conversation。
In my own research complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his or doing far more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning cooking social arrangements and errands. Instead they focused on communication: "He doesn't listen to me" "He doesn't talk to me." I found as Hacker observed years before that most wives want their husbands to be first and foremost conversational partners but few husbands share this expectation of their wives。
In short the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face while a woman glares at the back of it wanting to talk。
26. What is most wives' main expectation of their husbands?
A. Talking to them.                B. Trusting them.
C. Supporting their careers.          D. Sharing housework。
選【A】，根據第一段women frequently complain that their husbands don't talk to them.。
27. Judging from the context, the phrase “wreaking havoc” (Line 3, Para.2) most probably means ___。
A. generating motivation.            B. exerting influence
C. causing damage                 D. creating pressure
選【C】，猜詞題，從下文主要內容來看，夫妻缺乏溝通會導致離婚，即對婚姻產生破壞作用。
28. All of the following are true EXCEPT_______
A. men tend to talk more in public tan women
B. nearly 50percent of recent divorces are caused by failed conversation
C. women attach much importance to communication between couples
D a female tends to be more talkative at home than her spouse
選【B】，注意本題是選錯誤選項，ACD都是正確的，但是B選項錯誤的原因是偷換了50%的比率對象。文章只說了the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent，即目前美國離婚率為50%，并沒有說50%的離婚率是因為缺乏溝通造成的，B選項的說法大大低于文章前一句話所說的most of the women gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorce。
29. Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of this text?
A. The moral decaying deserves more research by sociologists。
B. Marriage break-up stems from sex inequalities。
C. Husband and wife have different expectations from their marriage。
D. Conversational patterns between man and wife are different。
選【D】，文章主題強調男女說話交流模式不一樣。AB中的moral和inequality不符合原文。C是無中生有。
30. In the following part immediately after this text, the author will most probably focus on ______
A. a vivid account of the new book Divorce Talk
B. a detailed description of the stereotypical cartoon
C. other possible reasons for a high divorce rate in the U.S。
D. a brief introduction to the political scientist Andrew Hacker
選【B】，本文圍繞著男女交流不一樣，導致離婚這一現象展開，所以下文具體會闡述這副圖的的細節討論這個現象。