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 took part in more of such organized activities as soccer and ballet. Involvement in sports, in particular, rose almost 50% from 1981 to 2004; boys now spend an average of four hours a week playing sports; girls spend 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 (危机) that affects their parents," says Sandra Hooferth, 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 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 disordered kids. "Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about himself," says T. Berry Brazeiton, professor at Harvard Medical School. Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to deal with their relationships with their peers(同辈), 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 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 time?
1．The author is concerned about the fact that American kids _______.
A．are involved less and less in household work
B．are spending more and more time watching TV
C．are engaged in more and more organized activities
D．are increasingly cared for by their working mothers
2．By mentioning "the same time crunch" Sandra Hofferth means _______.
A．children have little time to play with their parents
B．both parents and children suffer from lack of leisure time
C．both parents and children have trouble managing their time
D．children are not taken good care of by their working parents
3．According to the author a child develops better if _______.
A．he has plenty of time reading and studying
B．he is free to interact with his working parents
C．he is left to play with his peers in his own way
D．he has more time taking part in school activities
4．We can infer from the passage that _______.
A．most parents believe reading to be of benefit to children
B．efforts to get kids interested in reading have been fruitful
C．most children will turn to reading with TV sets switched off
D．organized activities improve children's intelligence
CBCA
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