跟踪导练（二）.docVIP

跟踪导练（二） 　　阅读地带 　　A 　　Who takes care of the elderly in the United States today？ Many people wrongly believe that when people get old， their families place them in nursing homes. They are left there in the hands of strangers for the rest of their lives. Their grown-up children visit them only occasionally， and more often， they do not have any regular visitors. Actually this is not true. In fact， family members provide over 80 percent of the care that elderly people need. 　　Professor Samuel Preston， a social scientist， studies how the American family is changing. He reports that by the time the average American couple reaches 40， they have more parents than children. This statistic（数据）shows the change in life-styles and responsibilities of aging Americans. The average middle-aged couple can look forward to caring for elderly parents some time after their own children have grown up. Moreover， because people today live longer than people did years ago， family members must provide long-term care. These facts also mean that after caregivers provide for their elderly parents， who will finally die， they will be old and may require care， too. When they do their children will probably take care of them. 　　Psychologists and social workers have found that all caregivers share a common characteristic： they believe that they are the best person for the job for different reasons. One caregiver said that she had always been close to her mother. Another was the oldest child in the family. In other words， they all felt that they could do the job better than others. Social workers interviewed caregivers to find out why they took on the responsibility of caring. They discovered three reasons. Many caregivers believed that they had an obligation（义务）to help their relatives. Some stated that helping others made them feel more useful. Others hoped that by helping someone now， they would get care when they became old and dependent. 　　1. It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that in the US