2014届高三英语二轮最新专题突破：阅读理解76.docVIP

2014届高三英语二轮最新专题突破：阅读理解 1.阅读下列短文，从每篇短文后所给各题的(A、B、C、D)四个选项中，选出最佳选项 If you live in America in the 21st century youll probably have to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. Its become the default response when you ask anyone how they are doing:Busy!Crazy busy!.It is,pretty obviously,a boast disguised as a complaint. And the common response is a kind of congratulation:Thats a good problem to have,orBetter than the opposite. Notice it isnt generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the ICU or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are.What those people are is not busy but tired.Exhausted!Dead on their feet.Its almost always people whose busyness is purely self-imposed:work and obligations theyve taken on voluntarily,classes and activities theyve encouraged their kids to participate in.Theyre busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety,because theyre addicted to busyness and dread that they might have to face in its absence. Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they arent either working or doing something to promote their work.Its something they have chosen.Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance(令人安心的保证），a measure against emptiness,obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or tiny or meaningless if you are so busy,completely booked,in demand every hour of the day. Idleness is not just a vacation.It is as necessary to the brain as vitamin D is to the body,and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as ugly as rickets.The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole,for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration.Idle dreaming is often the essence of what we do,wrote Thomas Pynchon.Archimedes Eurekain the bath, Newtons apple :history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments. When many Americans sayCrazy busy,