阅读理解

　　On average, American kids ages 3 to 12 spent 29 hours a week in school, eight hours more than they did in 1981．They also did more household work and participated(参加)in more of such organized activities as soccer(英式足球)and ballet．Involvement in sports, in particular, rose almost 50％ from 1981 to 1997：boys now spend an average of four hours a week playing sports; girls log⑦ half that time．All in all(总的来说), however, children's leisure(闲暇)time dropped from 40％of the day in 1981 to 25％．

　　“Children are affected by the same time crisis(危机)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(然而), children in both double-income and“male bread winner”house holds spent comparable amounts of time interacting(相互影响)with their parents, 19 hours and 22 hours respectively(各自的)．In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mothers．

　　All work and no play could make for(导致；有利于)some very messed up(麻烦的)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(自由的；非正式组织的)play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate⑧ their relationships with their peers．But kids ages 3 to 12 spent only 12 hours a week engaged in it．

　　The children sampled(被抽样调查的)spent a quarter of their rapidly decreasing(日益减少的)“free time”watching television．But that, believe it or not(信不信由你), 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?

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)