A

About six years ago I was eating lunch in a restaurant in New York City when a woman and a young boy sat down at the next table. I couldn’t help overhearing parts of their conversation. At one point the woman asked,“So, how have you been?”And the boy who could not have been more than seven or eight years old replied,“Frankly, I’ve been feeling a little depressed lately.”

This incident stuck in my mind because it strengthened my growing belief that children are changing. As far as I can remember, my friends and I didn’t find out we were“depressed”until we were in high school.

The evidence of a change in children has increased steadily in recent years. Children don’t seem childlike any more. Children speak more like adults, dress more like adults and behave more like adults than they used to.

Whether this is good or bad is difficult to say, but it certainly is different. Childhood as it once was no longer exists. Why?

Human development is based not only on born biological states, but also on patterns of access to social knowledge. Movement from one social role to another usually involves learning the secrets of the new situation. Children have always been taught adult secrets, but slowly and in stages: traditionally, we tell sixth graders things we keep hidden from fifth graders.

In the last 30 years, however, a secret-revelation machine has been fixed in 98 percent of American homes. It is called television. Television passes information, indiscriminately, to all viewers alike, whether they are children or adults. Unable to resist the temptation, many children turn their attention from printed texts to the less challenging, more vivid moving pictures.

Communication through print, as a matter of fact, allows for a great deal of control over the social information to which children have access. Reading and writing involve a complex code of symbols that must be memorized and practised. Children must read simple books before they can read complex materials.

1.Traditionally, a child is supposed to learn about the adult world _________ .

A. through touch with society               B. gradually and under guidance

C. naturally and by biological instinct        D. through exposure to social information

2.In the author’s opinion, the phenomenon that today’s children seem adultlike is caused by _____.

A. the widespread influence of television              B. the poor arrangement of teaching content

C. the fast step of human intellectual development           D. the constantly rising standard of living

3.Why is the author in favor of communication through print for children?

A. It enables children to gain more social information.

B. It develops children’s interest in reading and writing.

C. It helps children to memorize and practise more.

D. It can control what children are to learn.