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  3. I’m in Paris, and a strangely quiet Paris it is. Nothing is going nowhere. If they’re not on strike here, they’re stuck in a tra

I’m in Paris, and a strangely quiet Paris it is. Nothing is going nowhere. If they’re not on strike here, they’re stuck in a tra

admin2010-04-24  55
问题      I’m in Paris, and a strangely quiet Paris it is. Nothing is going nowhere. If they’re not on strike here, they’re stuck in a traffic jam. It took me two hours to go two miles yesterday evening. And this morning many of the taxis, too, have joined in, leaving me with no alternative but to start walking. And it’ s bitterly cold!
     The strikes are serious protests about serious issues, but I’m struck, as so often on these occasions, by something much more mundane. People are once again talking to people; strangers are going out of their way to befriend strangers, allies for a week or two in their shared frustration. Parisian motorists, even, normally the most competitive of individualists, have been seen leaving notes in their parked cars saying where they are going and when they expect to leave in case anymore wants a lift.
     Remove the technology of modem life, it seems, and we often start to be nice to one another again. Technology can isolate us, for all its benefits. It started, I guess, with the chimney. Before there were chimneys, we all had to huddle together in one room Just to keep warm, master and maid, cowman and son of the house. Then some unknown genius came up with the idea of the chimney, and the social stratification of society increased dramatically as all withdrew into their own quarters. Central heating, which is, more truthfully, decentralized heating, made it worse, and now we have our walkmans, our microwaves, or, if we’ re really trendy, the Internet and e-mail. You can get by, these days, without actually speaking to anyone at all. Just the odd grunt to show that you’ re alive !
     I liked the survey which asked teenagers how they laid a table for a meal. Did they put the knife on the fight and the fork on the left, or did they put them both together? And 40 percent said one and 20 percent the other, but 40 percent didn’t know! They had never sat down at a table together but had always, as they say, been grazers, helping themselves from the fridge and carrying the food off to their own comer to munch on their own.
     If progress means that we don’ t need to talk to each other anymore, then I’m getting worried. You can’ t begin to love and befriend your neighbors if you never talk to them, and vice versa, they can’t love you. It becomes a recipe for a world of solitaries. But most of us weren’t destined to be hermits. People need people to be truly people, as the Parisians, in spite of all their frustrations, are discovering again this week. "Try walking instead" was my motto for this morning, but perhaps the motto for us all this festive month might be "Turn it off, whatever it is, and try talking instead!"  
The reason why the author was interested in the survey which asked teenagers how they laid a table for a meal is that
选项 A、it helps teenagers to learn table manners well.
B、it can alert people to youngsters’ lack of communication with others in real life.
C、its results have revealed current social stratification of society.
D、it shows that people are enjoying more and more freedom when they have meals.
答案B
解析 细节推理题。调查结果显示了目前青少年社交礼仪知识的匮乏已经到了令人担忧的地步，这正是他们基本社交活动减少的后果，因此选B。grazer: n.吃零食的人。
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