I’m afraid to grow old---we’re all afraid. In fact, the fear of growing old is so great that every aged person is an insult and threat to the society. They remind us of our own death, that our body won’t always remain smooth and responsive, but will someday betray us by aging. The ideal way to age would be to grow slowly invisible, gradually disappearing, without causing worry or discomfort to the young. In some ways that does happen. Sitting in a small park across from a nursing home one day, I noticed that the young mothers and their children gathered on one side, and the old people from the home on the other. Whenever a youngster would run over to the “wrong” side, chasing a ball or just trying to cover all the available space, the old people would lean forward and smile.
But before any communication could be established, the mother would come over, murmuring embarrassed apologies, and take her children back to the “young” side. Now it seemed that the children didn’t feel any particular fear and the old people didn’t seem to be threatened by the children.
The division of the space was drawn by the mothers. And the mothers never looked at the old people who lined the other side of the park. These well-dressed young women had a way of sliding their eyes over, around, through the old people; they never looked at them directly. The old people may as well have been invisible; they offered the aesthetic (审美的) eye of the mother.
My early experiences were somewhat different; since I grow up in a small town, my childhood had more of a nineteenth-century flavor. I knew a lot of old people, and considered
some of them friends.
There was no culturally defined way for me to “relate to” old people except the rules of courtesy(礼貌) which applied to all adults. My grandparents were an integral(组成的) and important part of the family and of the community. I sometimes have a dreadful fear that mine will be the last generation to know old people as friends, to have a sense of what growing old means, to respect and understand man’s mortality and his courage in the face of death.

11. Why are people afraid of growing old ?
A)Because it’s usually associated with death.
B)Because it’s usually associated with betrayal.
C) Because it’s usually associated with threat.
D) Because it’s usually associated with insult.
12. “nursing home” in the first paragraph refers to.
A)a home for nurse B)a medical school
C)a home for the old D) a place for small children
13. It can be inferred that the young mothers would try to keep their children away from the old because
A) they feared their children might hurt the old.
B) they felt it was wrong to play balls near where the old stayed.
C) they didn’t want their children to have anything to do with the old.
D) they didn’t like their children to take up the space belonging to the old.

11. A 12. C 13. C
这篇阅读主要讲的是现在人们对于变老的恐惧，和由变老引起的对死亡的恐惧。致使很多Young mothers让他们的孩子远离老人，拒绝和老人做朋友。最后作者呼吁大家要勇于和老年人做朋友从而理解变老的真正意义，并且正视死亡率和勇敢的面对死亡。
11和13题都是和主旨有关系的题目。理解了主旨，用排除法进行选择就容易的多了
12题 nursing home 是养老院的意思，老年人之家