I. Use of English (Cloze)

    Television is different from other media in some important ways. The television set is___1___ in the average American home more than six and a half hours a day. Children are born into a new symbolic environment and grow up ___2___ thousands of stories told by television each year. There is no longer any need to go  ___3___ of the home—to church, to school—or to learn to read in order to encounter the broader culture. The ritualistic ___4____ of the activity and the quantity of time children and adolescents spend watching television makes it a historically unprecedented phenomenon. We assume that there might be ___5___ unprecedented consequences.

    Some claim that television has created a brighter, more ____6___ generation, with greater knowledge of the people and the cultures of the world. Some ___7___ television can stimulate reading, increase vocabulary, expand general knowledge, and help ____8___ critical faculties.

    Many who view the medium’s effects as ___9____ tend to be far more vocal, outspoken, and adamant（坚定不移的） about their position. To support their case, they are likely to ____10____ research studies or reports of those studies, which often exaggerate or sensationalize the data. Some of these critics point to ___11___ social developments, such as the steady decline in school performance and the ___12___ of millions of functionally illiterate adults. Critics note that the longer we live with television, the ___13___ these situations become. Similarly, veteran teachers complain about pupils with short attention spans, ___14___ frames of reference seem entirely determined by television. There is no potential source of these ills as easy to ___15___ for the blame as television.    (267 words)

 1. A. nearby   B. open        C. up      D. on
 2. A. watching   B. digesting          C. absorbing       D. hearing
 3. A. outdoor           B. exterior              C. outside        D. external
 4. A. essence           B. nature             C. character       D. feature
 5. A. fairly            B. equally             C. similarly        D. evenly
 6. A. aware             B. awake          C. conscious       D. knowing