2012硕士研究生英语二Text2

Pretty in pink: adult women do not remember being so obsessed with the colour, yet it is pervasive in our young girls' lives. It is not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is a tiny slice of the rainbow and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fused girls' identity to appearance. Then it presents that connection, even among two-year-olds, between girls as not only innocent but as evidence of innocence. Looking around, despaired at the singular lack of imagination about girls' lives and interests.

粉红色相当漂亮，成年女性已经不记得何时起对如此痴迷于颜色，然而它在我们年轻女孩的生活中无处不在。并不是粉色本身不好，而是它只是七色彩虹中极小的一部分。尽管它有可能是庆祝少女时代的一种方式，它也会不断的将女孩的个性还外貌联系在一起。

　　Girls' attraction to pink may seem unavoidable, somehow encoded in their DNA, but according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American Studies, it's not. Children were not colour-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 colours were introduced, pink was actually considered the more masculine colour, a pastel version of red, which was associated with strength. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, symbolised 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 innately attractive to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few critical years.

       女孩对粉色的吸引力似乎无法避免，以某种方式编码到他们的基因中，但是按照一个关于美国研究的副教授 Jo Paoletti的观点：这个说法不正确。在20世纪初期，孩子根本没有颜色编码：在洗衣机出现之前的年代里，出于使用，所有的婴儿都穿白色，让衣服变干净的唯一办法就是将衣服煮沸。另外，男孩女孩都穿着人们认为是中性的衣服。

　　I had not realised how profoundly marketing trends dictated our perception of what is natural to kids, including our core beliefs about their psychological development. Take the toddler. I assumed that phase was something experts developed after years of research into children's behaviour: wrong. Turns out, according to Daniel Cook, a historian of childhood consumerism, it was popularised as a marketing trick by clothing manufacturers in the 1930s.

      我还没有意识到，我们对孩子天性的观点深受市场营销趋势所支配，其中包括我们对于他们心理成长的核心观念。以学步期儿童为例，我以为该阶段是专家经过多年研究孩子们行为后发展而来：错。结果是，根据儿童消费史学家Daniel Cook的观点，它实际上从20世纪30年代开始流行，是服装制造厂商的营销伎俩。

　　Trade publications counseled department stores that, in order to increase sales, they should create a "third stepping stone" between infant wear and older kids' clothes. It was only after "toddler" became common shoppers' term that it evolved into a broadly accepted developmental stage. Splitting kids, or adults, into ever-tinier categories has proved a sure-fire way to boost profits. And one of the easiest ways to segment a market is to magnify gender differences - or invent them where they did not previously exist.

       商业出版物给商店的建议是：为了提高销售，他们应该在婴儿服装和大龄儿童服装之间创造“第三过渡阶段”。当“toddler”称为通用的购物术语后，“学步期”才逐渐被广泛接受成为一个成长阶段。把儿童、成人做更细的划分已被证明是提高利润的妙计。对市场进行划分最简单的方法之一就是放大性别差异，或者发明原来根本就不存在的东西。

【原题】

26.By saying "it is...the rainbow"(Line 3, Para.1),the author means pink___C___.

[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 colours_____C_____？

[A]Colours are encoded in girls' DNA.

[B]Blue used to be regarded as the colour for girls.

[C]Pink used to be a neutral colour in symbolising genders.

[D]White is prefered by babies.

28.The author suggests that our perception of children's psychological development was much influenced by_____.

[A]the marketing of products for children

[B]the observation of children's nature

[C]researches into children's behavior

[D]studies of childhood consumption

29.We may learn from Paragraph 4 that department stores were advised to_____.

[A]focus on infant wear and older kids' clothes

[B]attach equal importance to different genders

[C]classify consumers into smaller groups

[D]create some common shoppers' terms

30.It can be concluded that girls' attraction to pink seems to be____.

[A] clearly explained by their inborn tendency

[B]fully understood by clothing manufacturers

[C] mainly imposed by profit-driven businessmen

[D]well interpreted by psychological experts

【附录】

1、https://kaoyan.koolearn.com/20141224/850221_4.html

2、https://www.sohu.com/a/400009438_120488641?_trans_=000014_bdss_dklzxbpcgP3p:CP=

3、ever-tinier:越来越小、更小；

4、sure-fire: adj. 必定成功的, 肯定会发生的 eg:a sure-fire way to …的绝佳办法 . a sure-fire way 一个万无一失的方法 .

以上皆为学习过程笔记，不正确的地方请多多指教。

考研英语资料大全：https://www.onekbit.com/dwz/254