文章大意:本文是一篇记叙文,讲述了作者的丈夫被已经工作21年的公司解雇了,这给作者家的经济带来了很大的压力,但是作者更关心的是丈夫的情绪,她想通过自己的经历以及与专家的讨论来帮助丈夫熬过失业期。
My husband David was waiting at the door when our daughter Laura and I came back. It wasn’t like him to be home so early. The disbelief on his face told me that something was up.
“Do you still have a job?” “No.” he answered, looking away from me. “OK. We’ll figure it out,” I replied calmly.
I actually had no idea how we were going to figure it out. I immediately started to think of how we’d cut costs and who we should start to get in touch with. That night, after David had fallen asleep, I cried myself to sleep, and frequently sobbed in the shower in the days that followed.
I knew the loss of David’s income would have great effect on us. He had worked for the same company for twenty-one years and was our main income. I work at home caring for Laura, and my income is uncertain. We have debts, and job hunting takes time.
Still, I was more concerned about my husband’s emotional state than our financial situation. David’s sense of identity was tied to his job. He called his parents to tell them about losing his job, but didn’t say a word to anyone else for weeks. He told me that he felt like “a failure”.
It was tough for me to watch David struggle with unemployment. One night several weeks after he lost his job, David woke me just before midnight, sweating, pacing the bedroom floor and saying he didn’t feel well. We spent the night in the emergency room waiting to see if he had a heart attack. Thankfully, it was just a serious anxiety attack. It was then that I knew I needed to do more to understand what my husband was going through. Here is what I learned from my own experience—and from talking to experts—on how to support your loved ones through a job loss.
39. The underlined word “
sobbed” in Paragraph 3 probably means “________”.
A.laughed out with a loud and unpleasant noise |
B.cried noisily, taking sudden, sharp breaths |
C.became quite interested |
D.felt extremely astonished |
40. What did the writer do about her husband’s situation at first?
A.She called her husband’s parents to tell them the situation. |
B.She went to the hospital to talk to some experts to ask for advice. |
C.She was angry about her husband’s losing his job. |
D.She appeared calm but in fact she was very worried. |
41. What do we know about David according to the passage?
A.He went to see the doctor to reduce his anxiety. |
B.He was fired by the company for which he had worked for 21 years. |
C.He was thought “a failure” by his family after losing his job. |
D.He suffered a heart attack after his unemployment. |
42. What will be talked about in the following part of the passage?
A.How the writer supported David to get through the jobless period. |
B.How David suffered from the heart attack and the treatment. |
C.Why David lost his job and became jobless. |
D.What the writer did to help get some income. |