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本文出处：The Washington Post, June 24, 1990

原文标题：Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?

I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room -- a women's group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening one man had been particularly talkative frequently offering ideas and anecdotes while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don't talk to them. This man quickly concurred. He gestured toward his wife and said "She's the talker in our family." The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. "It's true" he explained. "When I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn't keep the conversation going we'd spend the whole evening in silence."

我正在弗吉尼亚郊区的一间会客室的聚会上讲话，这次聚会由一个女性团体举办，但邀请了几位男士参加。聚会期间，一位男士从头到尾都很健谈，表达自己的观点，讲述自己知道的逸闻趣事。聚会结束时，我评论说女士们常常抱怨丈夫不跟她们交谈，这位男士连连点头表示赞同。他指着妻子说：“她是我们家的话匣子。”这话让屋里的人大笑起来。而他却显得很纳闷、很委屈。他解释说；“是这样的，我下班回到家里时没什么好谈。要是她不继续谈话，我们就在沉寂中度过整晚。”

This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage.

这段插曲形象地表现了一种具有讽刺意味的现象：美国男人在公开场合非常健谈，但在家里他们说话却很少。这种行为方式对婚姻造成了破坏。

The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late '70s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book "Divorce Talk" that most of the women she interviewed -- but only a few of the men --- gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year --- a virtual epidemic of failed conversation.

政治科学家Andrew Hacker 早在20世纪70年代末就注意了这种行为方式。社会学家Catherine Kohler Riessman 在她的新书《离婚访谈》中写到，她采访的大多数女性把缺乏交谈看做是离婚的原因，而几乎没有男性有这样的看法。如果按目前百分之五十的离婚率计算，美国每年离婚案会达到数百万起。这实质上就是不能彼此交流的流行病。

In my own research complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his or doing far more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning cooking social arrangements and errands. Instead they focused on communication: "He doesn't listen to me" "He doesn't talk to me." I found as Hacker observed years before that most wives want their husbands to be first and foremost conversational partners but few husbands share this expectation of their wives.

在我的研究项目中，女性对丈夫不满的原因并不是集中一些具体不公平的事情上，比如：她们为了陪伴丈夫而放弃了自己的事业机会；她们承担了过多家务活诸如打扫卫生、做饭、社交安排或其它各种差事。相反，她们对丈夫的怨言集中在沟通交流上，她们会说：“他不听我讲话。”或者“他不跟我讲话。”我发现大多数妻子想让丈夫是，并且最重要的是她们谈话的伙伴，但几乎没有几位丈夫有同样的期望，这点是Hacker早在多年前就已经发现的事实。

In short the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face while a woman glares at the back of it wanting to talk.

简而言之，能充分体现目前这种危机的是一幅老套的卡通漫画：一位男士一边吃早餐，一边埋头看报纸，而妻子生气地盯着报纸的背面，就想说话。

26. What is most wives' main expectation of their husbands?

A. Talking to them.                      B. Trusting them.

C. Supporting their careers.          D. Sharing housework.

选【A】，根据第一段women frequently complain that their husbands don't talk to them.。

27. Judging from the context, the phrase “wreaking havoc” (Line 3, Para.2) most probably means ___.

A. generating motivation.              B. exerting influence

C. causing damage                      D. creating pressure

选【C】，本题属于猜词题，从下文主要内容来看，夫妻缺乏沟通会导致离婚，即对婚姻产生破坏作用。

28. All of the following are true EXCEPT_______

A. men tend to talk more in public than women

B. nearly 50 percent of recent divorces are caused by failed conversation

C. women attach much importance to communication between couples

D a female tends to be more talkative at home than her spouse

选【B】，注意本题是选错误选项，ACD都是正确的，但是B选项错误的原因是偷换了50%的比率对象。文章只说了the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent，即目前美国离婚率为50%，并没有说50%的离婚率是因为缺乏沟通造成的，B选项的说法大大低于文章前一句话所说的most of the women gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorce。

29. Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of this text?

A. The moral decaying deserves more research by sociologists.

B. Marriage break-up stems from sex inequalities.

C. Husband and wife have different expectations from their marriage.

D. Conversational patterns between man and wife are different.

选【D】，文章主题强调男女说话交流模式不一样。AB中的moral和inequality不符合原文。C其实看似正确，文章以及第一题都有expectations这个单词，但C没有准确说出夫妻期盼的是不是“互相交流”

30. In the following part immediately after this text, the author will most probably focus on ______

A. a vivid account of the new book Divorce Talk

B. a detailed description of the stereotypical cartoon

C. other possible reasons for a high divorce rate in the U.S.

D. a brief introduction to the political scientist Andrew Hacker

选【B】，本文围绕着男女交流不一样，导致离婚这一现象展开，所以下文具体会阐述这副图的的细节讨论这个现象。