“Children are affected by the same time crunch (危機(jī)) that affects their parents,” says Sandra Hofferth,who headed the recent study of children’s timetable. A chief reason, she says, is that more mothers are working outside the home. (Nevertheless, children in both double-income and “male breadwinner” householdsspent comparable amounts of time interacting with their parents 19 hours and 22 hours respectively. In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mothers.)
All work and no play could make for some very messed-up kids. “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about himself,” says T. Berry Brazelton, professor at Harvard Medical School Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships withtheir peers, but kids ages 3 to 12 spent only 12 hours a week engaged in it.
The children sampled spent a quarter of their rapidly decreasing “free time” watching television. But that, believe it or not, was one of the findings parents might regard as good news. If they’re spending less time in front of the TV set, however, kids aren’t replacing it with reading. Despite efforts to get kids more interested in books, the children spent just over an hour a week reading. Let’s face it, who’s got the time?
練習(xí)題：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1. By mentioning “the same time crunch” (Line 1, Para. 2) Sandra Hofferth means ________.
A. children have little time to play with their parents
B. children are not taken good care of by their working parents
C. both parents and children suffer from lack of leisure time
D. both parents and children have trouble managing their time
2. According to the author, the reason given by Sandra Hofferth for the time crunch is ________.
A. quite convincing
B. partially true
C. totally groundless
D. rather confusing
3. According to the author a child develops better if ________.
A. he has plenty of time reading and studying
B. he is left to play with his peers in his own way
C. he has more time participating in school activities
D. he is free to interact with his working parents
4. The author is concerned about the fact that American kids ________.
A. are engaged in more and more structured activities
B. are increasingly neglected by their working mothers
C. are spending more and more time watching TV
D. are involved less and less in household work
5. We can infer from the passage that ________.
A. extracurricular activities promote children’s intelligence
B. most children will turn to reading with TV sets switched off
C. efforts to get kids interested in reading have been fruitful
D. most parents believe reading to be beneficial to children
1.[C] 語(yǔ)義理解題。該短語(yǔ)所在句子的上文(第1段最后一句)表明“孩子的課余時(shí)間比以前少了”,而本句指出父母和孩子都受time crunch的影響，可見(jiàn)the same time crunch是指空閑時(shí)間不夠用，故C正確。
2.[B] 觀點(diǎn)態(tài)度題。第2段第2句中括號(hào)里的內(nèi)容表明了作者的觀點(diǎn)。轉(zhuǎn)折詞Nevertheless說(shuō)明作者的觀點(diǎn)跟上文Sandra Hofferth的看法不完全一致，而作者在下文舉例中提到，單身母親因?yàn)橐习?，與孩子在起的時(shí)間只有9個(gè)小時(shí)，確實(shí)少了很多，這與Hofferth所述一致，因此選B。
3.[B] 事實(shí)細(xì)節(jié)題。第3段最后一句表明孩子自由玩樂(lè)能促使他們獨(dú)立思考，并使他們學(xué)會(huì)處理與同齡關(guān)系，其中unstructured play 相當(dāng)于B中的play in his own way，故B正確。
4.[A] 觀點(diǎn)態(tài)度題。文章一開(kāi)頭作者就說(shuō)孩子們比1981年時(shí)上學(xué)的時(shí)間每周多8小時(shí)，他們還做更多的家務(wù),參加更多的有組織性的活動(dòng)等等,而這些均是造成孩子們空閑時(shí)間越來(lái)越少的原因，而孩子們空閑時(shí)間少也正是作者憂慮的問(wèn)題，故可推知本題選A。B是作者在第2段括號(hào)里反駁過(guò)的觀點(diǎn);C錯(cuò)在more and more time，而且作者對(duì)孩子看電視也不完全反對(duì);孩子們事實(shí)上要做更多家務(wù)，故D錯(cuò)。
5.[D] 推理判斷題。文章最后一段倒數(shù)第2句說(shuō)“盡管父母費(fèi)盡心思培養(yǎng)孩子的讀書興趣，可孩子們一周也只不過(guò)花一個(gè)多小時(shí)讀書”。由此可見(jiàn),父母認(rèn)為讀書對(duì)孩子有好處，即D。A中的extracurricular activities包含 structured and unstructured activities，文中只說(shuō)unstructured activities有助于培養(yǎng)孩子獨(dú)立思考以及與同齡人交往的能力，沒(méi)有說(shuō)structured activities對(duì)intelligence有什么幫助;B與文章的倒數(shù)第3句不符;C與倒數(shù)第2句不符。
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