《安徽省凤阳县艺荣高复学校2015届高三英语阅读理解限时训练 51》.docVIP

安徽省凤阳县艺荣高复学校2015届高三英语阅读理解限时训练（18） A Yesterday’s paper had a short article about the Coming-of-Age ceremony in a large city in Japan. According to the article, the mayor of the city formally apologized to an enraged professor who delivered a speech at the ceremony that was all but ignored by 20-year-olds in the city. The officials prepared 7,000 seats in a gymnasium where the ceremony was held for the 17,000 twenty-year-olds residing in the city. But most of the seats were empty during the speech. And many of the 20-year-olds who did show up ignored the professor and spoke among themselves or talked on their mobile phones. Some even made a ruckus outside the gymnasium. One 20-year-old who attended the ceremony said youngsters came to the ceremony not to listen to the speech but to see their classmates. The mayor criticized the young generation at a news conference on Tuesday, saying such behavior “is symbolic of the postwar era which failed to nurture healthy character and social intelligence.” Personally, I feel people shouldn’t generalize the whole generation or the whole era when he criticizes something. But it is also true that the generation gap is getting bigger and bigger regarding the ceremony of Coming-of-Age Day. So far this ceremony has been held with citizens’ tax money. Many older generations understand this festival as an entrance ceremony of adults’ world which requires maturity including responsibility, patience, and cooperativeness. Older people tend to be “educational” to younger ones, while younger people tend to feel they finally obtain a right to behave freely because they are now adults. Though, ironically, young people have to ask their parents to buy them new clothes for the ceremony. It is about time to change the way we celebrate this festival, I think. The idea of blessing new 20-year-olds is not so bad. But there seems to be some other ways to celebrate more properly. The present way seems to me a little superficial and materiali