A. regarded reading as a leisure activity

B. were compelled to read

C. were less occupied and could afford more time for reading

D. looked on reading as their only recreation

5. What does the writer really try to tell us in this passage?

A. The printed word has become an indispensable part of our life.

B. Nowadays fewer and fewer people read for pleasure.

C. Television can never take the place of books.

D. People are more educated than ever before.

6

A popularly-held view has it that “oppprtunity to learn” is the key to educational success, i.e. , the more time children spend on a subject, the better they do at it. Alas, the evidence so far is not encouraging for this theory. According to a recent study, there seens little correlation between time spent on a subject and performance of pupils in tests. Young Austrians spend exceptionally long hours on math and science lessons; for them, it pays off in higher test scores. But so do New Zealand’s teenagers and they do not do any better than, say, Norwegians, who spend an unusually short time on lessons in both subjects. Next and of particular interest to cash-strapped governments there appears to be little evidence to support the argument, often heard from teachers’unions, that the main cause of educational underachievement is underfunding. Low-spending countries such as South Korea and the Czech Republic are at the top. High-spenders such as America and Denmark do much worse. Obviously, there are dozens of reasons other than spending why one country does well, another badly, but the success of the low-spending Czechs and Koreans does show that spending more on schools is not a prerequisite for improving standards.