Being a good parent is harder now than it has ever been before. In pressurized modern lives, demands to be a fulfilled individual, a good partner and a good worker, take no account of being a good parent. We haven’t left space for the nurturing parents who are expected to provide what children need. As a result, many families in the western world just don’t work.

       Something will have to change. With luck, people in the future will only have children if they really want them. That should mean parenthood is seen as a much more positive promise than it is now, that parents are socially supported, and are admired for doing a good job.

       The problem is that in the last generation or so we’ve come to assume that women should want and be able to everything that by tradition men have done at the same time as pretty well everything that by tradition women have done. And it’s just not possible. Since adopting a male life style is demonstrably only another form of submission（顺从）, quite a number of highly educated and economically privileged（优越的）women are now choosing to take career breaks so as to be at home with their children for longer than that poor 18 weeks.

       The most welcoming trend in parenting is that men are participating more and more, even that is not free of conflict, however. Intellectually（理智上）, women want men to be equal parents and do their share. But there’s often a contradictory（矛盾的）emotion because children are the last fort of the female power in the family. “I want him to help me but this is my region and being better at it is one of the new things I’ve got as a female.” In truth, although they haven’t had generations of practice, there’s no reason why men can’t raise children as well as women. Men left to cope after bereavement or divorce, as well as some who take on the role of principal career within a partnership, are already doing it.

16.Why is it more difficult today to be good parents?

       A. Because parents don’t want to face the pressure of rearing children.

       B. Because children are in dependent and don’t need to be taken care of.

       C. Because husbands and wives have little time to talk to each other.

       D. Because people want to fulfill their own dreams, leaving no time to look after children.

17. We can learn from the passage that _______.

       A. people in future will not be as interested in children as people at present

       B. parenthood will be considered as a positive commitment as it is now

       C. women do better in rearing children than men

       D. parents will receive admiration for taking good care of children

18. Nowadays, a lot of highly educated and economically privileged women ________.

       A. tend to stay at home for more than 18 weeks

       B. tend to adopt a male life style

       C. tend to quit their jobs and stay at home

       D. tend to be submissive wives

19. It seems that in parenting , women ________.

       A. are contradictory in their thoughts.                B.demand equality between sexes

       C. tend to leave children to their husbands.         D. often quarrel with their husbands

20. The underlined word “bereavement” in the para 4 probably means _________.

       A. departure of his wife.                                          B. death of his wife

       C. return of his wife                                         D. annoyance of his wife

When I was a college student, I did a lot of traveling abroad. That was because a professor   【小题1】  me to do so. She said, “Now it is the time for you to travel around the world,   【小题2】  your knowledge through actual experiences and have fun?” I   【小题3】  her.
Since I started to work for a   【小题4】  company, however, I have done most of my traveling through the Internet. By using the Internet, I have seen the  【小题5】  of many cities on my computer screen. And I have really made business   【小题6】, too. With the help of the Internet, I have also got   【小题7】  about food in different countries.
Therefore, I was beginning to feel that actual trips were   【小题8】  necessary when I happened to read a famous chef's (厨师) comment on the Internet. He said, “It is very difficult to have real Italian food in a foreign country, because we enjoy food and the
 【小题9】  around us at the same time. So why don't you fly over to Italy and enjoy real Italian   【小题10】? “Those words reminded me of my  【小题11】 advice. As information technology   【小题12】 , you might be able to do without making some real trips. But this also means that you will miss the various   【小题13】  you can get from traveling.
Today there are people who   【小题14】  direct communication with others and spend much of their time on the Internet. It is not surprising to see a group of people 【小题15】 not with each other but into their micro phones. It seems as if such people are  【小题16】 by an invisible wall. They seem to be losing out on a good chance to  【小题17】  and talk with other people. I do not think that they are taking good advantage of information technology. We should use information technology as a tool to make our daily   【小题18】  more fruitful. However, we should never let it   【小题19】  our time for face to -face communication. Let's make use of information technology more   【小题20】 , and have great fun in experiencing the actual world.