专四英语阅读：2024年专四真题 PASSAGE TWO
2024-11-09
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[1] The five o'clock dads can only be seen on cable television these days.
They eat dinner with their television families and provide counsel afterward in the den, exemplifying how men behave when they work eight hours a day.
[2] The five o'clock dad has become an endangered species.
A corporate culture that believes presence is productivity, in which people of ambition are afraid to be seen leaving the office, has lengthened his workday and shortened his home life.
So has an economy that makes it difficult for families to take a break even at the end of the month.
For the man who is paid by the hour, that means never saying no to overtime. For the man whose loyalty to the organization is measured in time at his desk, it means goodbye to nine to five.
[3] To lots of small children it means a visiting father.
The standard joke in one large corporate office is that the dads always say their children look like angels when they're sleeping because that's the only way they ever see them, A survey taken several years ago showed that roughly 12 percent of the men surveyed with children under the age of six worked more than sixty hours a week, and an additional 25 percent worked between fifty and sixty hours.
[4] No matter how you divide it up, those are twelve-hour days.
When a talk show host adopted a baby recently, she said one reason she was not troubled by becoming a mother without becoming a wife was that many of her married female friends were" functionally single", given the hours their husbands worked.
The evening commuter rush is getting longer. The eight o'clock dad. The nine o'clock dad.
[5] There's a horribly sad irony to this, that is, the quality of fathering is better than it was when the dads left work at five o'clock and came home to coffee pots and tuna casserole.The five o'clock dad was remote: a "wait till your father gets home" kind of dad with a newspaper for a face.
The roles he and his wife had were clear: she did nurture and home, he did discipline and money.
[6] The role fathers have carved out for themselves today is a vast improvement,a muddling of those old boundaries.Fathers today do seem to be more emotional with their children,more nurturing,more open.
Many say, "My father never told me he loved me" and so they tell their own children all the time that they love them.
[7] There are people who think that this is changing even now.A nonprofit organization advises corporations on how to balance personal and professional obligations and concerns, and its founder says she has noticed a change in the past few years.An increasing number of men have expressed their wishes to spend more time with their kids.
[8] This change can be to the good, not only for women but especially for men, and for kids. too.
The stereotypical five o'clock dad belongs in a picture, with his "Ask your mother" and his "Don't be a crybaby." The father who believes hugs and kisses are sex-blind and a dirty diaper requires a change is infinitely preferable.
What a joy it would be if he were around more.
[9]"This is the man's half of having it all," said Donald Long, a professor who teaches a course about men's relationships that drew 135 students this year for thirty-five places,"We're trying to do what women want of us, what children want of us, but we're not willing to transform the workplace."
In other words, the hearts and minds of today's fathers are definitely in the right place, if only their bodies could be there, too.
44.Which of the following reasons best explains the presence of more eight or nine o'clock dads?
A. Corporate culture of overwork.
B. Company bonus and overtime.
C. Belief in productivity.
D. Preference for overwork.
45. The statement "there's a horribly sad irony” (Para. 5) suggests longer working hours have led to ____ .
A. more distant relations
B. change of family roles
C.more intimate relations
D. more time with children
46. From the last sentence of the passage, what can be inferred about today's fathers?
A. They can spend more time at home.
B. They think in the similar way as before.
C. They behave in the same way as before.
D. They wish to have more family time.
53.What does the statement “the five o'clock dad has become an endangered species"(Para.2) mean?
54.What does the phrase“functionally single"(Para.4) mean?
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