单选题Passage 6 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. 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 half 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 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 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?
单选题
By mentioning "the same time crunch" (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.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】词义题。根据上下文理解可知，引用Sandra Hofferth的话是作为例证，time crunch是指前面的“…children's leisure time dropped from 40% of the day in 1981 to 25%”。这与C项中“suffer from lack of leisure time”意思相符。第二段讨论的是父母与孩子交流的时间问题，并不是play问题，所以A不对；第二段只提到父母与孩子交流时间的情况，父母由于工作原因与孩子交流时间少，并非对孩子照顾不周，所以B也不对；本文是在讨论leisure time问题，而不是have trouble managing their time，所以D也不对。
单选题
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.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】细节题。根据第二段括号内那两句话(尤其是Nevertheless和In contrast)可知，作者只是部分赞同the reason given by Sandra Hofferth。这与B的意思相符。作者既不是完全赞同，也不是全盘否定，所以A、C不对；作者并非认为Sandra Hofferth的理由模糊不清，所以D也不对。
单选题
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.
单选题
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.
单选题
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.