According to a recent Gallup World Poll, 1. 1 billion people, or one-quarter of the earth’s adults, want to move temporarily to

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问题     According to a recent Gallup World Poll, 1. 1 billion people, or one-quarter of the earth’s adults, want to move temporarily to another country in the hope of finding more profitable work. An additional 630 million people would like to move abroad permanently.
    The global desire to leave home arises from poverty and necessity, but it also grows out of a conviction that such mobility is possible. People who embrace this cosmopolitan outlook assume that individuals can and should be at home anywhere in the world, that they need not be tied to any particular place. This outlook was once a strange and threatening product of the Enlightenment but is now accepted as central to a globalized economy.
    It leads to opportunity and profits, but it also has high psychological costs. In nearly a decade’s research into the emotions and experiences of immigrants and migrants, I’ve discovered that many people who leave home in search of better prospects end up feeling displaced and depressed. But today, explicit discussions of homesickness are rare, for the emotion is typically regarded as an embarrassing impediment to individual progress and prosperity. This silence makes mobility appear deceptively easy.
    Technology also seduces us into thinking that migration is painless. Ads from Skype suggest that "free video calling makes it easy to be together, even when you’re not. " The comforting illusion of connection offered by technology makes moving seem less consequential, since one is always just a mouse click or a phone call away.
    Today’s technologies have failed to defeat homesickness even though studies by the Carnegie Corporation of New York show that immigrants are in closer touch with their families than before. A wealth of studies have documented that other newcomers to America also suffer from high rates of depression, despite constant contact with family.
    It is possible that these new technologies actually heighten feelings of displacement. Maria Elena Rivera, a psychologist in Tepic, Mexico, believes technology may magnify homesickness. Her sister, Carmen, had been living in San Diego for 25 years. With the rise of inexpensive long-distance calling, Carmen was able to phone home with greater frequency. Every Sunday she called Mexico and talked with her family, who routinely gathered for a large meal. Carmen always asked what the family was eating, who was there. Technology increased her contact with her family but also brought a regular reminder that she was not there with them.
    The persistence of homesickness points to the limitations of the cosmopolitan philosophy that undergirds so much of our market and society. The idea that we can and should feel at home anyplace on the globe is based on a worldview that celebrates the solitary, mobile individual and envisions men and women as easily separated from family, from home and from the past. But this vision doesn’t square with our emotions, for our ties to home, although often underestimated, are strong and enduring.  
The word "impediment"(Para. 3)is closest in meaning to______.

选项 A、impetus
B、confession
C、obstruction
D、momentum

答案C

解析 impediment一词出现在文章的第三段。第三段中作者提到,经过多年的研究发现,许多出国淘金的人最后都感到非常抑郁和想家。但是如今,很少听到人公开地说自己非常想家,因为这种情绪通常被认为是个人进步和财富积累的impediment。可见impediment一词应该表示“障碍”,因此,正确答案应该选[C]。
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