WASHINGTON Laura Straub is a very worried woman.  Her job is to find families for French teenagers who expect to live with American families in the summer.
It’s not easy, even desperate.
“We have many children left to place: 40 out of 75,” said Straub, who works for a Paris based foreign exchange programme called LEC.
When exchange programmes started 50 years ago, more families were willing to help others. For one thing, more mothers stayed home.
But now, increasing numbers of women work outside the home. Exchange student programmes have struggled in recent years to sign up host families for the 30,000 teenagers who come from abroad every year to have some courses for one year in the United States. as well as the thousands more who take part in summer programmes.
School systems in many parts of the US, unhappy about accepting non taxpaying students, have also strictly limited the number of exchange students they accept. At the same time, the idea of hosting foreign students is becoming less exotic (异国情调的).
In searching for host families, who usually receive no pay, exchange programmes are increasingly broadening their requests to include everyone from young couples to the retired.
“We are open to many different types of families.” said Vickie Weiner, eastern regional director for ASSE, a 25-year-old programme that sends about 30,000 teenagers on one-year exchange programmes worldwide.
For elderly people, exchange students “keep us young——they really do,” said Jean Foster, who is hosting 16-year-old Nina Ports from Denmark.
1.Foreign teenagers come to American families with the purpose of _____.
A. finding their parents in America         B. finding good jobs in America
C. learning the culture of America          D. enjoying the life of America
2.In the past, Straub’s job was easy, because American families _____.
A. needed more money to live             B. had fewer children to support
C. had spare rooms to rent                 D. were not as busy as now
3.To deal with the problem in recent years, Straub and her workmates have to _____.
A. ask different kinds of families for help    B. limit the number of the exchange students
C. borrow much money to pay for the costs   D. force some families to accept students
4.From the last paragraph we can conclude that _____.
A. exchange students are welcome in America
B. exchange students must pay much money to the host families
C. American students don’t want to join the exchange programmes
D. old Americans can benefit from hosting exchange students