阅读理解Which of the following statements is true?

阅读理解Computer people talk a lot about the need for other people to become "computer-literate", in other words, to learn to understand computers and what makes them tick. Not all experts agree, however, that this is a good idea. One pioneer, in particular, who disagrees is David Tebbutt, the founder of Computertown UK. Although many people see this as a successful attempt to bring people closer to the computer, David does not see it that way. He says that Computertown UK was formed for just the opposite reason, to bring computers to the people and make them "people-literate". David first got the idea when he visited one of America''s best-known computer "guru" figure, Bob Albrecht, in the small university town of Palo Alto in Northern California. Albrecht had started a project called Computertown USA in the local library, and the local children used to call round every Wednesday to borrow some time on the computers there, instead of borrowing library books, Albrecht was always on hand to answer any questions and to help the children discover about computers in their own way. Over here, in Britain, Computertowns have taken off in a big way, and there are now about 40 scattered over the country. David Tebbutt thinks they are most successful when tied to a computer club. He insists there is a vast and important difference between the two, although they complement each other. The clubs cater for the enthusiasts, with some computer knowledge already, who get together and eventually form an expert computer group. This frightens away non-experts, who are happier going to Computertowns where there are computers available for them to experiment on, with experts available to encourage them and answer any questions; they are not told what to do, they find out. David Tebbutt finds it interesting to see the two different approaches working side by side. The computer experts have to learn not to tell people about computers, but have to be able to explain the answers to the questions that people really want to know. In some Computertowns there are question sessions, rather like radio phone-ins, where the experts listen to a lot of questions and then try to work out some structure to answer them. People are not having to learn computer jargons, but the experts are having to translate computer mysteries into easily understood terms; the computers are becoming "people-literate".

阅读理解TEXT D Attachment Parenting is not Indulgent Parenting. Attachment parents do not "spoil" their children. Spoiling is done when a child is given everything that they want regardless of what they need and regardless of what is practical. Indulgent parents give toys for tantrums(发脾气), ice cream for breakfast. Attachment parents don't give their children everything that they want, they give their children everything that they need. Attachment parents believe that love and comfort are free and necessary. Not sweets or toys. Attachment Parenting is not "afraid of tears" parenting. Our kids cry. The difference is that we understand that tantrums and tears come from emotions and not manipulation. And our children understand this too, They cry and have tantrums sometimes, of course. But they do this because their emotions are so overwhelming that they need to get it out. They do not expect to be "rewarded" for their strong negative emotions; they simply expect that we will listen. We pick up our babies when they cry, and we respond to the tears of our older children because we believe firmly that comfort is free, love is free, and that when a child has need for comfort and love, it is our job to provide those things. We are not afraid of tears. We don't avoid them. We hold our children through them and teach them that when they are hurt or frustrated we are here to comfort them and help them work through their emotions. Attachment Parenting is not Clingy Parenting. I do not cling to my children, In feet, I'm pretty free-range. As soon as they can move they usually move away from me and let me set up a chase as they crawl, run, skip and hop on their merry way to explore the world, Sure, I carry them and hug them and chase them and kiss them and rock them and sleep with them, But this is not me following them everywhere and pulling them back to me. This is me being a home base. The "attachment" comes from their being allowed to attach to us, not from us attaching to them like parental leeches. Attachment Parenting is not Selfish Parenting. It is also not selfless parenting, We are not doing it for us, and we are not doing it to torment ourselves, Attachment parenting is not Helicopter Parenting. I don't hover, I supervise, I follow, I teach, I demonstrate, I explain. I don't slap curious hands away, I show how to do things safely, I let my child do the things that my child wishes to do, first with help and then with supervision and finally with trust, I don't insist that my 23 month old hold my hand when we walk on the sidewalk because I know that I can recall him with my voice because he trusts me to allow him to explore and he trusts me to explain when something is dangerous and to help him satisfy his curiosities safely. Most of the negative things that I hear about "attachment parents" are completely off-base and describe something that is entirely unlike Attachment Parenting. Attachment Parenting is child-centric and focuses on the needs of the child. Children need structure, rules, and boundaries. Attachment Parents simply believe that the child and the parent are allies, not adversaries, And that children are taught, not trained.

阅读理解Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

阅读理解To get a chocolate out of a box demands a considerable amount of unpacking: the box has to be taken out of its paper bag; the plastic wrapper has to be torn off, the lid opened and the packing paper inside removed; the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. Similarly a pot of face cream comes surrounded by layers of paper, waged inside a cardboard box, and the whole thing wrapped tightly in plastic. It is not only luxuries which are wrapped in this way, With so many goods now produced centrally and sold in supermarkets it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything from nails to potatoes that is not already done up in plastic or paper. The wrapper itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping accounts for much o the 31 pounds in weight of rubbish put out by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the wrapping on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is stupid. Packaging is using up scarce energy and raw materials and ruining all the time. One big firm reports that its glass, cans and paper have all gone up by 30 per cent in the last couple of months, while plastic has increased by 50 percent and all these prices are still rising. This seems as yet to have had surprisingly little effect on the packaging practice of manufacturers. Little research is being carried out on the costs in energy and materials of other possible types of packaging. Just how practical is it, for instance, for local authorities to save waste paper and re-manufacture it as egg-boxes? Would it be cheaper to plant another forest to produce new paper? One reason for the unorganized behavior of everyone concerned is probably the varied nature of the packaging industry. So many people, with so many different interests of their own, are affected that it is extremely hard to reach any agreement on what should be done. Also, packagers say that preserving forests and preventing waste is not their concerns.

阅读理解Taste is such a subjective matter that we don''t usually conduct preference tests for food. The most you can say about anyone'' s is that it'' s one person'' s opinion. But because the two big cola companies -- CocaCola and Pepsi Cola --are marketed so aggressively, we''re wondered how big a role taste preference actually plays in brand loyalty. We set up a taste test that challenged people who identified themselves as either CocaCola Or Pepsi fans: Find your brand in a blind tasting. We invited staff volunteers who had a strong liking for either C0caCola Classic or Pepsi, Diet Coke, or Diet Pepsi. These were people who thought they'' d have no trouble telling their brand from the other brand. We eventually located 19 regular cola drinkers and 27 diet cola drinkers. Then we fed them four unidentified samples of cola one at a time, regular colas for the one group, diet versions for the other. We asked them to tell us whether each sample was Coke or Pepsi; then we analyzed the records statistically to compare the participants'' choices with what mere guesswork could have accomplished. Getting ail four samples right was a tough test, but not too though, for people who believed they could recognize their brand. In the end, only 7 out of 19 regular cola drinkers correctly identified theft brand of choice in all four trials. The diet cola drinkers did a little worse -- only 7 out of 27 identified all four samples correctly. While both groups did better than chance would predict, nearly half the participants in each group made the wrong choice two or more times. Two people got all four samples wrong. Overall, half the participants did about as well on the last round of tasting as on the first, so fatigue, or taste burnout, was not a factor. Our preference test results suggest that only a few Pepsi participants and Coke fans may really be able to tell their favorite brand by taste and price.

阅读理解Hawaii''s native minority is demanding a greater degree of sovereignty over its own affairs. But much of the archipelago''s political establishment, which includes the White Americans who dominated until the second World War and people of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino origin, is opposed to the idea. The islands were annexed by the US in 1898 and since then Hawaii''s native peoples have fared worse than any of its other ethnic groups. They make up over 60 percent of the state''s homeless, suffer higher levels of unemployment and their life span is five years less than the average Hawaiians. They are the only major US native group without some degree of autonomy. But a sovereignty advisory committee set up by Hawaii''s first native governor, John Waihee, has given the natives'' cause a major boost by recommending that the Hawaiian natives decide by themselves whether to re-establish a sovereign Hawaiian nation. However, the Hawaiian natives are not united in their demands. Some just want greater autonomy within the state—as enjoyed by many American Indian natives over matters such as education. This is a position supported by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), a state agency set up in 1978 to represent the natives'' interests and which has now become the moderate face of the native sovereignty movement. More ambitious is the Ka Lahui group, which declared itself a new nation in 1987 and wants full, official independence from the US. But if Hawaiian natives are given greater autonomy, it is far from clear how many people this will apply to. The state authorities only count as native those people with more than 50 percent Hawaiian blood. Native demands are not just based on political grievances, though. They also want their claim on 660,000 hectares of Hawaiian crown land to be accepted. It is on this issue that native groups are facing most opposition from the state authorities. In 1993, the state government paid the OHA US $ 136 million in back rent on the crown land and many officials say that by accepting this payment the agency has given up its claims to legally own the land. The OHA has vigorously disputed this.

阅读理解We all know that the normal human daily cycle of activity is of some 7-8 hours'' sleep alternating with some 16-17 hours'' wakefulness and that, broadly speaking, the sleep normally coincides with the hours of darkness. Our present concern is with how easily and to what extent this cycle can be modified. The question is no mere academic one. The ease, for example, with which people can change from working in the day to working at night is a question of growing importance in industry where automation calls for round the-clock working of machines. It normally takes from five days to one week for a person to adapt to a reversed routine of sleep and wakefulness, sleeping during the day and working at night. Unfortunately, it is often the case in industry that shifts are changed every week, a person may work from 12 midnight to 8 a. m one week, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. the next, and 4p. m to 12 midnight the third and so on. This means that no sooner has he got used to one routine than he has to change to another, so that much of his time is spent neither working nor sleeping very efficiently. The only real solution appears to be handed over the night shift to a number of permanent night workers. An interesting study of the domestic life and health of night-shift workers was carried out by Brown in 1957. She found a high incidence of disturbed sleep and other disorders among those on alternating day and night shifts, but no abnormal occurrence of these phenomena among those on permanent night work. The latter system then appears to be the best long-term policy, but meanwhile something may be done to relieve the strains of alternate day and night work by selecting those people who can adapt most quickly to the changes of routine. One way of knowing when a person has adapted is by measuring his body temperature. People engaged in normal daytime work will have a high temperature during the hours of wakefulness and low one at night; when they change to night work the pattern will only gradually go back to match the new routine and the speed with which it does so parallels, broadly speaking, the adaptation of the body as a whole, particularly in terms of performance. Therefore, by taking body temperature at intervals of two hours throughout the period of wakefulness it can be seen how quickly a person can adapt to a reversed routine, and this could be used as basis for selection. So far, however, such a form of selection does not seem to have been applied in practice.

阅读理解The car industry suffered another setback yesterday when Lucas Electrical Company announced that many of its 12,000 workers at 15 factories in the West Midlands would be going on short time. It was expected that they would work a four-day week starting early next month. "There will be a requirement for some short-time working in selected product areas and the final details will be organized on a site-by-site basis," a Lucas spokesman said in Birmingham. The factories cover an area from Telford, Shropshire, to Solihull in the West Midlands. Many of those involved are women and the products include alternators, batteries and headlamps. For many families the wife has been the sole earner in recent months. The Lucas announcement is expected to have an aggravated effect on the region'' s rapidly declining economy. The company spokesman said that not all the 12,000 would be affected; about 20 percent of the staff would not be affected at all. The announcement comes after BL'' s production cuts in the Austin-Rover division with a two-week extended holiday for 8,000 workers because of the sluggish market. Dunlop in Birmingham has made a similar decision. Lucas said that it was also because of reductions in the schedules of other customers in the car industry. It as emphasized that it was temporary and its duration would depend on how many cars were sold in the coming months.

阅读理解I''m usually fairly skeptical about any research that concludes that people are either happier or unhappier or more or less certain of themselves than they were 50 years ago. While any of these statements might be true, they are practically impossible to prove scientifically. Still, I was struck by a report which concluded that today''s children are significantly more anxious than children in the 1950s. In fact, the analysis showed, normal children aged 9 to 17 exhibit a higher level of anxiety today than children who were treated for mental illness 50 years ago. Why are America''s kids so stressed? The report cites two main causes: increasing physical isolation-- brought on by high divorce rates and less involvement in community, among other things--and a growing perception that the world is a more dangerous place. Given that we can'' t turn the clock back, adults can still do plenty to help the next generation cope. At the top of the list is nurturing a better appreciation of the limits of individualism. No child is an island. Strengthening social ties helps build communities and protect individuals against stress. To help kids build stronger connections with others, you can pull the plug on TVs and computers. Your family will thank you latex, They will have more time for face-to-face relationships, and they will get more sleep. Limit the amount of virtual violence your children are exposed to. It''s not just video games and movies; children see a lot of murder and crime on the local news. Keep your expectations for your children reasonable. Many highly successful people never attended Harvard or Yale. Make exercise part of your daily routine. It will help you cope with your own anxieties and provide a good model for your kids. Sometimes anxiety is unavoidable. But it doesn''t have to ruin your life.

阅读理解Traditionally, the woman has held a low position in marriage partnerships. While her husband went his way she had to wash, stitch and sew. Today the move is to liberate the woman, which may in the end strengthen the marriage union. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to friendship in marriage is the amount a couple usually see of each other. Friendship in its usual sense is not tested by the strain of daily, year-long cohabitation. Couples need to take up separate interests (and friendship) as well as mutually shared ones, if they are not to get used to the more attractive elements of each other''s personalities. Married couples are likely to exert themselves for guests—being amusing, discussing with passion and point—and then to fall into dull exhausted silence when the guests have gone. As in all friendship, a husband and a wife must try to interest each other, and to spend sufficient time sharing absorbing activities to give them continuing common interests. But at the same time they must spend enough time on separate interests with separate people to preserve and develop their separate personalities and keep their relationship fresh. For too many highly intelligent working women, home represents chore obligations, because the husband only tolerates her work and does not participate in household chores. For too many highly intelligent working men, home represents dullness and complaints—from an over-dependent wife who will not gather courage to make her own life. In such an atmosphere, the partners grow further and further apart, both love and liking disappearing. For too many couples with children, the children are allowed to command all time and attention, allowing the couple no time to develop liking and friendship, as well as love, allotting them exclusive parental roles.

阅读理解Professor Smith recently persuaded 35 people, 23 of them women, to keep a diary of all their absentminded actions for a fortnight. When he came to analyze their embarrassing lapses in a scientific report, he was surprised to find that nearly all of them fell into a few groupings. Nor did the lapses appear to be entirely random. One of the women, for instance, on leaving her house for work one morning threw her dog her earrings and tried to fix a dog biscuit on her ear. "The explanation for this is that the brain is like a computer," explains the professor. "People program themselves to do certain activities regularly. It was the woman''s custom every morning to throw her dog two biscuits and then put on her earrings. But somehow the action got reversed in the program." About one in twenty of the incidents the volunteers reported were these "program assembly failures." Altogether the volunteers logged 433 unintentional actions that they found themselves doing--an average of twelve each. There appear to be peak periods in the day when we are at our zaniest, These are two hours some time between eight a.m. and noon, between four and six p.m. with a smaller peak between eight and ten p.m. "Among men the peak seems to be when a changeover in brain ''programs'' occurs, as for instance between going to and from work." Women on average reported slightly more lapses--12.5 compared with 10.9 for men--probably because they were more reliable reporters. A startling finding of the research is that the absent-minded activity is a hazard of doing things in which we are skilled. Normally, you would expect that skill reduces the number of errors we make. But trying to avoid silly slips by concentrating more could make things a lot worse——even dangerous.

阅读理解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 a-long, then stopped; presently it began to move forward again. Another up-train passed them, though with less vehemence than the first one. The train gathered speed again. At that moment another train, also on a downline, 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 starting 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."

阅读理解My bones have been aching again, as they often do in humid weather. They ache like history: things long done with, that still remain as pain. When the ache is bad enough it keeps me from sleeping. Every night I yearn for sleep, I strive for it; yet it flutters on ahead of me like a curtain. There are sleeping pills, of course, but the doctor has warned me against them. Last night, after what seemed hours of damp turmoil, I got up and crept slipperless down the stairs, feeling my way in the faint street light that came through the window. Once safely arrived at the bottom, I walked into the kitchen and looked around in the refrigerator. There was nothing much I wanted to eat: the remains of a bunch of celery, a blue-tinged heel of bread, a lemon going soft. I''ve fallen into the habits of the solitary; my meals are snatched and random. Furtive snacks, furtive treats and picnics. I made do with some peanut butter, scooped directly from the jar with a forefinger: why dirty a spoon? Standing there with the jar in one hand and my finger in my mouth, I had the feeling that someone was about to walk into the room—some other woman, the unseen, valid owner—and ask me what in hell I was doing in her kitchen. I''ve had it before, the sense that even in the course of my most legitimate and daily actions—peeling a banana, brushing my teeth—I am trespassing. At night the house was more than ever like a stranger''s. I wandered through the front room, the dining room, the parlour, hand on the wall for balance. My various possessions were floating in their own pools of shadow, denying my ownership of them. I looked them over with a burglar''s eye, deciding what might be worth the risk of stealing, what on the other hand I would leave behind. Robbers would take the obvious things—the silver teapot that was my grandmother''s, perhaps the hand-painted china. The television set. Nothing I really want.

阅读理解TEXT A Inundated by more information than we can possibly hold in our head, we're increasingly handing off the job of remembering to search engines and smart phones. Google is even reportedly working on eyeglasses that could one day recognize faces and supply details about whoever you're looking at. But new research shows that outsourcing our memory – and expecting that information will be continually and instantaneously available --is changing our cognitive habits. Research conducted by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, has identified three new realities about how we process information in the Internet age. First, her experiments showed that when we don't know the answer to a question, we now think about where we can find the nearest Web connection instead of the subject of the question itself. A second revelation is that when we expect to be able to find information again later on, we don't remember it as well as when we think it might become unavailable. And then there is the researchers' final observation: the expectation that we'll he able to locate inf orination down the line leads us to form a memory not of the fact itself but of where we'II be able to find it. But this handoff comes with a downside. Skills like critical thinking and analysis must develop in the context of facts: we need something to think and reason about, after all. And these facts can't be Googled as we go;they need to be stored in the original hard drive, our long-term memory. Especially in the case of children, "factual knowledge must precede skill," says Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology, at the University of Virginia -- meaning that the days of drilling the multiplication table and memorizing the names of the Presidents aren't over quite yet. Adults, too, need to recruit a supply of stored knowledge in order to situate and evaluate new information they encounter. You can't Google context. Last, there's the possibility, increasingly terrifying to contemplate, that our machines fail us. As Sparrow puts it, "The experience of losing our Internet connection becomes more and more like losing a friend." If you're going to keep your memory on your smart phone, better make sure it's fully charged.

阅读理解There are superstitions attached to numbers; even those ancient Greeks believed that all numbers and their multiples had some mystical significance. Those numbers between 1 and 13 were in particular to have a powerful influence over the affairs of men. For example, it is commonly said that luck, good or bad, comes in threes; if an accident happens, two more of the same kind may be expected soon afterwards. The arrival of a letter will be followed by two others within a certain period. Another belief involving the number three has it that it is unlucky to light three cigarettes from the one match. If this happens, the bad luck that goes with the deed falls upon the person whose cigarette was the last to be lit. The ill-omen linked to the lighting of three things from one match or candle goes back to at least the 17th century and probably earlier. It was believed that three candles alight at the same time would be sure to bring bad luck; one, two, or four, were permissible, but never just three. Seven was another significant number, usually regarded as a bringer of good luck. The ancient astrologers believed that the universe was governed by seven planets; students of Shakespeare will recall that the life of man was divided into seven ages. Seven horseshoes nailed to a house will protect it from all evil. Nine is usually thought of as a lucky number because it is the product of three times three. It was much used by the Anglo Saxons in their charms for healing. Another belief was that great changes occurred every 7th and 9th of a man''s life. Consequently, the age of 63 (the product of nine and seven) was thought to be a very perilous time for him. If he survived his 63rd year he might hope to live to a ripe old age. Thirteen, as we well know, is regarded with great awe and fear. The common belief is that this derives from the fact that there were 13 people at Christ''s Last Supper. This being the eve of his betrayal, it is not difficult to understand the significance given to the number by the early Christians. In more modern times 13 is an especially unlucky number of a dinner party, for example. Hotels will avoid numbering a floor the 13th; the progression is from 12 to 14, and no room is given the number 13. Many home owners will use 12 1/2 instead of 13 as their house number. Yet oddly enough, to be born on the 13th of the month is not regarded with any fear at all, which just shows how irrational we are in our superstitious beliefs.

阅读理解It often happens that a number of applicants with almost identical qualifications and experience all apply for the same position. In their educational background, special skills and work experience, there is little, if anything, to choose between half a dozen candidates. How then does the employer make a choice? Usually on the basis of an interview. There are many arguments for and against the interview as a selection procedure. The main argument against it is that it results in a wholly subjective decision. As often as not, employers do not choose the best candidate, they choose the candidate who makes a good first impression on them. Some employers, of course, reply to this argument by saying that they have become so experienced in interviewing staff that they are able to make a sound assessment of each candidate''s likely performance. The main argument in favour of the interview—and it is, perhaps, a good argument—is that an employer is concerned not only with a candidate''s ability, but with the suitability of his or her personality for the particular work situation. Many employers, for example, will overlook occasional inefficiencies from their secretary provided she has a pleasant personality. It is perhaps true to say, therefore, that the real purpose of an interview is not to assess the assessable aspects of each candidate but to make a guess at the more intangible things, such as personality, character and social ability. Unfortunately, both for the employers and applicants for jobs, there are many people of great ability who simply do not interview well. There are also, of course, people who interview extremely well, but are later found to be very unsatisfactory employees. Candidates who interview well tend to be quietly confident, but never boastful; direct and straightforward in their questions and answers; cheerful and friendly, but never over-familiar; and sincerely enthusiastic and optimistic. Candidates who interview badly tend to be at either end of the spectrum of human behaviour. They are either very shy or over-confident. They show either a lack of enthusiasm or an excess of it. They either talk too little or never stop talking. They are either over-polite or rudely abrupt.

阅读理解Massive changes in all of the world''s deeply cherished sporting habits are underway. Whether it''s one of London''s parks full of people playing softball, and Russians taking up rugby, or the Superbowl rivaling the British Football Cup Final as a televised spectator event in Britain, the patterns of players and spectators are changing beyond recognition. We are witnessing a globalization of our sporting culture. That annual bicycle race, the Tour de France, much loved by the French, is a good case in point. Just a few years back it was a strictly continental affair with France, Belgium and Holland, Spain and Italy taking part in. But in recent years it has been dominated by Colombian mountain climbers, and American and Irish riders. The people who really matter welcome the shift toward globalization. Peugeot, Michelin and Panasonic are multi-national corporations that want worldwide returns for the millions they invest in teams. So it does them literally a world of good to see this unofficial world championship become just that. This is undoubtedly an economic-based revolution we are witnessing here, one made possible by communications technology, but made to happen because of marketing considerations. Sell the game and you can sell Coca Cola or Budweiser as well. The skillful way in which American football has been sold to Europe is a good example of how all sports will develop. The aim of course is not really to spread the sport for its own sake, but to increase the number of people interested in the major money-making events. The economics of the Superbowl are already astronomical. With seats at US $125, gate receipts alone were a staggering $10,000,000. The most important statistic of the day, however, was the $ 10,000,000 in TV advertising fees. Imagine how much that becomes when the eyes of the world are watching. So it came as a terrible shock, but not really as a surprise, to learn that some people are now suggesting that soccer change from being a game of two 45-minute halves, to one of four 25-minute quarters. The idea is unashamedly to capture more advertising revenue, without giving any thought for the integrity of a sport which relies for its essence on the flowing nature of the action. Moreover, as sports expand into world markets, and as our choice of sports as consumers also grows, we will demand to see them played at a higher and higher level. In boxing we have already seen numerous, dubious world title categories because people will not pay to see anything less than a "World Title" fight, and this means that the title fights have to be held in different countries around the world!

阅读理解I am one of the many city people who are always saying that given the choice we would prefer to live in the country away from the dirt and noise of a large city. I have managed to convince myself that if it weren''t for my job I would immediately head out for the open spaces and go back to nature in some sleepy village buried in the country. But how realistic is the dream? Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population live in massive tower blocks, noisy, dirty and impersonal. The sense of belonging to a community tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. All you can see from your window is sky, or other blocks of flats. Children become aggressive and nervous—cooped up at home all day, with nowhere to play; their mothers feel isolated from the rest of the world. Strangely enough, whereas in the past the inhabitants of one street all knew each other, nowadays people on the same floor in tower blocks don''t even say hello to each other. Country life, on the other hand, differs from this kind of isolated existence in that a sense of community generally binds the inhabitants of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But country life has disadvantages too. While it is true that you may be among friends in a village, it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. There''s little possibility of going to a new show or the latest movie. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on an expedition to the nearest large town. The city-dweller who leaves for the country is often oppressed by a sense of unbearable stillness and quiet. What, then, is the answer? The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off; the city breeds a feeling of isolation, and constant noise batters the senses. But one of its main advantages is that you are at the centre of things, and that life doesn''t come to an end at half-past nine at night. Some people have found (or rather bought) a compromise between the two: they have expressed their preference for the "quiet life" by leaving the suburbs and moving to villages within commuting distance of large cities. They generally have about as much sensitivity as the plastic flowers they leave behind—they are polluted with strange ideas a-bout change and improvement which they force on to the unwilling original inhabitants of the villages. What then of my dreams of leaning on a cottage gate and murmuring "morning" to the locals as they pass by. I''m keen on the idea, but you see there''s my cat, Toby. I''m not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those hearty males down the farm? No, he would rather have the electric imitation-coal fire any evening.

阅读理解Some people believe that imitational sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: that international contests encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic games have done little to support the view that sports encourages international brotherhood. Not only, was there the tragic incident involving the murder of athletes, but the Games were also ruined by lesser incidents caused principally by minor national contests. One country received its second-place medals with visible indignation after the hockey(曲棍球) final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decisions. They were convinced that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents'' victory was unfair. Their manager was in a rage when he said:" This wasn''t hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished." The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension of the team for at least three years." The American basketball team announced that they would not yield first place to Russia, after a disputable end to their contest. The game had ended in disturbance. It was thought at first that the United States had won, by a single point, but it was announced that there were three seconds still to play. A Russian player then threw the ball from one end of the court to the other, and another player popped it into the basket. It was the first time the USA had ever lost an Olympic basketball match. An appeal jury debated the matter for four and a half hours before announcing that the result would stand. The American players then voted not to receive the silver medals. Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism.