Question

Women are friends, I once would have said, when they totally love and support and trust each other, and tell each other the secrets of their souls, and run no questions asked to help each other, and tell unpleasant truths to each other (no, you can't wear that dress unless you lose ten pounds first) when unpleasant truths must be told.

A woman friend is a friend all the way, I once would have said, but now I believe that’s a narrow point of view. For the friendships I have and the friendships I see are conducted at many levels of closeness, serve many different functions, meet different needs and range from the soul sisters to the most casual playmates.

Consider these varieties of friendship:

Convenience friends  They’ll lend us their cups for a party. They’ll drive our kids to school when we’re sick…As we will do for them. But we don’t, with convenience friends, ever come too close or tell too much; we maintain our public face and emotional distance.

Special-interest friends  These friendships aren’t close, and they needn’t involve kids or cups. Their value lies in some interest commonly shared. And so we may have an office friend or a yoga friend or a tennis friend. “I’d say that what we’re doing is doing together, not being together.”

Historical friends  We all have a friend who knew us when maybe way back in Miss Meltzer’s second grade, when our family lived in that three-room flat. The years have gone by and we’ve gone separate ways and we’ve little in common now, but we’re still a close part of each other’s past.

Crossroads friends  Crossroads friends form powerful links, links strong enough to last with just communication of a once-a-year letter at Christmas. And out of respect for those crossroads years, for those dreams and dreams we once shared, we will always be friends.

Cross-generational friends  The friendship exists across generations in what one woman calls her daughter–mother and her mother-daughter relationships.

There are medium(中等的), pretty good, and such good friends indeed, and these friendships are decided by their level of closeness. For example, we might tell a medium friend that yesterday we had a fight with our husband. And we might tell a pretty good friend that this fight with our husband made us so mad that we slept on the sofa. And we might tell a such good friend that the reason why we got so mad in that fight that we slept on the sofa — he had a love affair with that girl who works in his office. But it’s only to our very best friends that we’re willing to tell all, to tell what’s going on with that girl in his office.

The best of friends, I still believe, totally love and support and trust each other, and tell each other the secrets of their souls, and tell unpleasant truths to each other when they must be told.             

45. According to the passage, convenience friends ______.

A. are not valuable enough

B. are those who are easily available to make friends with

C. never tell each other their deepest feelings

D. discuss family budgets together

46. The underlined sentence means ______.

A. we should never sit and wait for something to happen

B. we join each other because we do something together

C. we complete something together rather than enjoy ourselves

D. cooperation is of great importance if we want to succeed

47. We can learn from the passage that ______.

A. special-interest friends will drive your kids to school

B. historical friends remind each other of their shameful past

C. crossroads friends can maintain their friendship by writing to each other once a year

D. cross-generational friends seem to maintain friendship forever

48. According to the author, a woman may tell her good friends that ______.

A. she has lost her job because she isn’t really qualified enough

B. her husband has fallen in love with a girl in his office

C. she has been upset these days because of financial problems

D. she is on a diet because she wants to lose weight

49. Which can be the best title of this passage?

A. Value of friendship              B. Friends, good friends and such good friends

C. The qualities of a good friend      D. Friendship: being together

Answer 1

  CBCDB