LastSundayImadeavisittosomenewneighborsdowntheblock.Nospecificpurposeinmindjustanopportunitytositatthekitchentablehavesometeaandchat.AsIdidsoitoccurredtomehowraretheSundayvisithasbecome.WhenI

题目详情

Last Sunday I made a visit to some new neighbors down the block. No specific purpose in mind just an opportunity to sit at the kitchen table have some tea and chat. As I did so it occurred to me how rare the Sunday visit has become.
When I was a kid in the New Jersey of the 1960s Sunday visits were routine. Most stores were closed almost nobody worked and the highways as a result were not the desperate steeplechases（障碍赛跑） they have become today. My family normally traveled eight city blocks to the home of my grandmother—the same house my father was raised in where adults would sit on the front porch and chat while we children played hide-and-seek.
The Sunday visit was something to desire strongly. It was the repetition to church our reward for an hour of devotion an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that Dad was not at work we were not in school and there were no chores that couldn’t wait until Monday. Sunday was indeed different from all the other days of the week because everyone seemed to be on the same schedule which means that there was one day when everyone seemed to have time for everybody else.
Sunday as a day of rest is or was so deeply rooted in the culture that it’s surprising to consider that in a short span of time it has almost entirely lost this association. In my childhood it was assumed that everyone would either be home or visiting someone else’s home on Sunday.
But now the question is “What do you plan to DO this Sunday?” The answer can range from going to the mall to participating in a road race to jetting to Montreal for lunch. If one were to respond “I’m making a Sunday visit to family ” such an answer would feel sepia-toned an echo from another era.
I suppose I should be grateful to live in Maine a state of small towns abundant land and tight relationships. Even though folks work as hard here as they do anywhere else the state’s powerfully rural cast（特质）still harbors at least remnants of the ethic of yesterday’s America where people had to depend on one another in the face of economic vagaries（反复无常的情况）and a challenging environment.
【小题1】The writer’s general impression of the Sunday in the past was a day when _______.

A．everyone was paying a visit to some relative far away

B．everyone seemed to be free and could have some leisure

C．Dad was not at work while Mom was busy cleaning the house

D．nearly every adult would go to church and children were not at school

【小题2】In the fourth paragraph the writer compares the response “I’m making a Sunday visit to family” to an echo from another era because _______.

A．people nowadays prefer staying at home on Sunday

B．such answers are rarely heard in our modern society

C．people in the city dislike being disturbed on Sunday

D．visiting someone on Sunday might take a lot of time

【小题3】From the last paragraph we may infer that _______.

A．people in Maine suffer more from economic depression and the changed environment

B．people in Maine has abandoned their tradition and lived an absolute new life