4. The author's experience shows that he was ___________.

　 A) creative　　 B) ambitious　　 C) unrealistic　　 D) irrational

3. In the eyes of the author, a successful engineering student is expected ___________.

　 A) to have an excellent academic record

　 B) to be wise and mature

　 C) to be imaginative with a value system to guide him

　 D) to be a technical genius with a wide vision

2. According to the author, by interacting with people who study liberal arts, engineering students can _______.

　 A) balance engineering and the liberal arts 　　B) receive guidance in their careers

　 C) become noble idealists 　　D) broaden their horizons

1. The author chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts university because he ___________.

　 A) wanted to be an example of practicality and rationality

　 B) intended to be a combination of engineer and humanist

　 C) wanted to coordinate engineering with liberal-arts courses in college

　 D) intended to be a sensible student with noble ideals

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

Passage 4

Engineering students are supposed to be examples of practicality and rationality, but when it comes to my college education I am an idealist and a fool. In high school I wanted to be an electrical engineer and, of course, any sensible student with my aims would have chosen a college with a large engineering department, famous reputation and lots of good labs and research equipment. But that's not what I did.

I chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts (文科) university that doesn't even offer a major in electrical engineering. Obviously, this was not a practical choice; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a broad education that would provide me with flexibility and a value system to guide me in my career. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my vision by interacting with people who weren't studying science or engineering. My parents, teachers and other adults praised me for such a sensible choice. They told me I was wise and mature beyond my 18 years, and I believed them.

I headed off to college sure I was going to have an advantage over those students who went to big engineering “factories” where they didn't care if you had values or were flexible. I was going to be a complete engineer: technical genius and sensitive humanist (人文学者) all in one.

Now I'm not so sure. Somewhere along the way my noble ideals crashed into reality, as all noble ideals eventually do. After three years of struggling to balance math, physics and engineering courses with liberal-arts courses, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering students try to reconcile (协调) engineering with liberal-arts courses in college.

　　 The reality that has blocked my path to becoming the typical successful student is that engineering and the liberal arts simply don't mix as easily as I assumed in high school. Individually they shape a person in very different ways; together they threaten to confuse. The struggle to reconcile the two fields of study is difficult.

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

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

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

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

25. What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?

　A) Anxiety, though unavoidable, can be coped with.

　B) Children's anxiety has been enormously exaggerated.

　C) Children's anxiety can be eliminated with more parental care.

D) Anxiety, if properly controlled, may help children become mature.

Passage 3

On average, American kids aged 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 in more of such organized activities as soccer and ballet (芭蕾舞). 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 log hall that time. All in all, however, children's leisure time dropped from 40% of the day in 1981 to 25%.

"Children are affected by the same time crunch (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, children in both double-income and "male breadwinner" households spent 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 with their peers, but kids aged 3 to 12 spent only 12 hours a week engaging 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?