A child’s world is supposed to be fresh and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. Unfortunately, this is not the case for so

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问题         A child’s world is supposed to be fresh and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. Unfortunately, this is not the case for some kids, especially for those born and bred in cities. Their joys are dimmed and even lost to study. In the following news report, you can find more details about this phenomenon.
        Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
        1. summarize the main idea of the news report, and then
        2. express your opinion towards this phenomenon.
                                                                China’s Children Too Busy for Playtime
        Like most other Chinese children of her age, Zhuzhu, at the age of 12, has to go to school from Monday to Friday, nine hours a day—an hour more than her parents spend at work. On weekends, she has to get up early for piano lessons on Saturday and Sunday morning, followed by private extracurricular Maths and English classes the afternoon. As a reward for her hard work, Zhuzhu’s parents let her play with her toys for one hour on Saturday and Sunday evening.
        Zhuzhu is not alone. According to a new survey conducted by the Chinese Youth and Children Research Center (CYCRC), increasing numbers of children in large cities across the country are experiencing joyless childhoods.
        The CYCRC surveyed 2,500 primary and secondary school pupils across the country. The results of the survey reveal how, due to long school hours and growing pressure from parents to study hard, children are feeling unhappy about a lack of playtime.
        On average, China’s children spend 8.6 hours a day at school, with some spending 12 hours a day in the classroom. The survey also claimed that the majority of children spend longer hours at school than their parents spend at work.
        Almost all of the students involved in the survey said they had to do homework, revise and prepare for classes after school. Around half of the students’ parents testified that they often don’t allow them to play outside as it means less study time.
        The CYCRC survey also reveals that when they do have spare time for play, many children are either too tired to play or have nobody to play with—only 4 in 10 of the survey’s participants claim they had friends to play with.
        Indeed, Sun Yunxiao, director of the CYCRC noted that heavy study loads have exhausted children, more than half of the survey’s participants said that what they want most is, "A good night’s sleep."
        Chinese students are put under ever-increasing pressure by their parents to study hard due to the country’s highly competitive market for university places and jobs. Study pressure has led to an increase in stress, psychological problems and even tragedy.
        Last June, a 16 year-old girl from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, committed suicide after failing to pass the entrance exam for a respected senior high school.
        In spite of persistent requests from the Ministry of Education asking parents to stop enrolling their children in extracurricular courses and requesting schools to limit homework time to one hour a night, primary and secondary schools have continued to offer after school Maths and English classes, with the sole aim of sending more students to good universities.
        "Too many students are striving for the limited places in higher education resources may be a reason for schools’ flout to the circulars," said Sun Yunxiao.

选项

答案 Don’t Infringe on Children’s Right to Play Mountains of homework and long hours of extracurricular classes among school children and adolescents are never an isolated case in China where education is seen as a major pathway to social success. According to the news report, many Chinese youngsters are deprived of a happy childhood and are susceptible to mental problems caused by unbearable study pressure. Such pressure partly comes from the suffocating educational environment, but parents’ over-concern on children’s academic and extracurricular excellence makes children feel even more stressful. Kids should be carefree at their ages instead of being pushed towards unhealthy lifestyles. I therefore strongly suggest reducing the competitive nature of education and promoting the right of children to play. First of all, the general public should stop being so obsessed with academic success. Test scores should not be viewed as the sole indicator of competence or intellectuality, and the assessment and enrollment systems, which still heavily count on examination results, should be adjusted. In this regard, a fundamental change needs to be made to the college entrance exams, which is used as the single criterion for college admissions. Otherwise, the Chinese educational system will continue to define academic success based on scores. For primary and lower-secondary education, the policies should try to reduce the pressure on students and parents to compete for the limited seats in the high-achieving schools by narrowing the resource gaps among schools. Next, it is time for parents to return their children a carefree childhood. "Never let our kids lose at the starting line" is a common voice of most Chinese parents and it becomes their very reason for enrolling their children in numerous tutorial classes and extracurricular activities. However, few may realize that it doesn’t matter who wins at the starting line but who lasts until the finishing line. There has to be some balance between schoolwork and recreational activities. Play isn’t a waste of time, but rather gives children life experiences and relieves them from pressure. In short, much effort needs to be done to relieve children from academic stress, and it requires the interaction between parents, schools and society as a whole.

解析         材料围绕“中国孩子的娱乐时间太少”进行了分析报道。可分为四个部分。
        第一段以一个12岁的女孩为例,指出如今孩子学习负担重的现实。除了工作日每天九小时的学习时间(nine hours a day),周末还要参加钢琴课和各种课业辅导班,而娱乐时间只有周末晚上的一个小时。
        第二至五段则根据中国青少年研究中心的调查,分析了孩子们的现状。由于长时间的学校生活(long school hours)和日益增长的压力(growing pressure),孩子们都感到不快乐(feeling unhappy),而且超过一半的家长为了不影响学习时间,反对孩子到外面玩耍。
        第六至九段阐述了这一现象的后果。首先会导致孩子们十分疲惫(too tired),或是找不到玩伴(have nobody to play with);其次严重影响孩子们的睡眠时间(exhausted children);最后,学业压力会导致孩子越来越紧张(stress),出现心理问题(psychological problems)甚至是酿成悲剧(tragedy)。有孩子就因为不堪重负而自杀(committed suicide)。
        最后两段总结了产生这一现象的原因。教育部为减少学生压力禁止补课,却屡禁不止。原因在于高校资源有限(limited places in higher education resources),而太多的学生梦想进入好的大学(good universities)。
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