题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:普通
黑龙江省大庆铁人中学2020届高三上学期英语开学考试试卷
Actors Keira Knightley and Kristen Bell have both commented on their worries about using Disney princesses as role models for their children.
On a famous talk show, Knightley said her daughter (who was born in 2015) was "banned" from watching Cinderella, which Disney produced as a cartoon in 1950 and a live-action film in 2015. "Cinderella waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don't. Rescue yourself! Obviously."
Knightley added that she had also forbidden The Little Mermaid, the 1989 cartoon. "This is the one that I'm quite annoyed about because I really like the film. I mean, the songs are great, but do not give up your voice for a man. Well, that's a little difficult to handle, but I'm keeping to it."
Bell, the star of Frozen, expressed her disapproval of the Snow White fairytale, which became a classic Disney cartoon in 1938. In an interview with parents, Bell said: "I look at my girls and ask, ‘Don't you think it's very unusual that Snow White didn't ask the old witch why she needed to eat the apple? Or where she got that apple?' I say, 'I would never take food from a stranger, would you?' And my kids respond, 'No!' And I think I'm doing something right."
Bell, who played a Disney princess in Frozen, said she also used the story to illustrate issues about permission. She says that she asked her children: "Don't you think that it's very strange that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? … Because you cannot kiss someone if they're sleeping!"
Bell later responded to criticism on social media. To one user she wrote: "Everything is a message to our children, because they are sponges(海绵) that soak up everything and are learning how to be adults through what they see. I want my girls to see and practice critical thinking and respectful behavior."
Age has its privileges in America, and one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age — in some cases as low as 55 — is automatically entitled to dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one's need but by the date on one's birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses — as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.
People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent(有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous (同义的). Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren't.
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.
Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involve a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Buoyed (支持) by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job — thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.
Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don't need them.
It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can't take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against — discrimination by age.
Outline | Details |
Introduction | Age determines whether an American can be given a discount, which is a common {#blank#}1{#/blank#}in American business life today. |
Origin of senior citizen discount | ●Since the senior citizens are often treated as people who are in {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, they are given such priority. |
{#blank#}3{#/blank#} situation | ●The situation has changed a lot where the majority of the elderly are not poor at all. ●Younger Americans were at a/an {#blank#}4{#/blank#} directly or indirectly due to the discounts given to the elderly, thus leading to conflicts between generations. ●The number of older Americans {#blank#}5{#/blank#} to work rather than retire is on the increase, which means {#blank#}6{#/blank#} opportunities for young workers. ●It is no longer a kind of charity because millions of senior citizens don't need the priority {#blank#}7{#/blank#}. |
Conclusion | It's unwise to offer discount priority to the elderly. ●It will mislead people to think they are unable to {#blank#}8{#/blank#} to themselves. ●People may think that they are ungrateful and they're hurting the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} of other age groups. ●Actually senior citizen discounts, to some extent, {#blank#}10{#/blank#}against their age. |
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