Television’s contribution to family life

Television’s contribution to family life

Đề bài: Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

Television’s contribution to family life in the United States has been an equivocal one. For while is has, indeed, kept the members of the family from dispersing, it has not served to bring them together. By dominating the time families spend together, it destroys the special quality that distinguishes one family from another, a quality that depends to a great extent on what a family does, what special rituals, games, recurrent jokes, familiar songs, and shared activities it accumulates.

“Like the sorcerer of old,” writes Urie Bronfenbrenner, “the television set casts its magic spell, freezing speech and action, turning the living into silent statues so long as the behavior it produces – although there is danger there – as in the behavior it prevents: the talks, games, the family festivities, and arguments through which much of the child’s leaning takes place and though which character is formed. Turning on the television set can turn off the process that transform children into people.”

Of course, families today still do special things together at times: go camping in the summer, go to the zoo on a nice Sunday, take various trips and expeditions. But the ordinary daily life together is diminished – that sitting around at the dinner table, that spontaneous taking up of an activity, those little games invented by children on the spur of the moment when there is nothing else to do, the scribbling, the chatting, the quarreling, all the things that form the fabric of a family, that define a childhood.

Instead, the children have their schedule of television programs and bedtime, and the parents have their peaceful dinner together. But surely the needs of adults are being better met than the needs of children, who are effectively shunted away and rendered untroublesome.

If the family does not accumulate its backlog of shared experiences, shared everyday experiences that occur and recur and change and develop, then it is not likely to survive as anything other than a caretaking institution.

Television’s contribution to family life in the United States has been an equivocal one. For while is has, indeed, kept the members of the family from dispersing, it has not served to bring them together. By dominating the time families spend together, it destroys the special quality that distinguishes one family from another, a quality that depends to a great extent on what a family does, what special rituals, games, recurrent jokes, familiar songs, and shared activities it accumulates.

“Like the sorcerer of old,” writes Urie Bronfenbrenner, “the television set casts its magic spell, freezing speech and action, turning the living into silent statues so long as the behavior it produces – although there is danger there – as in the behavior it prevents: the talks, games, the family festivities, and arguments through which much of the child’s leaning takes place and though which character is formed. Turning on the television set can turn off the process that transform children into people.”

Of course, families today still do special things together at times: go camping in the summer, go to the zoo on a nice Sunday, take various trips and expeditions. But the ordinary daily life together is diminished – that sitting around at the dinner table, that spontaneous taking up of an activity, those little games invented by children on the spur of the moment when there is nothing else to do, the scribbling, the chatting, the quarreling, all the things that form the fabric of a family, that define a childhood.

Instead, the children have their schedule of television programs and bedtime, and the parents have their peaceful dinner together. But surely the needs of adults are being better met than the needs of children, who are effectively shunted away and rendered untroublesome.

If the family does not accumulate its backlog of shared experiences, shared everyday experiences that occur and recur and change and develop, then it is not likely to survive as anything other than a caretaking institution.

Câu 1: Which of the following best represents the author’s argument in the passage?

A. Television has negative effects on family life.

B. Television has advantages and disadvantages for children.

C. Television should be more educational.

D. Television teaches children to be violent.

Câu 2: The word it in bold in paragraph 1 refers to _________.

A. dominating                     

B. time                             

C. television                      

D. quality

Câu 3: According to the passage, one of the television’s effects on family life in the United States is _____________

A. to build a close-knit family.

B. to enhance the special quality of the family.

C. to diminish the ordinary daily life of the family.

D. to encourage sense of responsibility in each family.

Câu 4: The word freezing in bold in the passage is closest in meaning to ___________.

A. controlling                      

B. halting                         

C. dramatizing                  

D. encouraging

Câu 5: Urie Bronfenbrenner compares the television set to __________.

A. a statue                           

B. an educator                 

C. a family member          

D. a magician

Câu 6: Which of the following would be an example of what the author means by a special thing that families do?

A. Going on vacation in the summertime                 

B. Playing cards together in the evening         

C. Reading to the children at bedtime                    

D. Talking to each other

Câu 7: The thing that “form in the fabric of a family” in paragraph 3 are __________.

A.  special things                   

B. ordinary things           

C. television programs      

D. children

Câu 8: The word it refers to __________.

A. the television                  

B. the family                   

C. its backlog                    

D. an institution

Câu 9: According to the author, what distinguishes one family from another?

A. Doing ordinary things together                            

B. Watching television together         

C. Celebrating holidays together                             

D. Living together

Câu 10: According to the passage, how does television destroy the special quality of the family?

A. By showing horror films

B. By dominating the time families spend together

C. By threatening our health, safety, finances and relationships

D. By reporting scarce breaking news

Lời giải:

Đáp án:

Giải thích:

1. Toàn bộ bài viết nói về những tác động tiêu cực của TV lên đời sống gia đình.

2. “By dominating the time families spend together, it destroys the special quality that distinguishes one family from another,…” (Bằng việc chi phối thời gian các gia đình dành để bên nhau, TV xoá bỏ những đặc tính khác biệt của gia đình này so với gia đình khác,…)

3. “But the ordinary daily life together is diminished…” (Nhưng đời sống hằng ngày xưa kia bị thu hẹp…)

4. freeze = halt (tạm dừng)

5. “the television set casts its magic spell …” (TV phù phép ma thuật… => ảo thuật gia)

6. “Of course, families today still do special things together at times: go camping in the summer,…” (Dĩ nhiên, các gia đình ngày nay thỉnh thoảng vẫn làm những điều đặc biệt cùng nhau: đi cắm trại ngày hè…)

7. “But the ordinary daily life together is diminished – that sitting around at the dinner table, that spontaneous taking up of an activity, those little games invented by children on the spur of the moment when there is nothing else to do, the scribbling, the chatting, the quarreling, all the things that form the fabric of a family, that define a childhood.”  (Nhưng cuộc sống bình thường hàng ngày cùng nhau bị giảm bớt - đó là việc ngồi quây quần bên bàn ăn tối, việc bắt đầu một hoạt động một cách tự phát, những trò chơi nhỏ do trẻ em nghĩ ra trong lúc không có việc gì khác để làm, việc viết nguệch ngoạc, trò chuyện. , những cuộc cãi vã, tất cả những thứ tạo nên kết cấu của một gia đình, những thứ tạo nên tuổi thơ)

8. “If the family does not accumulate its backlog of shared experiences, shared everyday experiences that occur and recur and change and develop, then it is not likely to survive as anything other than a caretaking institution.” (Nếu gia đình không tích luỹ được những kinh nghiệm hằng ngày chia sẻ cùng nhau, những điều xảy ra, tái diễn, thay đổi và phát triển, thì gia đình sẽ tồn tại không khác gì một trung tâm chăm sóc.)

9. “By dominating the time families spend together, it destroys the special quality that distinguishes one family from another, a quality that depends to a great extent on what a family does, …” (Bằng cách chi phối thời gian các gia đình dành để bên nhau, TV xoá bỏ những đặc tính khiến gia đình này khác biệt so với gia đình khác, cái đặc tính phụ thuộc rất lớn vào điều mà các gia đình làm, …)

10. “By dominating the time families spend together, it destroys the special quality…” (Bằng cách chi phối thời gian gia đình dành cho nhau, nó sẽ phá hủy phẩm chất đặc biệt…)