A characteristic of American culture that has become almost a tradition is to respect the self-made man - the man who has risen to the top through his own efforts, usually beginning by working with his hands. While the leader in business or industry or the college professor occupies a higher social position and commands greater respect in the community than the common laborer or even the skilled factory worker, he may take pains to point out that his father started life in America as a farmer or laborer of some sort. This attitude toward manual labor is now still seen in many aspects of American life. One is invited to dinner at a home that is not only comfortably but even luxuriously furnished and in which there is every evidence of the fact that the family has been able to afford foreign travel, expensive hobbies, and college education for the children; yet the hostess probably will cook the dinner herself, will serve it herself and will wash dishes afterward, furthermore the dinner will not consist merely of something quickly and easily assembled from contents of various cans and a cake or a pie bought at the nearby bakery. On the contrary, the hostess usually takes pride in careful preparation of special dishes. A professional man may talk about washing the car, digging in his flowerbeds, painting the house. His wife may even help with these things, just as he often helps her with the dishwashing. The son who is away at college may wait on table and wash dishes for his living, or during the summer he may work with a construction gang on a highway in order to pay for his education.

1. From paragraph 1, we can know that in America _________.

    A. people tend to have a high opinion of the self-made man

    B. people can always rise to the top through their won effort

    C. college professors win great respect from common workers

    D. people feel painful to mention their fathers as labors.

    2. According to the passage, the hostess cooks dinner herself mainly because _________.

    A. servants in American are hard to get

    B. she takes pride in what she can do herself

    C. she can hardly afford servants

    D. It is easy to prepare a meal with canned food

    3. The expression “wait on table" in the second paragraph means "_________".

    A. work in a furniture shop

    B. keep accounts for a bar

    C. wait to lay the table

    D. serve customers in a restaurant

    4. Which of the following may serve as the best title of the passage？

    A. A Respectable Self-made Family

    B. American Attitude toward Manual Labor

    C. Characteristics of American Culture

    D. The Development of Manual Labor

「答案解析」本文介绍了崇尚自我奋斗，尊重体力劳动的美国文化。

    1. A.细节题。 根据 A characteristic of American culture that has become almost a tradition is to respect the self-made made 我们可以了解到，"崇尚自我奋斗"是美国文化的特点。

    2. B.推断题。根据This attitude toward manual（体力的） labor is now still seen in many aspects of American life.（在美国生活的方方面面，尊重体力劳动态度的现象仍然随处可见），可以推断女主人亲自下厨，是因为她以能做这样的体力活而自豪。

    3. D.词义猜测题。wait on table 意为"服务顾客"，注意其后的 washing dishes 也有一定的暗示意义，故答案为 D.

    4. B.主旨题。纵观全文，文章主要讲了美国崇尚自我奋斗，尊重体力劳动的文化习惯。故答案为B.

关于文化马赛克（cultural mosaic）

"Cultural mosaic" is the mix of ethnic groups, languages and cultures that co-exist within society. The idea of a cultural mosaic is intended to champion an ideal of multiculturalism, differently from other systems like the melting pot, which is often used to describe the United States' supposed ideal of assimilation.

The first use of the term mosaic to refer to Canadian society was by John Murray Gibbon, in his 1938 book Canadian Mosaic. Gibbon clearly disapproved of the American melting-pot concept. He saw the melting pot as a process by which immigrants and their descendants were encouraged to cut off ties with their countries and cultures of origin so as to assimilate into the American way of life.

In 1965, John Porter published his influential sociological study, Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada. Porter's book showed that some groups (e.g., those of British origin) were better off with respect to measures of income, education and health than others. For example, groups of eastern and southern European origin tended to fare less well by these measures. The worst off were the First Nations and Inuit. Porter saw this vertical arrangement as being related to power and influence in decision-making. Thus those of British origin tended to be overrepresented among the elites in government, economic and political spheres.

Porter’s findings have been tested in several studies since 1965 and have been modified slightly. For example, the economic disparity between ethnic groups has narrowed somewhat and Francophones are better represented in politics and government. However, the socio-economic elites in Canada remain dominated by people of British origin.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Canada has been one of the world's major immigrant-receiving societies. Until the 1960s immigrants were expected to assimilate into the mainstream society. Arriving as it did at during a time of social upheaval, Porter's work had a marked influence on Canadian social policy. The view of Canada as a mosaic of cultures became the basis for the Trudeau government's multiculturalism policies in the early 1970s.

The Canadian government established the Official Multiculturalism Act in 1971 and appointed a minister responsible for multiculturalism in 1972. In 1973 a Canadian Multiculturalism Council was established, along with a Multiculturalism Branch within the Department of the Secretary of State.

The "cultural mosaic" theory is not without critics. Some pundits, such as the Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson, and Carleton University journalism professor, Andrew Cohen have argued that the entire Melting Pot / Mosaic dynamic is largely an imagined concept, and that there remains little measurable evidence that American or Canadian immigrants as collective groups can be proven to be more or less "assimilated" or "multicultural" than each other. Many conservative activists in Canada have likewise remained critical of multiculturalism as an "official" government policy. In April 2005 Michaëlle Jean (later named the Governor General) openly criticized the concept herself, accusing it of leading to the "ghettoizing" of Canadians.