Aimlessness has hardly been typical of the postwar Japan whose productivity and social harmony are the envy of the United States

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问题     Aimlessness has hardly been typical of the postwar Japan whose productivity and social harmony are the envy of the United States and Europe, but increasingly the Japanese are seeing a decline of the traditional work-moral values. Ten years ago young people were hard-working and saw their jobs as their primary reason for being, but now Japan has largely fulfilled its economic needs and young people don’t know where they should go next.
    The coming of the age of the postwar baby boom and an entry of women into the male-dominated job market have limited the opportunities of teenagers who are already questioning the heavy personal sacrifices involved in climbing Japan’s rigid social ladder to good schools and jobs. In a recent survey, it was found that only 24.5 percent of Japanese students were fully satisfied with school life, compared with 67.2 percent of students in the United States. In addition, far more Japanese olders expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs than did their counterparts in the 10 other countries surveyed.
    While often praised by foreigners for its emphasis on the basics, Japanese education tends to stress test taking and mechanical learning over creativity and self-expression.“Those things that do not show up in the test scores-personality, ability, courage or humanity-are completely ignored,” says Toshiki Kaifu, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s education committee. “Frustration against this kind of thing leads kids to drop out and run wild.” Last year Japan experienced 2,125 incidents of school violence, including 929 assaults on teacher. Amid the outcry, many conservative leaders are seeking a return to the prewar emphasis on moral education. Last year Mitsue Setoyama, who was then education minister, raised eyebrows when he argued that liberal reforms introduced by the American occupation authorities after the Second World War had weakened the“Japanese morality of respect for parents”.
    But that may have more to do with“Japanese life-styles”. “In Japan,” says educator Yoko Muro, “it’s never a question of whether you enjoy your job and your life, but only how much you can endure.” With economic growth has come centralization, fully 76% of Japan’s 119 million citizens live in cities where community and the extended family have been abandoned in favor of isolated, two-generation households. Urban Japanese have long endured lengthy commutes (travels to and from work) and crowded living conditions, but as the old group and family values weaken, the discomfort is beginning to tell. In the past decade, the Japanese divorce rate, while still well below that of the United States, has increased by more than 50 percent, and suicides have increased by nearly one-quarter.
The change in Japanese life-style is revealed in the fact that

选项 A、the young are more tolerant of discomforts in life
B、the young are tolerant of discomforts in life
C、the young are less tolerant of discomforts in life
D、the young are satisfied with discomforts in life

答案C

解析 推理判断题。文章的最后一段中作者分析了日本人过去和现在的不同生活方式。在过去,“It,s never a question of whether you enjoy your job and your life,but only how much you can endure. ”(在日本,问题从来都不在于你是否喜欢你的生活和你的工作,而在于你能够忍受多少。)而如今的情况是“…the discomfort is beginning to tell”(不满渐渐显示出来)。由此可见日本的年轻人对于生活的忍耐力下降了,选择C选项。“tell”在这里是“show,indicate”(显示)的意思。
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