Parents often think that time spent with their kids will gradually decrease in adolescence. But a new study suggests that while teens try to avoid spending a lot of time together with their parents, private parent-child meetings may actually increase in their early adolescent years. And that may raise a teenager's self-esteem and social confidence, especially if it is the time that spent with Dad, the researchers added. The researchers created a long-term study in which they invited families in 16 school districts in central Pennsylvania to participate. In each family, a teenager, a younger sibling , their mother and their father were interviewed at home and then asked about their activities and self-worth five times over a period of seven years. The study authors were surprised to discover that when fathers spent more time alone with their teenagers, the kids reported they felt better about themselves. Something about the father's role in the family seemed to improve self-esteem among the teenagers in the study, said study co-author Susan McHale, a professor of human development at Pennsylvania State University. "Time with Dad often involves joking, teasing, and other playful interactions. Fathers, compared to mothers, were more involved in leisure activities and had more peer-like interactions with their children, which is crucial for youth social development," the study showed. But Marta Flaum, a psychologist in Chappaqua, New York, said, "How these findings reflect the real world is a real question. The sample in the study is so small and so unrepresentative of most families in the country today that I'm not sure how much we can generalize from it. In my community in Westchester County, I don't see parents and teenagers spend much time together at all. Parents are often working so hard and have less time to be together with their kids." However, Flaum encourages parents to make time for their kids no matter how much work they have to do. "Research like this reminds us of how important _ is. The time we... Where is the passage most likely to be taken from? A) Science magazine. B) A news report. C) A research plan. D) An advertisement.
B
When school was out, I hurried to find my sister and get out of the schoolyard before seeing anybody in my class. But Barbara and her friends had beaten us to the playground entrance and they seemed to be waiting for us. Barbara said, "So now you' re in the A class. " She sounded impressed. "What' s the A class? "I asked. Everybody made superior yet faintly envious giggling sounds. "Well, why did you think the teacher moved you to the front of the room, Dopey? Didn' t you know you were in the C class before, way in the back of the room? " Of course I hadn' t known. The Wenatchee fifth grade was bigger than my whole school which had been in North Dakota, and the idea of subdivisions within a grade had never occurred to me. The subdividing for the first marking period had been done before I came to the school, and I had never, in the six weeks I' d been there, talked to anyone long enough to find out about the A, B, and C classes. I still could not understand why that had made such a difference to Barbara and her friends. I didn' t yet know that it was shameful and dirty to be a transient laborer and ridiculous to be from North Dakota. I thought living in a tent was more fun than living in a house. I didn' t know that we were gypsies, really (how that thought would have excited me then! ), and that we were regarded with the suspicion felt by those who plant toward those who do not plant. It didn' t occur to me that we were all looked upon as one more of the untrustworthy natural phenomena, drifting here and there like mists or winds, I didn' t know that I was the only child who had camped on the Baumann' s land ever to get out of the C class. I didn' t know that school administrators and civic leaders held conferences to talk about the problem of transient laborers. I only knew that for two happy days I walked to school with Barbara and her friends, played hopscotch and jumped rope with them at class intervals, and was even invited into the house for some ginger ale--a strange drink I had... The basic reason why the people in the community distrusted the transient workers was that the transient workers _ . A) tended to be lawbreakers B) were temporary residents C) were afraid of strangers D) had little schooling
B
(Q).
If you are sending a text, watching the TV or listening to the radio, you may want to stop and give this your full attention. Multi-tasking shrinks the brain, research suggests. A study found that men and women who frequently used several types of technology at the same time had less grey matter in a key part of the brain. University of Sussex researchers said, "Simultaneously using mobile phones, laptops and other media devices could be changing the structure of our brains." The finding follows research which has linked multi-tasking with a shortened attention span, depression, anxiety and lower grades at school. The researchers began by asking 75 healthy men and women how often they divided their attention between different types of technology. This could mean sending a text message while listening to music and checking email, or speaking on the phone while watching TV and surfing the web. The volunteers were then given brain scans which showed they had less grey matter in a region called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The findings held even when differences in personality were taken into account. The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, is the first to make a link between multi-tasking and the structure of the brain. Researcher Kep Kee Loh said, "Media multi-tasking is becoming more common in our lives today and there is increasing concern about its impacts on our cognition and social-emotional well-being." He added that more research is needed to prove that multi-tasking shrinks the brain. This is because it is also possible that people with less grey matter in the ACC are more drawn to using lots of small devices simultaneously. Scientists have previously demonstrated brain structure can be changed on prolonged exposure to new environments and experience. Other studies have shown that training -- such as learning to juggle or taxi drivers learning the map of London -- can increase grey-matter densities in certain parts. Experts have also warned of the harmful impact technology can have on... According to Kep Kee Loh, _ . A) the link between multi-tasking and brain shrinkage needs further research B) people with less grey matter in the ACC are more attracted to multi-tasking C) multi-tasking has harmful impacts on our cognition and social-emotional well-being D) multi-tasking leads to a shortened attention span, depression, anxiety and lower grades
(A).
A