考研人数逐年增加，竞争之激烈使得我们不得不加急复习的日程。众所周知，阅读理解占据了考研英语二100分试卷的一半分值，而考研英语阅读文章大多来自英美国家的主流报刊杂志，所以如果能在日常就多多阅读这些文章，对以后读懂文章做对题目来说会大有裨益。
学习步骤如下：
1.不看汉语译文自己看一遍短文做理解
2.看汉语译文比对自己理解的意思与之出入
3.强化记忆重点单词（以记忆其汉语意思为主）
Pretty in pink: adult women do not remember being so obsessed with the color, yet it is pervasive in our young girls’ lives. It is not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girls’ identity to appearance. Then it presents that connection, even among two-year-old, between girls as not only innocent but as evidence of innocence. Looking around, I despaired at the singular lack of imagination about girls’ lives and interests.
Girls’ attraction to pink may seem unavoidable, somehow encoded in their DNA, but according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American Studies, it is not. Children were not color-coded at all until the early 20th century, in the era before domestic washing machines all babies wore white as a practical matter, since the only way of getting clothes clean was to boil them. What’s more, both boys and girls wore what were thought of as gender-neutral dresses. When nursery colors were introduced, pink was actually considered the more masculine color, a pastel version of red, which was associated with strength. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, symbolized femininity. It was not until the mid-1980s,when amplifying age and sex differences became a dominant children’s marketing strategy, that pink fully came into its own, when it began to seem inherently attractive to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few critical years.
短文翻译
粉色之美:成年女性已不记得自己曾如此痴迷于这种颜色,但它在我们年轻女孩的生活中却无处不在。这并不是说粉色本身是不好的,但它只是彩虹中的一小部分而已。虽然它可能在某种程度上为少女时代增添色彩,但它也反复地、坚定地将女孩的身份与外表融合在一起。此后,粉色展现出少女之间,甚至两岁女孩之间的共性——纯真,且粉色本身也是纯真的证明。环顾四周,我为女孩们的生活和兴趣如此缺乏想象力而感到失望。
女孩们对粉色的迷恋似乎是不可避免的,某种程度上融入了她们的DNA,但美国研究学院副教授乔·保莱蒂认为并非如此。直到20世纪初,孩子们才有了颜色编码:在家用洗衣机出现之前,所有的婴儿实际上都穿白色衣服,因为那时把衣服弄干净的唯一方法就是煮。更重要的是,男孩和女孩都穿中性的衣服。在引入童装色彩时,粉色实际上被认为是更男性化的颜色,是一种柔和的红色,与力量有关。蓝色暗示着圣母玛利亚的坚贞和忠诚,是女性的象征。直到20世纪80年代中期,放大年龄和性别差异成为儿童市场营销的主导策略,粉色才完全发挥了自己的作用。那时,它开始显得天生就对女孩有吸引力,至少在最初关键的几年里,粉色成为女性的特征之一。
真题练习
*一定要做题哦
26. By saying “it is … the rainbow” (Line3, Para.1), the author means pink____.
[A] should not be the sole representation of girlhood
[B] should not be associated with girls’ innocence
[C] cannot explain girls’ lack of imagination
[D] cannot influence girls’ lives and interests
27. According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true of colors?
[A] Colors are encoded in girls’ DNA.
[B] Blue used to be regarded as the color for girls.
[C] Pink used to be a neutral color in symbolizing genders.
[D] White is preferred by babies.
题目解析
26.【解析】根据题干，首先定位到第一段第三行，“but”引出了“it is...the rainbow”，接下来的“though it may celebrate girlhood in one way”说明粉色只是从一方面衬托女孩的特质，这就暗示粉色只是其中一个方面，还有其它方面。由此推出选项 A 为正确答案。第一段第三句提到粉色与少女的天真联系在一起，故排除选项B。该段最后一句虽然提到少女的生活和兴趣缺乏想象力，但并未谈到粉色不能解释或者影响这种现象。选项C和选项D在原文基础上进行过度推理，故不选。
27.【解析】根据题干，定位到文章第二段，根据第二段第五句“blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, symbolized femininity.” 可知，蓝色暗示圣母玛利亚的坚贞和忠诚，象征着女性气质，所以选项B为正确答案。该段第一句提到女孩子对于粉色的关注看起来似乎是不可避免的，似乎以某种方式蕴藏在她们的基因里了，随后的but就对前半句给予否定，因此排除选项A。第三句提到男孩和女孩都穿着人们认为是中性的衣服，指的是上一句提到的白色衣服，故而排除选项C。第二句表明在家用洗衣机问世之前，所有的婴儿都穿白色的衣服，而不是现在，并且婴儿也不是因为喜欢白色才穿白色的衣服，故而排除选项D。
