On average, American kids ages 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 participated in more of such organized activities as soccer and ballet (芭蕾舞). Involvement in sports, in particular, rose almost 50% from 1981 to 1997: boys now spend an average of four hours a week playing sports; girls log haft 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 Hofferth, 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 interacting with their parents, 19 hours and 22 hours respectively. In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mo
A. quite convincing
B. partially true
C. totally groundless
D. rather confusing
[A] THINGS have not been going well for Sony lately. Last month senior executives at the Japanese electronics giant issued an unprecedented apology after discovering that 9.6m laptop batteries, supplied to other computer-makers, were faulty and would have to be recalled at a cost of $436m. Sony’s Blue-ray high-definition technology, launched this summer, has suffered from delays and component shortages. "They really need some good news," says Paul Jackson of Forrester, a consultancy.
[B] In gaming, Sony faces far stronger competition than it did when it launched the PlayStation 2 in 2000. The PS2 went on to sell over 100m units, giving Sony 70% of the market. But gaming is a cyclical business, and success in one round does not guarantee success in the next. Microsoft has already sold over 6m of its Xbox 360 consoles, launched a year ago, and expects to have sold 10m by the end of 2006. Manufacturing problems delayed the PS3’s launch from May and mean
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