For questions 1-7, markY(for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage; N(for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage; NG(for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.
The Trouble With Television
It is difficult to escape the influence of television. If you fit the statistical averages, by the age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least 20,000 hours of television. You can add 10,000 hours for each decade you have lived after the age of 20. The only things Americans do more than watch television are work and sleep.
Calculate for a moment what could be done with even a part of those hours. Five thousand hours, I am told, are what a typical college undergraduate spends working on a bachelor&39;s degree. In 10,000 hours you could have learned enough to become an astronomer or engineer. You could have learned several languages fluently. If it appealed to you, you could be reading Homer in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didn&39;t, you could have walked around the world and written a book about it.
The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration. Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires some constructive, consistently applied effort. The dullest, the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous to those who never concentrate on anything. But Television encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification(满意). It diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass without pain.
Television&39;s variety becomes a narcotic(麻醉的), nor a stimulus. Its serial, kaleidoscopic (万花筒般的)exposures force us to follow its lead. The viewer is on a perpetual guided tour: 30 minutes at the museum, 30 at the cathedral, 30 for a drink, then back on the bus to the next attraction—except on television., typically, the spans allotted arc on the order of minutes or seconds, and the chosen delights are more often car crashes and people killing one another. In short, a lot of television usurps(篡夺;侵占) one of the most precious of all human gifts, the ability to focus your attention yourself, rather than just passively surrender it.
Capturing your attention—and holding it—is the prime motive of most television programming and enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle. Programmers live in constant fear of losing anyone&39;s attention—anyone&39;s. The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action and movement. Quite simply, television operates on the appeal to the short attention span.
It is simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be regarded as a given, as inherent in the medium itself; as an imperative, as though General Sarnoff, or one of the other august pioneers of video, had bequeathed(遗留;传于) to us tablets of stone commanding that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few moments&39; Concentration.
In its place that is fine. Who can quarrel with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment as a mass-marketing tool？ But I see its values now pervading this nation and its life. It has become fashionable to think that, like fast food, fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving, impatient public.
In the case of news, this practice, in my view, results in inefficient communication. I question how much of television&39;s nightly news effort is really absorbable and understandable. Much of it is what has been aptly described as "machine-gunning with scraps." I think the technique fights coherence. I think it tends to make things ultimately boring (unless they are accompanied by horrifying pictures) because almost anything is boring if you know almost nothing about it.
I believe that TV&39;s appeal to the short attention span is not only inefficient communication but decivilizing as well. Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate: that complexity must be avoided, that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, that verbal precision is an anachronism. It may be old-fashioned, but I was taught that thought is words, arranged in grammatically precise.
There is a crisis of literacy in this country. One study estimates that some 30 million adult Americans are "functionally illiterate" and cannot read or write well enough to answer the want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.
Literacy may not be an inalienable human right, but it is one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not have found unreasonable or even unattainable. We are not only not attaining it as a nation, statistically speaking, but we are falling further and further short of attaining it. And, while I would not be so simplistic as to suggest that television is the cause, I believe it contributes and is an influence.
Everything about this nation—the structure of the society, its forms of family organization, its economy, its place in the world— has become more complex, not less. Yet its dominating communications instrument, its principal form. of national linkage, is one that sells neat resolutions to human problems that usually have no neat resolutions. It is all symbolized in my mind by the hugely successful art form. that television has made central to the culture, the 30-second commercial: the tiny drama of the earnest housewife who finds happiness in choosing the right toothpaste.
When before in human history has so much humanity collectively surrendered so much of its leisure to one toy, one mass diversion？ When before has virtually an entire nation surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling？
Some years ago Yale University law professor Charles L. Black. Jr., wrote: "... forced feeding on trivial fare is not itself a trivial matter-" I think this society is being forced-fed with trivial fare, and I fear that the effects on our habits of mind, our language, our tolerance for effort, and our appetite for complexity are only dimly perceived. If I am wrong, we will have done no harm to look at the issue skeptically and critically, to consider how we should be residing it. I hope you will join with me in doing so.
1. In America people do sleeping and watching televisions more than anything else.
2. From the passage we know the time an average American spends on watching TV could have made the person learn to become an astronomer or engineer.
3. The trouble with TV is that it distracts people’s attention and encourages them to make no efforts toward their life.
4. TV programmers base this operation on the attraction of long-span attention of audiences.
5. According to the author the improper television operation in American society will be likely to make things eventually boring.
6. Americans will face a serious problem of illiteracy due to the negative impact of TV.
7. In American society literacy is a certain right that cannot be deprived.
Edward rose early on the New-year morning.He looked in every room and wished a Happy New Year to his family.Then he ran into the street to repeat that to those he might meet.
When he came back, his father gave him two bright, new silver dollars .
His face lighted up as he took them.He had wished for a long time to buy some petty books that he had seen at the bookstore.
He left the house with a light heart, expecting to buy the books.As he ran down the street, he saw a poor family.
“I wish you a happy New Year.” said Edward, as he was happily passing on.The man shook his head.
“You are not from this country？ ” said Edward.The man again shook his head, for he could not understand or speak his language.But he pointed to his mouth, and to the children shaking with cold, as if (好像)to say, “These little ones have had nothing to eat for a long time”
Edward quickly understood that these poor people were in trouble.He took out his dollars, and gave one to the man and the other to his wife.
They were excited and said something in their language, which doubtless meant, “We thank you so much that we will remember you all the time.”
When Edward came home, his father asked what books he had bought.He hung his head a moment, but quickly looked up.
“I have bought no books,” said he, “I gave my money to some poor people, who seemed to be very hungry then.” He went on, “I think I can wait for my books till next New Year.”
“My dear boy,” said his father, “Here are some books, more as a reward for your goodness of heart than as a New-Year gift”.
“I saw you give the money cheerfully to the poor German family.It was nice for a little boy to do so.Be always ready to help others and every year of your life will be to you a Happy New Year.”
1.Edward expected to ________ with the money he got from his father.
A.help the poor family
B.buy something to eat
C.buy some pretty books
2.Why did the poor man shake his head when Edward spoke to him？()
A.He couldn’t understand the boy
B.He wouldn’t accept the money
C.He didn’t like the boy’s language
3.How much did Edward give the poor family？()
A.One dolla
B.Two dollars
C.Three dollars
4.We know that Edward ________.
A.got a prize for his kind heart
B.got more money from his father
C.bought the books at the bookstore
25.What is the best title for the passage？()
A.New Year's Gift
B.Story of Buying Books
C.Father's Words
The train clattered over points and passed through a station. Then it began suddenly to slow down, presumably in obedience to a signal. For some minutes it crawled along, then stopped, presently it began to move forward again. At that moment another train, also on a down line, swerved inwards towards them, for a moment with almost alarming effect. For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, now the other. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not very full and there were many empty carriages. At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being stationary, a blind in one of the carriages flew up with a snap. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked into the lighted first-class carriage that was only a few feet away.
Then she drew her breath in with a gasp and half-rose to her feet.
Standing with his back to the window and to her was a man. His hands were round the throat of a woman who faced him, and he was slowly, remorselessly, strangling her. Her eyes were staring from their sockets, her face was purple. As Mrs. McGillicuddy watched, fascinated, the end came; the body went limp and crumpled in the man's hands.
At the same moment, Mrs. McGillicuddy's train slowed down again and the other began to gain speed. It passed forward and a moment or two later it had vanished from sight.
Almost automatically Mrs. McGillicuddy's hand went up to the communication cord then paused, irresolute. After all, what use would it be ringing the cord of the train in which she was traveling？ The horror of what she had seen at such close quarters, and the unusual circumstances, made her feel paralysed. Some immediate action was necessary--but what？
The door of her compartment was drawn back and a ticket collector said, "Ticket, please."
When Mrs. McGillicuddy's train passed through a station, it ______.
A．gained speed suddenly
B．kept its usual speed
C．changed its speed
D．stopped immediately
