Question 41-50
People in the United States in the nineteenth century
were haunted by the prospect that unprecedented change in
he nation’s economy would bring social chaos. In the years
following 1820, after several decades of relative stability, the
economy entered a period of sustained and extremely rapid
growth that continued to the end of the nineteenth century.
Accompanying that growth that was a structural change that
featured increasing economic diversification and a gradual shift
in the nation’s labor force from agriculture to manufacturing
and other nonagricultural pursuits.
Although the birth rate continued to decline from its high
level of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The
population roughly doubled every generation during the
nineteenth centuries. As the population grew, its makeup also
changed. Massive waves of immigration brought new ethnic
groups into the country. Geographic and social mobility -
downward as well as upward - touched almost everyone. Local
studies indicate that nearly three - quarters of the population -
in the North and South, in the emerging cities of the Northeast,
and in the restless rural counties of the West - changed
their residence each decade. As a consequence, historian David
Donald has written, "Social atomization affected every
segment of society," and it seemed to many people that "all the
recognized values of orderly civilization were gradually being
eroded."
Rapid industrialization and increased geographic mobility
in the nineteenth century had special implications for women
because these tended to magnify social distinctions. As
the roles men and women played in society became more rigidly
defined, so did the roles they played in the home. In the
context of extreme competitiveness and dizzying social change,
the household lost many of its earlier functions and the home
came to serve as a haven of tranquillity and order. As the size
of families decreased, the roles of husband and wife became
more clearly differentiated than ever before. In the middle
class especially, men participated in the productive economy
while women ruled the home and served as the custodians of
civility and culture. The intimacy of marriage that was
common in earlier periods was rent, and a gulf that at times
seemed unbridgeable was created between husbands and
wives.
41.What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The economic development of the United States in the eighteenth century
(B) Ways in which economic development led to social changes in the United States
(C) Population growth in the western United States
(D) The increasing availability of industrial jobs for women in the United States
42.The word "Prospect" in line 1 is closest in meaning to
(A) regret
(B) possibility
(C) theory
(D) circumstance
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