In spite of "endless talk of difference," American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. There is "the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference" characteristic of popular culture. People are absorbed into "a culture of consumption" launched by the 19th-century department stores that offered "vast arrays of goods in an elegant atmosphere. Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite" these were stores "anyone could enter, regardless of class or background. This turned shopping into a public and democratic act." The mass media, advertising and sports are other forces for homogenization.
1. The word "homogenizing" (Line 1, Paragraph 1) most probably means
一：先读题，“homogenizing”的意思是什么？解答方法是：找到原文该词汇的出处In spite of “endless talk of difference,” American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. 通过对句意的理解，尤其是In spite of “尽管”，可知本句逗号的前后两部分是转折关系，既然是转折关系，它们的意思就应该相反，由此得知homogenizing与“endless talk of difference,”是反义词关系。而“endless talk of difference,”的意思是“无休止的谈论差异”，他的反义应该是“相同，同化”，所以“相同，同化”就是homogenizing的意思，而选项中C. assimilating“吸收，同化”正好有这样的意思，所以是正确答案。
二：同样找到对应的句子，上一种方法我们是从句子内部的转折关系来解答的，这一次我们看看从句子之间的关系能不能解答啊。先看原文：In spite of "endless talk of difference," American society is an amazing machine for homogenizing people. There is "the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference" characteristic of popular culture.这是两个句子。通过对句意的理解，可以得知后一句是对前一句的进一步的说明，也可以说后一句是前一句的解释，所以可以得到等式：homogenizing = "the democratizing uniformity of dress and discourse, and the casualness and absence of deference" 所以，homogenizing="民主化的着装和话语的统一......"就等于引号内的中文意思“相同，一致”。于是homogenizing=“使相同，使一致”=吸收= [C] assimilating.