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  3. Ben Buchanan made absolutely sure his schedule would be clear this week. Like millions of Americans, the Texas teen is devouring

Ben Buchanan made absolutely sure his schedule would be clear this week. Like millions of Americans, the Texas teen is devouring

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问题     Ben Buchanan made absolutely sure his schedule would be clear this week. Like millions of Americans, the Texas teen is devouring the 672 pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the uberpopular series by J. K. Rowling. And that’s quite a feat in Buchanan’s case. When he got the first Harry Potter book as a Christmas present back in 1998, he was struggling with dyslexia. " I just thought it would be another book I wouldn’t like," says Buchanan, who was ready to toss it out with the wrapping paper. Then his mom read the first chapter aloud to him, and he was determined to conquer his first "real" book.
    As the world eagerly cracks open the newest volume, whose initial U.S. run of 10.8 million copies is a publishing record, the true mystery isn’t the identity of the royal figure in the title. It’s what impact these books are having on kids. Are they converting nonreaders like Buchanan? Are they capable of helping other books defeat TV and video games in the battle for children’s free time? More than 100 million of Rowling’s books are in print in the United States alone, and everyone has heard anecdotes about kids fervently reading and rereading each title. But whether all of this hype of countdowns and midnight trips to bookstores translates into a lifelong reading habit remains unclear.
    If our society ever needed a reading renaissance, it’s now. The National Endowment for the Arts released "Reading at Risk" last year, a study showing that adult reading rates have dropped 10 percentage points in the past decade, with the steepest slump among those 18 to 24. " Only one half of young people read a book of any kind — including Harry Potter — in 2002. We set the bar almost on the ground. If you read one short story in a teen magazine, that would have counted," laments Mark Bauerlein, the NEA’s director of research and analysis. He attributes the loss of readers to the booming world of technology, which woos would-be leisure readers to iPods, E-mail, IM chats, and video games and leaves them with no time to curl up with a novel.
    These new forms of media undoubtedly have some benefits. Video games improve problem-solving skills: TV shows promote mental gymnastics by forcing viewers to follow intertwining story lines. But books offer experience that can’t be gained from these other sources, from building vocabulary to stretching the imagination.
    In fact, fewer kids are reading for pleasure. According to data released from an assessment, the number of 17-year-olds who reported never or hardly ever reading for fun rose from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. At the same time, the percentage of 17-year-olds who read daily dropped from 31 to 22.
    This slow but steady retreat from books has not yet taken a toll on reading ability. Scores for the nation’s youth have remained constant over the past two decades. But given the strong apparent correlation between pleasure reading and reading skills, this bodes poorly for the future.
    That’s why many educators are hoping the Harry Potter series can work some magic.
    In fact, Harry Potter may be the first(and only)literary status symbol for the young. In second or third grade, kids all started carrying around the books even though they couldn’t read them. By fifth and sixth grade, they’d all read them. It was a status thing. They wanted to be part of the Potter universe.
    Why don’t other books get the same push? The Potter promotion has made reading an event with the glitz of a movie premiere. It’s an amazing experiment of how publishers will deal with books in the 21st century. For children, dressing up and dragging their parents to a bookstore at midnight is a memorable experience. More book events could get people excited about reading again. Incorporating books into pop culture, rather than separating them into something refined and rarefied, can make literature more accessible — the way Harry Potter is.
    Unfortunately, poor kids aren’t always part of the Potter universe — the "good reader" effect. Kids who are already proficient readers or who have parents with enough time and energy to help them with problem spots are enjoying the Harry Potter books, but other kids don’t get the opportunity. And they arguably need the books the most — kids from lower socioeconomic strata tend to have the lowest reading scores. This is another case of the rich get richer because they’re the ones most likely to experience it. It’s months for many inner-city kids to wait for the Harry Potter books at the library, and they’re going to give up.
    A big obstacle in hooking kids on books, many educators say, is the way schools have evolved. Teachers are under pressure to accomplish goals for tests. Reading out loud goes by the wayside. To speed along the study of a topic, many teachers rely on worksheets instead of books.
    The real lesson in all of this isn’t for the students, however — it’s for parents and teachers. The Harry Potter books, for all the good they have undoubtedly done, are not a panacea for America’s reading crisis. A book doesn’t do magic. No one book will turn children into readers. The reading crisis in America is real — and too big for Harry Potter alone to conquer. But the lesson of his success is clear: Twenty-first-century youngsters may live in an era where a mouse is a more natural tool than a pencil, and flashy images are just a remote-control click away, but they can still enjoy reading an old-fashioned book.
Mark Bauerlein’s comment "We set the bar almost on the ground" in the third paragraph suggests______.
选项 A、many young people could hardly meet the minimum reading standards set by the study
B、the research group set the lowest standards
C、the research standards were conventionally low
D、the research result was groundbreaking
答案B
解析 语义题。从上下文可以看出研究人员把阅读量设置到了一个极低的限度，故B正确。A选项不是此句的重点。C和D与原文不符。
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