Directions: You are expected to study this section in class. Don’t preview.

Word Pretest

For each italicized word or expression, choose the best meaning below.

1. Sickness was rampant in the area.
A. serious B. common C. widespread
2. If we don’t keep our promises, we’ll lose credibility with the public.
A. hope B. credit C. believability
3. Poverty had spawned numerous religious movements.
A. created B. increased C. stopped
4. Children like to wear bizarre costumes at Halloween.
A. festival B. beautiful C. strange
5. That was the most exhilarating experience he has ever had.
A. exciting B. dull C. strange
6. The oppression ignited people’s hatred.
A. set fire on B. caused C. calmed down
7. He disavowed the rumors that he would run for mayor.
A. swore B. admitted C. denied
8. The government is reining in public expenditure.
A. increasing B. stopping C. restraining
9. The programs are too highbrow, hopelessly beyond the intelligence of the mass.
A. difficult B. cultured D. dull
10. He could hardly contain his eagerness to leave.
A. include B. express C. control

Key : 1. C 2. C 3. A 4. C 5. A 6. B 7. C 8. C 9. B 10. C

Text A

1. Background Information
2. Text:
　　　　　　　　 Daytime TV Talk Shows ---- What’s Their Appeal?

　　It’s no secret that television has become the public interest for Americans, the one central source of information and public debate on matters of national import. 98 percent of us live in homes in which the TV set is on seven-and-a-half hours a day; 67 percent of us get all our information from TV. This is not a matter of laziness, stupidity, or even the seductive power of the tube. It is a tragic fact that illiteracy ---- actual and functional ---- is rampant. It is difficult if not impossible for more of us to read, even when we try. Television, in such cases, is a necessary.
　　In the early 1950s, when TV emerged as the dominant cultural form, it presented to us a middle-aged, middle-class, white-male image of authority. Network prime time was TV, and what is gave us, from dusk to bedtime, was a series of white middle-class fathers assuring us night after night that they knew best, that all was in good hands, that we needn’t worry about the many scary, confusing changes brought by postwar capitalism.
　　Ever since the 1960s, however, this has been harder and harder to manage. The breakdown of the family, the crises in education, religion, and the credibility of the state, the growing visibility and vocality of minority groups and ideas ---- all these took the country and media by storm. The most recent dramatic proof of the impact of social crises and the progressive movements they spawned is the amazing media talks about “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” on campuses.
　　The primary goal of talk shows as a television form is to attract curious audiences and sell them products, not revolution. Thus the circuslike atmosphere and the need for bizarre and giggle-inducing topics and participants.
　　Still, the influence of feminism and other social and cultural movements is there and the result is more interesting and contradictory because of it. Donahue, Oprah, and pals have reproduced the experience of being in a group and sharing deeply personal and significant matters went others in the same boat.
　　One reason these shows appeal is because, in agreement with the democratic thrust of 1960s feminism, their structure approaches the non-hierarchical. The host is still the star, of course. But in terms of authority, she or he is far from central. The physical set enforces this fact. Audiences and participants sit in a circular form and ---- this is the only TV format in which this happens ---- speak out, sometimes without being called on. They yell at each other and at the host, disagree with experts, and come to no authoritative conclusions. There is something exhilarating about watching people who are usually invisible ---- because of class, race, gender, status ---- having their say and often, being wholly disrespectful to their “betters”.
　　The discussion of black women with blond hair, for example, ignited a shouting match between those for whom such behavior meant a disavowal of one’s “blackness”, a desire to “be white”, and those who insisted it was simply a matter of choosing how one wished to look, no different from the behavior of white women who dye their hair or tan their bodies. The audience, selected from the black community argued with everything that was said. Both participants and audience members attacked the “expert”, a black writer committed to the natural ---- to “black is beautiful”.
　　This is as close as television gets to open discourse on serious issues. But it is only possible because the issues discussed are not taken seriously by those in power. And that is why the sensationalism of these shows is double-edged. If they were respectable in their style and choice of issues, they’d be reined in more. By allowing themselves to seem light-hearted and trashy, they manage to carry on often-serious discussions without being cut off the air or cleaned up.
　　This may seem contradictory, but it’s not. The truth is that the emotional matters brought up on Oprah, Donahue, Sally, and the others are almost always related in some way to deep cultural and structural problems in our society.
　　I have been stressing the positive side of these shows primarily because of their difference from their highbrow, prime-time counterparts, which are far more reactionary in form and content. It is, in the grand scheme of things as they are, a good thing to have these arenas of ideological interaction and open-endedness.
　　But, these shows are a dead end, and they’re meant to be. They lead nowhere but to the drug store for more Excedrin. In fact, what’s most infuriating about them is not that they are in bad taste. It is that they work to contain real political change. What talk shows have done is take the best insights and traditions of a more politicized time and declaw them. They are all talk and no action.
　　This makes perfect sense. It is the nature of the mass media in a contradictory social environment to take progressive ideas, once they gain strength, and contain them in the large, immobilizing structure of the political status quo.
　　We are allowed to voice our woes. We are allowed to argue, cry, shout, whatever. We are even allowed to hear about approved services and institutions that might help with this or that specific bruise or wound. But we are not allowed to rock the political or economics boat of television by suggesting that things could be different. That would rightly upset the sponsor and network heads. Who would buy their Excedrin if the headaches of American life went away?

Total Words: 930 words
Total Reading Time _______
_______
The text is based on “Daytime Inquires” by Elayne Rapping in The Progressive October, 1991.

Detailed Study of Text A

◆ Reading Skill ─ Inference
Circle the letter of the best answer.　

1. In paragraph 1 the author suggests that _______.
A. Many people watch so much television that they don’t want to work
B. Many people watch so much television that they become stupid
C. Many people watch so much television that they are unable to read and write
2. We may assume that _______.
A. the expert is invited to TV talk shows to give a final say on the controversial issues.
B. the expert is invited to TV talk shows to be humiliated
C. the expert is invited to TV talk shows to express his personal opinion
3. What does the author imply in the last paragraph?
A. The sponsor and network heads would be happy if TV talk shows could bring about some real change.
B. TV talk shows are responsible for the headaches of American life
C. TV talk shows sometimes might help solve some specific problems

Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false.
4. _______ In the early 50s, people didn’t watch TV in the daytime.
5. _______ American society was fully prepared for the social crises of the 60s.
6. _______ TV talk shows help promote the sales of the sponsor’s products.
7. _______ TV talk shows are democratic because the host is mot the star.
8. _______ TV talk shows will be taken seriously by those in power if the issues are related to deep cultural and structural problems in American society.
9. _______ Compared with the daytime TV talk shows, the prime time TV programs are respectable in their style and choice of issues.
10. _______ TV talk shows are sponsored by some medicine company.

Key: 1. C 2. C 3. C 4. F 5. F 6. T 7. F 8. F 9. F 10. F

Vocabulary Building

I. Give the other parts of speech of each given word.

Key:

Fill in the blanks with the words listed in the chart. Change the form if necessary.
1. The mist was so thick that _______ was only ten feet.
2. They were supplied with all the _______of life.
3. He accepted the job because of the _______ offer of a higher pay.
4. The Trade Union Congress is prepared to _______the whole movement to defeat the bill.
5. The houses are arranged around a _______ courtyard.
6. How long has the machine been_______？
7. The government has made two _______ promises.
8. My sister had a very _______ nature. We all did what she wanted.
9. The members had been quite _______ on issues of academic freedom.
10. He _______ a tie to match his shirt.

Key: 1. visibility 2. necessity 3. seductive 4. mobilize 5. central
　　6. functioned 7. contradictory 8. dominant 9. vocal 10. selected

II. Fill in the blanks with words that are often confused.　

1. emerge, immerse
a. He lay _______ in a hot bath.
b. The sun _______ from behind the clouds.
c. I _______ myself in work so as to stop thinking about her.
d. Eventually the truth of the matter _______.
2. dominant, dormant
a. The idea had lain _______ in Britain during the 50s.
b. The _______ personality in our firm was John Brown.
c. _______ animals sleep for the winter.
d. Peace was the _______ theme of the conference.

Key : 1. a. immersing b. emerges c. immersed d. emerged
　　　2. a. dormantly b. dominant c. Dormant d. dominant

Ⅲ. Glossary
anchorman 　　　　　cameraman　　　　　 CNN
commercial　　　　　 episode 　　　　　　MTV
soap opera 　　　　　　televise 　　　　　TV series
VCR cable 　　　　　　TV network 　　　　　closed circuit
video recorder　　　　 videotape　　　　　　 telecast
live transmission 　　sitcom(situation comedy) 　Star TV


4. Cloze
Fill in each blank with one suitable word.

　　Suppose you sent your child off to the movies for three hours next Sunday. And three hours on Monday and the some _______ of hours Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This is essentially what is _______ to the average child in America today, except it is not the screen in the movie house down the street he sits in front of, it is instead the television set right in your own _______.
　　According to the Nielsen Index figures for TV viewing, it is _______ that by the time a child _______ from high school he has had 11,000 hours of schooling, as opposed to 15,000 hours of _______. I would like to repeat that. By the time a child is 18 years old, he has spent more hours in front of _______ than be has in _______. Over TV he will have witnessed by that time some 18,000 murders and countless highly detailed _______ of robbery, arson, bombings, shooting, beatings, forgery, smuggling, and torture ---- averaging approximately one per minute in the standard television cartoon for _______ under the age of ten. In general, seventy-five percent of all network dramatic programs contain violence.
　　Dr. Albert Bandura of Standford University _______ two conclusions about violence on TB: (1) that it tends to reduce the child’s inhibitions against acting in a violent, aggressive manner, and (2) that children will _______ what they see. Dr. Bandura points out that a child won’t necessarily run out and attack the first person he sees after _______ violence on the screen, but that, if provoked later on, he may very well put what he has learned into _______.
　　One of the lessons of television is that violence works. If you have a problem with someone, the school of TV says to slap him in the _______ , stab him in the _______. Because most of the program has shown how well violence has paid off, punishment at the end tends not to have much of an inhibitory effect.

Key: 1. amount 2. done 3. house 4. estimated 5. graduated 6. viewing 7. television 8.school
　 9. violence 10. those 11. made 12. imitate 13. watching 14. practice 15. face 16. body