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Passage One

Anyone meeting Matthew Daniels for the first time could easily assume that he is the product of a conventional, even privileged childhood. With his well-spoken manner, his Ivy League education, and his business card reading "President, Massachusetts Family Institute," Mr. Daniels is the picture of youthful American success.

But Daniels can tell a story that refutes those assumptions about his childhood. His father abandoned the family when he was 2. His mother took a job as a secretary. But on her way home one evening she was mugged, sustaining injuries that eventually left her unable to work, the family went on welfare.

Growing up in New York's Spanish Harliem, Daniels was one of only four white students until ninth grade. Despite a difficult environment, he stayed out of trouble. He even won a full scholarship to Dartmouth College, graduating in 1985.

How did he do it? He credits his mother's religious faith. "It's why I didn't end up like the guys in my neighborhood," he says. "Some went to prison." Although his father, a writer, didn't support the family, he maintained contact with his son, emphasizing the importance of books and education.

Because of his experience, Daniels has become a passionate advocate of the two-parent family. He sees it as an institution under cultural siege, generally supported by "the person in the street" but too often dismissed by those in academic and media circles.

Some of the groups, he says, have miscalculated the social consequences of "trying to convince people that there are all sorts of" alternative family forms. Even during law school, he encountered professors who were "openly hostile to the idea that we need two-parent families to have a healthy society."

Reporters and academics may not be the only ones ambivalent about marriage. A new study of college textbooks finds that many texts on marriage paint a pessimistic view. They emphasize divorce and domestic violence, the report says, and focus far more on adult relationships and problems than on children's needs.

(281 words)

(a) successful

(b) conventional

(c) privileged

(d) unfortunate

2. All of the following happened to Daniels except that __________. ( C )

(a) his father left his family when Daniels was still a small child

(b) his mother was injured and could not work

(c) Daniels had to work hard to support his family when he was a child

(d) the welfare of the state helped the family to live

3. Daniels attended a school where the majority of the students were _________. ( D )

(a) boys

(b) girls

(c) whites

(d) blacks

4.Daniels benefited most from __________. ( A )

(a) his mother's religion and his father's idea of education

(b) his experience as a child from a poor family

(c) his school education

(d) neighborhood

5. The passage discusses ______. ( B )

(a) Daniels's life

(b) the need for two-parent family

(c) the importance of education

(d) one parent family

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Passage Two

In an Indianapolis neighborhood where some teenage girls flaunt pregnancies like new hairdos, Aisha Fields is unabashedly square: She plans to abstain from sex until she marries.

"Most of my friends already have babies," says Aisha, a high school junior and abstinence mentor. "Being pregnant is a fashion. Girls go around bragging:‘I'm three months (pregnant).' They think it's cool."

With 1 million US teens becoming pregnant every year, and 13 percent of all American babies born to teens, Aisha's "just-say-no" attitude is a policymaker's dream come true.

Federal and state officials are banking on such an attitude as they launch a new campaign to shrink the ranks of unwed teenage moms. On Oct. 1, the government will begin dispensing some of the nearly $850 million earmarked under the welfare—reform law over five years for teaching abstinence and preventing out-of-wedlock births.

But experts say there is no research to suggest that abstinence—only education will succeed. In contrast, more comprehensive programs that cover contraception, family planning, and communication skills can help delay sexual involvement by teens, according to a study by the National Campaign to Prevent Pregnancy in Washington.

"It seems foolish to be tossing away all this money without knowing whether it will work," says Lisa Kaeser, a senior associate at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit group that researches reproductive health.

But experts agree the latest campaign against teen pregnancy marks a big improvement over older policies in one fundamental respect: It emphasizes prevention.

(243 words)