A
Stayathome kids are named “generation nini” in Spain. They are those adults who still live at home and are neither working nor studying. But the problem is by no means limited to Spain. It is a worldwide problem.
In Italy, they are known as “bamboccioni” or big babies. There nearly 60 percent of 1834yearold adults still live in their parents' home, up from almost 50 percent since 1983. Once kept there by the love for their mama's homecooked food, the economic crisis has seen a rise in adults left unable to hold down a steady job or afford a home of their own. Last year, an Italian government minister admitted that his mother washed his clothes and made the bed for him until he was 30. He demanded a law forcing young Italians to leave their parents' home at 18 to stop them becoming hopelessly dependent on their parents.
In the UK, the government has made the term NEETS — not in employment, education or training for these children. In England alone the percent of NEETS aged 19－24 surged to 18.8 percent of the age group—in the last quarter of 2010, up 1.4 percent on the same period a year before. The number of British men in their 20s living with their parents has risen from 59 percent to 80 percent in the past 15 years, while the number of women has risen from 41 percent to 50 percent. The average age of the firsttime house buyers is now 38.
In the US, the problem is known as the “full nest syndrome (综合征)”. Adults there are left struggling to support adult children who have stayed at home with student debts and facing few job opportunities in a weak economy. A recent study showed almost a third of American adults aged 34 and under are living with their parents.
【语篇解读】 越来越多的成年孩子住在父母家里，这种现象在全世界都很普遍。
21．“Big babies” mentioned in Paragraph 2 refer to those adults who ________.
A．are poorly educated
B．are not as smart as others
C．lose their job in the bad economy
D．rely on their parents for a living
答案与解析：D 推理判断题。根据第一段的“They are those adults who still live at home and are neither working nor studying.”可知这些成年孩子是无收入来源、依靠父母生存的人。
22．The Italian government minister thinks that ________.
A．parents should make their children feel hopeless
B．young people should live on their own after 18
C．parents should never make the bed for their children
D．it is OK for adult children to live with their parents
答案与解析：B 细节理解题。根据第二段的“He demanded a law forcing young Italians to leave their parents' home at 18 to stop them becoming hopelessly dependent on their parents.”可知应选B。
23．The underlined word “surged” in Paragraph 3 can be replaced by “________”．
A．jumped B．reduced
C．recovered D．moved
答案与解析：A 词义猜测题。根据后面的“up 1.4 percent on the same period a year before”可知这里是指激增到了18.8%。
24．What does the last paragraph tell us?
A．Some American adult children are a burden to their parents.
B．American parents are happy to live with their children.
C．America has the most adult children compared with other countries.
D．It is a tradition for adult children to live with their parents in America.
答案与解析：A 推理判断题。根据末段的“Adults there are left struggling to support adult children”可知这些无收入来源的成年孩子成了父母的负担。
