2006考研英语题英语一阅读部分.docVIP

Text 1 ①In spite of“endless talk of difference,”American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. ②There is“the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference”characteristic of popular culture. ③People are absorbed into“a culture of consumption”launched by the 19th century department stores that offered“vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere. ④Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite”these were stores“anyone could enter, regardless of class or background. ⑤This turned shopping into a public and democratic act.”⑥The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization. ①Immigrants are quickly fitting into this common culture, which may not be altogether elevating but is hardly poisonous. ②Writing for the National Immigration Forum, Gregory Rodriguez reports that todays immigration is neither at unprecedented levels nor resistant to assimilation. ③In 1998 immigrants were 9.8 percent of the population; in 1900, 13.6 percent. ④In the 10 years prior to 1990, 3.1 immigrants arrived for every 1,000 residents; in the 10 years prior to 1890, 9.2 for every 1,000. ⑤Now, consider three indices of assimilation—language, home ownership and intermarriage. ①The 1990 Census revealed that“a majority of immigrants from each of the fifteen most common countries of origin spoke English‘well’or‘very well’after ten years of residence.”②The children of immigrants tend to be bilingual and proficient in English. ③“By the third generation, the original language is lost in the majority of immigrant families.”④Hence the description of America as a“graveyard”for languages. ⑤By 1996 foreign-born immigrants who had arrived before 1970 had a home ownership rate of 75.6 percent, higher than the 69.8 percent rate among native-born Americans. ①Foreign-born Asians and Hispanics“have higher rates of intermarriage than do U.S.-born whites and blacks.”②By the third generation, one third of Hispanic wome