A generation of e-mailing, followed by an explosion in texting, has pushed the telephone conversation into serious decline, creating new tensions between baby boomers and millennial-those in their teens, 20s and early 30s.
Nearly all age groups are spending less time talking on the phone; boomers in their mid-5Os and early 60s are the only ones still yakking as they did when Ma Bell was America’s communications queen. But the fall of the call is driven by 18-to-34-year-olds, whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, according to the research by Nielsen. Texting among 18-to-24-year-olds has more than doubled in the same period, from an average of 600 messages a month two years ago to more than 1, 400 texts a month, according to Nielsen.
Young people say they avoid voice calls because the immediacy of a phone call strips them of the control that they have over the arguably less-intimate pleasures of texting, e-mailing, or Face booking. They even complain that phone calls are by their nature impolite, more of an interruption than the blip of an arriving text. The bias, against unexpected phone calls stems in good part from the way texting and e-mail have conditioned young people to be cautious about how they communicate when they are not face to face, experts, say.
Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University who studies how people converse in everyday life, said older generations misinterpret the way younger people use their cellphones. “One student told me that it takes her days to call her parents back and the parents thought she was intentionally putting them off.” she said. “But the parents didn’t get it. It’s the medium.”
The difference in communications preferences has created a palpable perception gap between young adults and their parents. Jane Beard, who coaches business leaders on public speaking, said that when her niece, Lindsay Spencer, 20, “is in classes at the University of Maryland, I’ll never hear from her until she comes over to do the laundry. We text multiple times a day.”
But Beard is understanding about the change in ways of conversing. Not all parents are quite that open to new ways. “My mom gets offended,” said Muggaga Kintu, 32, an administrative assistant at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who prefers texting or calling on his own time when he’s not around patients. “She thinks I don’t want to hear from her, and that’s not the case. One day she called me when I was at work, and I told her, ‘Instead of calling me, can you text me?’ ‘What? You don’t like to hear from me? You don’t like the sound of my voice?’ She said.”
1. Who drives the decline of telephone conversation according to the research by Nielsen?
2. Why do the young people avoid phone calls?
3. What do experts say about young people’s bias against unexpected phone calls?
4. According to Deborah Tannen, the older generations should recognize that ______.
5. What can we conclude based on the experiences of Jane Beard and Muggaga Kintu?
A. The less popularity of phone calls should arouse the young’s concern.
B. Lives have changed fundamentally due to the change of communication.
C. Answering a phone call causes great pressure on the young.
D. Perception gap emerges due to different communication preferences.
问题1选项
A.Baby boomers.
B.Millennials.
C.18-to-34-year-olds.
D.18-to-24-year-olds.
问题2选项
A.They feel they are deprived of control.
B.They feel not intimate enough to have phone calls.
C.They want to make shorter conversations.
D.They fall victim to the neglect of phone calls.
问题3选项
A.It is because they are afraid that they may be seen as rude or intrusive.
B.It roots in the way that e-mails and texts enable them to make more careful responses.
C.They tend to make an appointment by texting before they call.
D.They become less addicted to face-to-face communication.
问题4选项
A.their children are just too busy to reply
B.it’s the medium that makes difference
C.children complain about the frequent calls
D.they are intruding their children’s lives
问题5选项
A.their children are just too busy to reply
B.it’s the medium that makes difference
C.children complain about the frequent calls
D.they are intruding their children’s lives
第1题:C
第2题:A
第3题:B
第4题:B
第5题:D
1.【试题答案】C
【试题解析】细节事实题。由题干可以定位到文中第二段第三句But the fall of the call is driven by 18-to-34-year-olds, whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, according to the research by Nielsen.（尼尔森公司的调查显示，18岁至34岁的年轻人是通话次数减少的主要原因，在过去两年中，他们每月平均通话时间从1200分钟下降到900分钟）。C选项“18到34岁的人群”，文章所说，18-34岁通话的人数减少，因此C选项正确。A选项“婴儿潮出生的一代人”，婴儿不能使用手机通话，因此A选项可排除。B选项“千禧之子”，文章只是说千禧一代的通话减少，但并不是主要原因。D选项“18到24岁的人群”，文章所说，这个时代的人，短信数量激增，因此也可排除D。因此正确答案为C选项。
2.【试题答案】A
【试题解析】细节事实题。根据题干我们可以定位到文章第三段第一句Young people say they avoid voice calls because the immediacy of a phone call strips them of the control（年轻人说，他们不喜欢打语音电话，因为电话的即时性使他们失去了控制权）。A选项“他们觉得自己被剥夺了控制权”，符合文章内容，A选项正确。B选项“他们觉得没有亲密到可以打电话”，文章没有提到此内容，可排除。C选项“他们想要进行简短的对话”，他们认为打电话是一种打扰，并不是简短的对话，C选项可排除。D选项“他们成了忽视电话的受害者”，文章没有提到这个内容，可排除。因此正确答案为A选项。
3.【试题答案】B
【试题解析】细节事实题。由题干可以定位到文章第三段最后一句The bias, against unexpected phone calls stems in good part from the way texting and e-mail have conditioned young people to be cautious about how they communicate when they are not face to face, experts, say.（专家表示，这种对“意外来电”的偏见很大程度上源于短信和电子邮件的方式，这种方式使年轻人在非面对面交流时谨慎对待交流方式）。B选项“它的根源在于，电子邮件和短信使他们能够做出更谨慎的回应”，符合文章所说的内容，短信和电子邮件使年轻人有更谨慎的回应，因此B选项正确。A选项“这是因为他们害怕他们可能会被认为是粗鲁或侵犯”，A选项的情节过于严重，文章是说他们认为打电话是一种打扰，A选项可排除。C选项“他们倾向于在打电话之前先发短信预约”，文章没有提到这个内容，可排除。D选项“他们不太喜欢面对面的交流”，这并不是造成他们对打电话的偏见的主要原因，D选项可排除。因此正确答案为B选项。
4.【试题答案】B
【试题解析】细节事实题。由题干可以定位到文章第四段最后一句One student told me that it takes her days to call her parents back and the parents thought she was intentionally putting them off.” she said. “But the parents didn’t get it. It’s the medium”.（“一个学生告诉我，她花了好几天时间给父母回电话，而父母认为她是故意拖延。”她说。“但家长们并不理解。它是媒介”）。B选项“这是不同的媒介”，父母和孩子对待打电话的观念不一样，孩子认为打电话属于一种媒介，父母却不理解，因此B选项正确。A选项“他们的孩子只是太忙了，没有时间回复”，文章并没有提到此内容，因此可排除A选项。C选项“孩子们抱怨频繁的电话”，文章没有提到孩子抱怨接电话，可排除。D选项“他们正在干涉孩子们的生活”，不符合文章内容，可排除。因此正确答案为B选项。
5.【试题答案】D
【试题解析】推理判断题。由题干可以定位到文章倒数第二段第一句The difference in communications preferences has created a palpable perception gap between young adults and their parents.（在沟通偏好上的差异已经在年轻人和他们的父母之间造成了一个明显的认知鸿沟）最后一段最后一句One day she called me when I was at work, and I told her, ‘Instead of calling me, can you text me?’ ‘What? You don’t like to hear from me? You don’t like the sound of my voice?’ She said.”（ 有一天她在我工作的时候给我打电话，我告诉她，“你能不能别给我打电话，发个短信给我？”“什么？你不喜欢我的消息吗？你不喜欢我的声音吗？”她说）。可推测年轻人与父母沟通方式上产生着差异。D选项“由于沟通偏好的不同，产生了感知差距”，符合文章内容，D选项正确。A选项“电话越来越少应该引起年轻人的关注”，从这两位的话语，并不能体现这个内容，可排除A。B选项“通讯方式的改变从根本上改变了人们的生活”，文中只是说父母和年轻人的通讯方式不一样，并没有从根本上发生改变。B选项可排除。C选项“接电话对年轻人造成很大的压力”，年轻人只是不喜欢接电话，并不是说接电话会让他们产生较大的压力。因此正确答案为D选项。
