四级练习（五）考试时间： 90 分钟 满分： 分
Part 1 Skimming and Scanning (Multiple Choice + Blank Filling)
Directions: Read the following passage and then answer the questions. For questions 1-7, choo the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D. For questions 8-10, complete the ntences with the information given in the passage.
Questions 1 to 10 are bad on the same passage or dialog.
Video Gaming
As video gaming spreads, the discussion about its social impact is intensifying. Is it a new medium equivalent to film and music, a valuable educational tool, a form of harmless fun or something terrible that makes children violent and stupid? Video gaming is all the things, depending on whom you ask.
Amid all the arguments, however, three important factors are generally overlooked: that attit
udes to gaming are marked by a generational divide; that there is no convincing evidence that games make people violent; and that games have great potential in education.
Attitudes towards gaming 竹蜻蜓的玩法
清洁造句Attitudes towards gaming depend to a great extent on age. In America, for example, half of the population plays computer or video games. However most players are under 40—according to Nieln, a market-rearch firm, 76% of them—while most critics of gaming are over 40. An entire generation that began gaming as children has kept playing. The average age of American gamers is 30. Most are "computer natives" who grew up with technology, argues Marc Prensky of Games2train, a firm that promotes the educational u of games. He describes older people as "computer immigrants" who, like newcomers anywhere, have had to adapt in various ways to their new technological world. Just getting by in a foreign land without some grasp of the local language is difficult, says Mr. Prensky. Computer immigrants have had to learn to u technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. But relatively few of them have embraced video games. The
word "game" itlf also confus matters, since it makes them em like playthings. "What they don't understand, becau they've never played them, is that the are complex games, which take 30, 40 or 100 hours to complete," says Mr. Prensky. Games are, in fact, played mainly by young adults. Only a third of gamers are under 18.
中国伦理
"It's just a generational divide," says Gerhard Florin, the European boss of Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher. "People do not know what they are talking about, becau they have never played a game. And yet, they say that millions of gamers are stupid or violent." Computer natives who have played video games since childhood already regard them as a form of entertainment equivalent to films and music. Older computer natives now have children of their own and enjoy playing video games with them.
慕斯蛋糕做法悲伤图The gaming industry is trying to address the generational divide. It is producing games designed to appeal to people who have never played games and encouraging gamers (who may occasionally play simple web-bad games, or games on mobile phones) to pl
ay more. This has led to the development of games with a wider appeal. Some of them replace the usual control pad with novel input devices: microphones (麦克风) for singing games, cameras for dancing and action games, and even musical instruments. In addition, the industry has started to attract more women, who em to prefer social simulation (模拟) games such as "The Sims", and older people, who (if they play games at all) often prefer versions of card games and board games. Other promising areas include portable (便携式的) gaming, mobile gaming and online downloads of simple games. Many people enjoy gaming, but do not necessarily want to commit themlves to a long quest that will take dozens of hours to complete.
设备原值
May gaming make people violent?
But aren't critics right to worry that gaming might make people violent? In his paper, Mr. Williams describes his study carried out with Marko Skoric of the University of Michigan. The study concentrated on a "massively multiplayer (多人参与的) online role-playing game" (MMORPG) called "Asheron Call 2". This type of game requires the player to wan
der around a fantasy world and kill monsters to build up attribute points. It is "virtually more violent than the average video game and should have more effect, given the highly repetitive nature of the violence", the rearchers noted.
Two groups of subjects were recruited, none of whom had played MMORPGs before and many of whom had never played video games at all. One group then played the game for a month, for an average of nearly two hours per day. The other group acted as a control. All people who participated were asked questions about how often they had aggressive social interactions (such as arguments with their spous) during the cour of the month to test the idea that gaming makes people more aggressive. Game players, it turned out, were no more aggressive than the control group. Whether the test subjects had played games before, the number of hours spent gaming, and whether they liked violent movies or not, made no difference. The rearchers noted, however, that more rearch is still needed to asss the impact of other types of games. All games are different, and only when more detailed studies have been carried out will it be possible to say anything about the impact of gaming.
Games have great potential in education. 动漫美女图片
What's more, plenty of games, far from encouraging violence, are morally complex, subtle and, very possibly, improving. Many now explicitly require players to choo whether to be good or evil, and their choices determine how the game they are playing develops. Several games bad on the "Star Wars" movies require players to choo between the light and dark sides of the Force, equivalent to good and evil.
Even games with no educational purpo require players to learn a great deal. Games are complex and force players to make a huge number of decisions. Gamers must construct ideas about the in-game world, learn its rules through trial and error (错误) , solve problems and puzzles, develop strategies and get help from other players through the Internet when they get stuck.
