Unit 14: Recreation - Reading

Exercise 1: Choose the word or phrase - a, b, c or d - that best fits the blank space in the following passage. FUN AND GAMES Do you think computer games is just for kids? Then you should think again. You might be (1) ______ to learn that the game industry now (2) ______ more money than Hollywood. (3) ______ a family buys a new PC, all they really want to do is to play games. It is hardly surprising that video gaming has (4) ______ one of the most popular (5) ______ of entertainment today. A good game is like a good film; it will hold your (6) ______, capture your imagination and play with your emotions. The big (7) ______, however, is that watching a movie is a passive (8) ______. You have no say in how the plot (9) ______ or which characters dominate the story. With computer games, you direct the (10) ______ and that is what makes them so exciting. Finding the (11) ______ game is likely to signal the beginning of a lasting love (12) ______ with the interactive (13) ______ of make-believe. It is (14) ______ to think of gaming as something simply for children and teenagers. In fact, the (15) ______ growth area of the market is the 25-35 age group.

Exercise 2: Read the passage, then choose the correct answer. In the 20th century, magazines have been a major growth area of popular publishing. Specialist magazines cater to every imaginable field and activity. In the United Kingdom, over 12,000 periodicals, magazines, bulletins, annuals, trade journals, and academic journals are published on a regular basis. There are some 40 women's magazines and over 60 dealing with particular sports, games, hobbies, and pastimes. Although some US magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, has succumbed to competition of television, many continue "to have enormous international circulations, The Reader's Digest over 16 million, The National Geographic over 10 million. For many people, magazines have been the most available and widely used form of continuing education, providing information about history, geography, literature, science, and the arts, as well as guidance on gardening, cooking, home decorating, financial management, psychology, even marriage and family life. Until the rise of television, magazines were the most available form of cheap, convenient entertainment in the English-speaking world. Radio served a similar function, but it was more limited in what it could do. Magazines and television, however, both address the more powerful visual sense. During the third quarter of the 20th century, coincident with a dramatic rise in the popularity of television, many general-interest, especially illustrated magazines went out of business. The shift in attention of a mass, audience from reading such magazines to watching television has been a major factor in this decline, but it is an implicit tribute from television to the older genre that its programs are generally organized in a single format and content.