英语考试,英语试题
  英语四级考试  英语六级考试  考研英语  职称英语考试  金融英语考试  公共英语考试  商务英语考试  托福英语考试  雅思英语考试  英语专业四级  英语专业八级  GMAT
英语考试网 > GMAT > 阅读理解 > 

GMAT网络课程王昆嵩阅读理解讲义(5)

Passage 3
In 1896 a Georgia couple suing for damages in the accidental death of their two year old was told that since the child had made no real economic contribution to the family, there was no liability for damages. In contrast, (5) less than a century later, in 1979, the parents of a three year old sued in New York for accidental-death damages and won an award of $750,000. The transformation in social values implicit in juxta- posing these two incidents is the subject of Viviana (10) Zelizer's excellent book, Pricing the Priceless Child. During the nineteenth century, she argues, the concept of the "useful" child who contributed to the family economy gave way gradually to the present-day notion of the "useless" child who, though producing no income (15) for, and indeed extremely costly to, its parents, is yet considered emotionally "priceless." Well established among segments of the middle and upper classes by the mid-1800's, this new view of childhood spread through- out society in the iate-nineteenth and early-twentieth (20) centuries as reformers introduced child-labor regulations and compulsory education laws predicated in part on the assumption that a child's emotional value made child labor taboo. For Zelizer the origins of this transformation were (25) many and complex. The gradual erosion of children's productive value in a maturing industrial economy, the decline in birth and death rates, especially in child mortality, and the development of the companionate family (a family in which members were united by (30) explicit bonds of love rather than duty) were all factors critical in changing the assessment of children's worth. Yet "expulsion of children from the 'cash nexus.'... although clearly shaped by profound changes in the economic, occupational, and family structures," Zelizer (35) maintains, "was also part of a cultural process of 'sacral- ization' of children's lives." Protecting children from the crass business world became enormously important for late-nineteenth-century middle-class Americans, she suggests; this sacralization was a way of resisting what (40) they perceived as the relentless corruption of human values by the marketplace. In stressing the cultural determinants of a child's worth, Zelizer takes issue with practitioners of the new "sociological economics," who have analyzed such tradi- (45) tionally sociological topics as crime, marriage, educa- tion. and health solely in terms of their economic deter- minants. Allowing only a small role for cultural forces in the form of individual "preferences," these sociologists tend to view all human behavior as directed primarily by (50) the principle of maximizing economic gain, Zelizer is highly critical of this approach, and emphasizes instead the opposite phenomenon: the power of social values to transform price. As children became more valuable in emotional terms, she argues, their "exchange" or " sur- (55) render" value on the market, that is, the conversion of their intangible worth into cash terms, became much greater.


1. It can be inferred from the passage that accidental-death damage awards in America during the nineteenth century tended to be based principally on the
(A) earnings of the person at time of death
(B) wealth of the party causing the death
(C) degree of culpability of the party causing the death
(D) amount of money that had been spent on the person killed
(E) amount of suffering endured by the family of the person killed

2. It can be inferred from the passage that in the early 1800's children were generally regarded by their families as individuals who
(A) needed enormous amounts of security and affection
(B) required constant supervision while working
(C) were important to the economic well-being of a family
(D) were unsuited to spending long hours school
(E) were financial burdens assumed for the good of society

3. Which of the following alternative explanations of the change in the cash value of children would be most likely to be put forward by sociological economists as they are described in the passage?
(A) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because parents began to increase their emotional investment in the upbringing of their children.
(B) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because their expected earnings over the course of a lifetime increased greatly.
(C) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because the spread of humanitarian ideals resulted in a wholesale reappraisal of the worth of an individual.
(D) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because compulsory education laws reduced the supply, and thus raised the costs, of available child labor.
(E) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because of changes in the way negligence law assessed damages in accidental death cases.

共8页: 上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] 5 [6] [7] [8] 下一页



Chinese-American Men(美国华人移民法)
GMAT考试阅读理解材料1
来源:www.english-exam.com 时间:2007-02-22 点击:764 [返回顶部↑
赞助商链接
相关栏目
  •  报考指南
  •  逻辑推理
  •  语法词汇
  •  数学辅导
  •  作文辅导
  •  Gmat试题
  •  gmat资料下载
  • 相关文章
  •  Chinese-American Men(美国
  •  GMAT考试阅读宝典
  •  GMAT阅读复习经验及考前准
  •  GMAT阅读出题规律
  •  GMAT阅读理解应试技巧
  •  如何答好GMAT阅读题?
  • 热点文章
  •  GMAT考试阅读试题(九)
  •  GMAT阅读高分阅读技巧
  •  Chinese-American Men(美国
  •  GMAT考试阅读试题(一)
  •  GMAT考试阅读试题(八)
  •  GMAT考试阅读宝典

  • 英语考试网 Copyright © 2006-2008 english-exam.com