Miserabilists’ fear of change; idealists’ hope for a better world; an all-purpose adult nostalgia for lost youth; all these thin

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问题     Miserabilists’ fear of change; idealists’ hope for a better world; an all-purpose adult nostalgia for lost youth; all these things ensure a ready hearing for claims that childhood is in crisis. Britons are especially worried. They fear that the young today are sadder than previous generations— stressed, and turned off learning by too much testing. Children may be nastier as well: bullying is an "epidemic" in schools, according to one recent survey. They seem in danger like never before.
    No wonder a report published on February 2nd by the Children’s Society, entitled "A Good Childhood”, claiming that far too few British children have one, has received widespread notice. Children suffer because adults put their own needs first, the panel concluded, and only a wholesale shift away from competitiveness and individualism can save them. Right-wing commentators agreed with its criticism of single parents and working mothers, left-wing ones with its call for more redistribution of income and less-advertising to children. Both overlooked one striking finding; that most children are doing just fine.
    Amid the statistics on teenage pregnancy rates (higher than elsewhere in Europe, lower than in America), mental illness (a tenth of 5-16-year-olds are sufferers) and drunkenness (a third of 13-15-year-olds have been drunk at least twice, a share three times higher than the European average) , came some more heartening figures: 70% of 11-16-year-olds say they are very, or completely , happy, and only 4% say that they are at all unhappy. The report rolls the latter in with the 9% of children who describe themselves as neither happy nor unhappy to claim that 13% are "less than happy". But clearly, very few children agree with adults that they are in deep trouble.
    In "Reclaiming Childhood”, Helene Guldberg, a child psychologist at the Open University, examines the same facts and draws different conclusions. Rising rates of mental illness among the young, she argues, reflect readier diagnosis, and bullying has increased because the word is now used to mean the infliction of even the slightest emotional bruise. She thinks many attempts to improve children’s lives, such as anti-bullying campaigns, and the parenting lessons proposed by the Children’s Society, are likely to be counterproductive. "Suggesting that all parents need to be taught how to do their job risks creating a self-fulfilling belief in parents’ incompetence and children’s lack of resilience," she says.
    Britain is no Utopia, of course. As in other rich countries, children find it too easy to sit indoors, staring at screens and overeating. They lack the protection afforded by the Nordic belief in the sacredness of outdoor play, or the shared family meals of Mediterranean countries. A large minority ape their elders’ drinking habits and a few, but still too many, become parents while still children themselves.
The report published by the Children’s Society

选项 A、was criticized by right-wing commentators.
B、has aroused the attention of the general public.
C、concluded that most children in Britain are doing fine.
D、argued that single-parents should put children’s needs first.

答案B

解析 细节题。题目问的是“儿童协会发表的报告________”。A项意思是报告收到了右翼评论家批判。根据第二段倒数第二句话可知,右翼评论家批判的是单亲父母和在职母亲而不是报告本身。C项意思是报告得出了大多数英国孩子过得都还不错的结论。文章第二段最后一句话确实提到这一事实,但是并不是报告所得出的结论,而是作者的观点。D项意思是报告要求单亲父母将孩子的需求放在第一位。文章第二段前两句可知,报告将孩子的不幸福归结于成年人将自己的需求放在第一位,而改变这种现状的方法为远离竞争力和个人主义。可知,D项不是报告所传达的意思。而第二段第一句提到报告的发布受到了“widespread notice”,与B项表述一致,故选B。
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