When I enrolled at Pepperdine University in 1974, my mother exercised her parental right to express her worry at my departure. I responded with typical teenage indifference and ignorance. “Mom , I’m only an hour away. What’s the bit deal?” “You just wait until you have one of your own,” she cried .“Then you’ll know what I’m feeling.” It has been a little more than a month since my daughter Devin moved into her dorm at Occidental college, and life as I know it has come to an end. Or that’s what it feels like. Mom, you were right.

The nest’s empty loneliness is almost unbearable. Why does it hurt so bad? Science has an answer: We are social mammals who experience deep attachment to our fellow friends and family, an evolutionary throwback to our Paleolithic(旧石器时代的)hunter-gatherer days of living in small bands. Bonding unified the group, aiding survival in harsh climates and against unforgiving enemies. Attachment between parents and offspring assured that there is no one better equipped to look after the future survival of your genes than yourself.

The empty-nest syndrome is real, but there is good news for this and all forms of loss and grief. According to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, we are not very good at forecasting our unhappiness. Most of us think that we would be miserable for a very long time. Gilbert calls this the durability bias, an emotional misunderstanding.

The durability bias and the failure to recognize the power of our emotional immune systems lead us to overestimate how depressed we will feel and for how long, and to underestimate how quickly we will get rid of it and feel better.

For me, taking the long view helps. How long? Deep time. Evolutionary time, in which 6,895 days represent a mere 0.000000005% of the 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth.

Each of us parents makes one small contribution to the evolutionary importance of life’s continuity from one generation to the next without a single gap, an unbroken link over the eons(永久)。

57. What message does the author want to express by telling us her experience in the first paragraph?

A. The empty-nest syndrome is really hard for old parents to bear.

B. All people should learn to love their parents no matter how old they are.

C. A person will not understand his parents´ love until he has his own child.

D. The love parents give to children is selfless and should be respected.

58. According to Daniel Gilbert, the empty-nest syndrome is­­­­         .

A. caused by our emotional misunderstanding

B. not a real problem but in our imagination

C. the result of overestimating our happiness

D. from our emotional immune systems

59. The author gets herself out of the empty-nest syndrome by holding a positive idea that        .

A. she can go to see her daughter regularly when she misses her

B. her daughter will one day come back to her after graduation

C. her daughter will understand her when she has her own children

D. the departure from her daughter is much shorter than the history of life on Earth

60. What kind of role do parents play in the human history, according to the last paragraph?

A. They cultivate talents for the development of history.

B. They help keep the life’s continuity without a broken link.

C. They accelerate the evolutionary pace of the human beings.

D. They point a right way for the next generation to develop themselves.

It was a party. I was 18 and it was fresher(大一新生) week. I was at the beginning of a course in English Literature and full of enthusiasm for my subject. She was also 18 and enrolled in a course in physics.

“Your major is of no use to society. What will you do with it when you graduate, other than teach? Plus, you’re going to be poor your whole life,” she said. “You have no soul and your degree is boring. I don’t care how much money you’re going to earn. I’d rather be poor and don’t mind being a teacher. If I love my work I’ll have something far more meaningful than a big bank account!” came the reply.

And so it went, back and forth, neither of us giving the other an inch, each of us stubbornly committed to our prejudice. We were both ignorant, but our ignorance was also society’s ignorance. It had always been that way. Scientists mocked(嘲笑) humanists; humanists laughed at scientists. Back in the 1960s, the physicist-turned novelist C. P. Snow labeled the sciences-humanities divide “a problem of ‘the two cultures’” . He said it was bad for society. The modern world needed well-rounded people.

I think I know better now, but it would have helped if we had been encouraged to think a little more outside our science and arts “boxes”.

That’s why I believe it is healthy that China is beginning a debate on whether it’s wise for young people to have to choose which direction their careers – and lives – will take at such an early age. At the moment, in their second year of high school, students must choose either the sciences or the humanities. After making the choice, they focus their energies on passing the appropriate college entrance exam.

But now, people in China are asking: Is this forced, early decision good for young people or society? Young people need time to explore, to discover where their real talents and interests lie. There are more than just a few middle-aged people out there, stuck in jobs they hate because they made the wrong choice at the wrong time.

And from the point of view of society, isn’t it better for students to delay a while before they decide what to study? Scientists can benefit from learning to develop the critical skills associated with the humanities; students in the humanities, surely, only stand to gain by finding out a little more about science and technology, which are so important to the future of a developing country like China.

With any luck, in the future young people fresh to college will be better informed about the possibilities of education than people of my generation.

The author describes what happened at a fresher party to ________.

A. show that he was ready to defend the subject he enjoyed

B. lead up his argument that the sciences-humanities divide is harmful

C. prove that doing something meaningful is better than having a lot of money

D. describe how fierce students of different majors can be when arguing with each other

What was C. P. Snow’s attitude towards the sciences-humanities divide?

A. Indifferent.         B. Uncertain.         C. Positive.          D. Negative.

In the sixth paragraph, an example mentioning middle-aged people is used to show that ________.

A. students should not make decisions too early

B. not all people have a talent for or are interested in the sciences

C. these people did not have the chance to make a choice earlier in life

D. the earlier young people make a decision, the better it will be for them

According to the text, it is safe to say that ________.

A. sciences are more practical in the modern world

B. C. P. Snow was a novelist who became a physicist

C. future generations will be able to get more out of education

D. a command of both the sciences and humanities is important to society

What’s the best title for the article?

A. The sciences or the humanities, which to choose?

B. High school education in China

C. Isn’t it better to delay the choice of the career direction?

D. A better time to decide what to study

It was a party. I was 18 and it was fresher(大一新生) week. I was at the beginning of a course in English Literature and full of enthusiasm for my subject. She was also 18 and enrolled in a course in physics.

“Your major is of no use to society. What will you do with it when you graduate, other than teach? Plus, you’re going to be poor your whole life,” she said. “You have no soul and your degree is boring. I don’t care how much money you’re going to earn. I’d rather be poor and don’t mind being a teacher. If I love my work I’ll have something far more meaningful than a big bank account!” came the reply.

And so it went, back and forth, neither of us giving the other an inch, each of us stubbornly committed to our prejudice. We were both ignorant, but our ignorance was also society’s ignorance. It had always been that way. Scientists mocked(嘲笑) humanists; humanists laughed at scientists. Back in the 1960s, the physicist-turned novelist C. P. Snow labeled the sciences-humanities divide “a problem of ‘the two cultures’” . He said it was bad for society. The modern world needed well-rounded people.

I think I know better now, but it would have helped if we had been encouraged to think a little more outside our science and arts “boxes”.

That’s why I believe it is healthy that China is beginning a debate on whether it’s wise for young people to have to choose which direction their careers – and lives – will take at such an early age. At the moment, in their second year of high school, students must choose either the sciences or the humanities. After making the choice, they focus their energies on passing the appropriate college entrance exam.

But now, people in China are asking: Is this forced, early decision good for young people or society? Young people need time to explore, to discover where their real talents and interests lie. There are more than just a few middle-aged people out there, stuck in jobs they hate because they made the wrong choice at the wrong time.

And from the point of view of society, isn’t it better for students to delay a while before they decide what to study? Scientists can benefit from learning to develop the critical skills associated with the humanities; students in the humanities, surely, only stand to gain by finding out a little more about science and technology, which are so important to the future of a developing country like China.

With any luck, in the future young people fresh to college will be better informed about the possibilities of education than people of my generation.

1.The author describes what happened at a fresher party to ________.

A. show that he was ready to defend the subject he enjoyed

B. lead up his argument that the sciences-humanities divide is harmful

C. prove that doing something meaningful is better than having a lot of money

D. describe how fierce students of different majors can be when arguing with each other

2.What was C. P. Snow’s attitude towards the sciences-humanities divide?

A. Indifferent.         B. Uncertain.            C. Positive.          D. Negative.

3.In the sixth paragraph, an example mentioning middle-aged people is used to show that ________.

A. students should not make decisions too early

B. not all people have a talent for or are interested in the sciences

C. these people did not have the chance to make a choice earlier in life

D. the earlier young people make a decision, the better it will be for them

4.According to the text, it is safe to say that ________.

A. sciences are more practical in the modern world

B. C. P. Snow was a novelist who became a physicist

C. future generations will be able to get more out of education

D. a command of both the sciences and humanities is important to society

5.What’s the best title for the article?

A. The sciences or the humanities, which to choose?

B. High school education in China

C. Isn’t it better to delay the choice of the career direction?

D. A better time to decide what to study

It was a party. I was 18 and it was fresher(大一新生) week. I was at the beginning of a course in English Literature and full of enthusiasm for my subject. She was also 18 and enrolled in a course in physics.
“Your major is of no use to society. What will you do with it when you graduate, other than teach? Plus, you’re going to be poor your whole life,” she said. “You have no soul and your degree is boring. I don’t care how much money you’re going to earn. I’d rather be poor and don’t mind being a teacher. If I love my work I’ll have something far more meaningful than a big bank account!” came the reply.
And so it went, back and forth, neither of us giving the other an inch, each of us stubbornly committed to our prejudice. We were both ignorant, but our ignorance was also society’s ignorance. It had always been that way. Scientists mocked(嘲笑) humanists; humanists laughed at scientists. Back in the 1960s, the physicist-turned novelist C. P. Snow labeled the sciences-humanities divide “a problem of ‘the two cultures’” . He said it was bad for society. The modern world needed well-rounded people.
I think I know better now, but it would have helped if we had been encouraged to think a little more outside our science and arts “boxes”.
That’s why I believe it is healthy that China is beginning a debate on whether it’s wise for young people to have to choose which direction their careers – and lives – will take at such an early age. At the moment, in their second year of high school, students must choose either the sciences or the humanities. After making the choice, they focus their energies on passing the appropriate college entrance exam.
But now, people in China are asking: Is this forced, early decision good for young people or society? Young people need time to explore, to discover where their real talents and interests lie. There are more than just a few middle-aged people out there, stuck in jobs they hate because they made the wrong choice at the wrong time.
And from the point of view of society, isn’t it better for students to delay a while before they decide what to study? Scientists can benefit from learning to develop the critical skills associated with the humanities; students in the humanities, surely, only stand to gain by finding out a little more about science and technology, which are so important to the future of a developing country like China.
With any luck, in the future young people fresh to college will be better informed about the possibilities of education than people of my generation.
【小题1】The author describes what happened at a fresher party to ________.