2. 外语
  3. The arrival on our TV screens of "Vice Versa", the story where a pompous father changes places with his downtrodden schoolboy so

The arrival on our TV screens of "Vice Versa", the story where a pompous father changes places with his downtrodden schoolboy so

admin2012-10-23  87
问题     The arrival on our TV screens of "Vice Versa", the story where a pompous father changes places with his downtrodden schoolboy son is a welcome reminder that there are other forms of role-reversal besides the one where father washes nappies and mother drives a truck. There are countless other reversals that upset us all the time.
    From the moment a mother asks her child to thread a needle for her one such reversal is under way: it’s only a matter of time before the younger boss their elders as once they were bossed as kids. The man who used to have jobs to offer is made redundant, and for the first time in years feels what it’s like to have to ask for work.
    There’s a lot of role-reversal in those activities which are for some reason called Leisure—the ones which involve sweating up mountains, risking rupture at the end of a rope or clinging to the tiller in a gale. Dad, who doesn’t know which way up is a spoon in his own home kitchen, in camp suddenly becomes a fussy old maid about not leaving the washing up. while mother lies back in the grass thinking who cares?
    At least those reversals are temporary; and temporary reversals have one incontestable blessing; they let you see how it feels to be the other guy.
    A few years back the observer investigated some role-reversed couples, and found that most of them reverted to a more conventional pattern when some phase or crisis was over; the big advantage, they all said, was that now they knew what the other party had to put up with.
    You don’t always know, though, whether the reversal is temporary. Money, for example: Max Beerbohm wrote a beautiful description of the host who couldn’t be a good guest, but it’s one thing to be a guest just this once, or because you’ve forgotten your wallet; quite another when you’re unemployed with no expense account.
    In our family, we do change places over money, since both of us tend to spend when we’ve been working hard and be very skinflint when we haven’t. So the bemused children see that at one moment Daddy’s the big spender, lashing out on cameras and little trips abroad, while Mummy would be biting her nails, except that she’s saving all nail clippings this month to make pancleaners. Yet at other times the most necessary expenses send their father into spasm, while I insouciantly write cheques with a song on my lips. I only hope it teaches them flexibility. (426 words)
Why would Mummy be "biting her nails", based on the context?
选项 A、She might be worrying about the state of the family finances.
B、Since her nails were too long and did not have a pair of nailscissors at hand, she had to bite her nails.
C、She wanted to kill time by biting her nails.
D、She hated her husband for his not being able to understand her.
答案A
解析 biting her nails是短语，是一种隐喻说法，意思为“焦虑”，人在紧张或担忧的时候往往会咬自己的手 指甲。最后一段叙述的是，夫妻俩在经济方面也会因有钱或无钱而产生不同的反应。
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