nctioning of religious rituals involving the family. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularized society but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places. 
　　In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption that family happiness lies that way. The point is underlined by its converse: in some societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce.  
　　Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the family itself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family —they need children to enrich the circle, to validate its family character, to gather the redemptive influence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, as the social institution uniquely available, at least in principle, for security, comfort, assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile, world. To most people, such a home base, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance and in generational extension.

1999年英语专业八真题答案及解析

PAPER ONE
　　PART Ⅰ LISTENING COMPREHENSION
　　SECTION A TALK
　　1.答案：C
　　【问句译文】使机器噪音小一些的技术如何？
　　【试题分析】本题为细节区分题。
　　【详细解答】谈话的第五句说“Now although the idea dates back to the 1930s, it’s only recently that advances in computer technology have made anti-noise a commercial possibility.”由此可知，这种方法可追溯到二十世纪30年代，但只是近来才被应用于
　　商业。因此答案选C。
　　2.答案：D
　　【问句译文】现代电子抗噪音设备如何？
　　【试题分析】本题为推理概括题。
　　【详细解答】由关键句“The modern electronic anti-noise devices don’t reduce sound.
　　Instead, sound is used to attack sou