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  3. Big Break Grows in Popularity Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and un

Big Break Grows in Popularity Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and un

admin2014-01-09  61
问题                         Big Break Grows in Popularity
    Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and university when some students earn money, travel, etc.) and a misty look will come into their eyes. There are some disasters and even the most motivated, organised gap student does require family back-up, financial, emotional and physical. The parental mistiness is not just about the brilliant experience that has matured their offspring; it is vicarious living. We all wish pre-university gap years had been the fashion in our day. We can see how much tougher our kids become; how much more prepared to benefit from university or to decide positively that they are going to do something other than a degree.
    Gap years are fashionable, as is reflected in the huge growth in the number of charities and private companies offering them. Pictures of Prince William working hard in Chile have helped, but the trend has been gathering steam for a decade. The range of gap packages starts with backpacking, includes working with charities, building hospitals and schools and, very commonly, working as a language assistant, teaching English. With this trend, however, comes a danger. Once parents feel that a well-structured year is essential to their would be undergraduate’s progress to a better university, a good degree, an impressive resume and well paid employment, as the gap companies’ promotional statements suggest it might be, then parents will start organizing—and paying for the gaps.
    Where there are disasters, according to Richard Oliver, director of the gap companies’ umbrella organization, the Year Out Group, it is usually because of poor planning. That can be the fault of the company or of the student, he says, but the best insurance is thoughtful preparation. "When people get it wrong, it is usually medical or, especially among girls, it is that they have not been away from home before or because expectation does not match reality."
    The point of a gap year is that it should be the time when the school leaver gets to do the thing that he or she fancies. Kids don’t mature if mum and dad decide how they are going to mature. If the 18-year-old’s way of maturing is to loaf around on Hampstead Heath soaking up sunshine or spending a year working with fishermen in Cornwall, then that’s what will be productive for that person. The consensus, however, is that some structure is an advantage and that the prime mover needs to be the student.
    The 18-year-old who was dispatched by his parents at two weeks’ notice to Canada to learn to be a snowboarding instructor at a cost of ￡ 5, 800, probably came back with little more than a hangover. The 18-year-old on the same package who worked for his fare and spent the rest of his year instructing in resorts from New Zealand to Switzerland, and came back to apply for university, is the positive counterbalance.
It can be inferred from the first paragraph that parents of gap students may______.
选项 A、help children to be prepared for disasters
B、receive all kinds of support from their children
C、have rich experience in bringing up their offspring
D、experience watching children grow up
答案D
解析 本题考查推理引申。第一段论述了经历学业间断年的孩子的父母的感受，包括两个方面：一是由于这个时期的学生需要家庭从经济上、情感上和体力上给予帮助，因此父母可能有帮助孩子成熟起来的美好经历；二是父母间接的感受，即看着孩子们变得更坚强，自己做决定，从而成长。由此可知，[D]项是父母可能经历的。[A]项中出现了原文中的disaster，但含义不同。第一段第二句中指的是“困难，危机”，是下文提到的“孩子需要家庭给予帮助”造成的。[B]项与第一段第二句含义相反。第三句提到，父母有帮助孩子成熟起来的美好经历，而非[C]项中的rich experience经验丰富。
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