Southern College
Kolej Selatan
南方学院
Final Examination
Semester 1 / Year 2007
COURSE
: EXTENSIVE READING
COURSE CODE : ENGL1043
TIME
: 2 1/2 HOURS
DEPARTMENT : ENGLISH
CLASS
: DOE06-B+C, DOE07-A
LECTURER
: YVONNE CHOONG FOONG HIAM
Student’s ID
:
Batch No.
:
Notes to candidates:
1) The question paper consists of 4 pages and 2 questions.
2) Answer all questions.
3) Return the question paper with your answer booklet.
EXTENSIVE READING
Question (1): 50%
TV Addiction
MARIE WINN
The problem of addiction is a serious one in our society, and we usually associate the word with
dependence on drugs or alcohol. In the following essay, Marie Winn uses the definition of addiction
to analyze the effects of our society's dependence on the most popular pastime: watching television.
The word "addiction" is often used loosely and wryly in conversation. People will refer to
themselves as "mystery book addicts" or "cookie addicts." E. B. White writes of his annual surge of
interest in gardening: "We are hooked and are making an attempt to kick the habit." Yet nobody really
believes that reading mysteries or ordering seeds by catalogue is serious enough to be compared with
addictions to heroin or alcohol. The word "addiction" is here used jokingly to denote a tendency to
overindulge in some pleasurable activity.
People often refer to being "hooked on TV." Does this, too, fall into the light-hearted category of
cookie eating and other pleasures that people pursue with unusual intensity, or is there a kind of
television viewing that falls into the more serious category of destructive addiction?
When we think about addiction to drugs or alcohol, we frequently focus on negative aspects, ignoring
the pleasures that accompany drinking or drug-taking. And yet the essence of any serious addiction is a
pursuit of pleasure, a search for a "high" that normal life does not supply. It is only the inability to
function without the addictive substance that is dismaying, the dependence of the organism upon a certain
experience and an increasing inability to function normally without it. Thus a person will take two or
three drinks at the end of the day not merely for the pleasure drinking provides, but also because he
"doesn't feel normal" without them.
An addict does not merely pursue a pleasurable experience and need to experience it in order to
function normally. He needs to repeat it again and again. Something about that particular experience
makes life without it less than complete. Other potentially pleasurable experiences are no longer possible,
for under the spell of the addictive experience, his life is peculiarly distorted. The addict craves an
experience and yet he is never really satisfied. The organism may be temporarily sated, but soon it begins
to crave again.
Finally a serious addiction is distinguished from a harmless pursuit of pleasure by its distinctly
destructive elements. A heroin addict, for instance, leads a damaged life: his increasing need for heroin in
increasing doses prevents him from working, from maintaining relationships, from developing in human
ways. Similarly an alcoholic's life is narrowed and dehumanized by his dependence on alcohol.
Let us consider television viewing in the light of the conditions that define serious addictions.
Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world
and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state. The worries and anxieties of reality are as
effectively deferred by becoming absorbed in a television program as by going on a “trip” induced by
drugs or alcohol. And just as alcoholics are only inchoately aware of their addiction, feeling that they
control their drinking more than they really do (“I can cut it out any time I want—I just like to have three
or four drinks before dinner”), people similarly overestimate their control over television watching. Even
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EXTENSIVE READING
as they put off other activities to spend hour after hour watching television, they feel they could easily
resume living in a different, less passive style. But somehow or other while the television set is present in
their homes, the click doesn’t sound. With television pleasures available, those other experiences seem
less attractive, more difficult somehow.
A heavy viewer (a college English instructor) observes: “I find television almost irresistible. When
the set is on, I cannot ignore it. I can’t turn it off. I feel sapped, will-less, enervated. As I reach out to turn
off the set, the strength goes out of my arms. So I sit there for hours and hours.”
The self-confessed television addict often feels he “ought” to do other things—but the fact that he
doesn’t read and doesn’t plant his garden or sew or crochet or play games or have conversations means
that those activities are no longer as desirable as television viewing. In a way a heavy viewer’s life is as
imbalanced by his television “habit” as a drug addict’s or an alcoholic’s. He is living in a holding pattern,
as it were, passing up the activities that lead to growth or development or a sense of accomplishment.
This is one reason people talk about their television viewing so ruefully, so apologetically. They are
aware that it is an unproductive experience that almost any other endeavor is more worthwhile by any
human measure.
Finally it is the adverse effect of television viewing on the lives of so many people that defines it as
a serious addiction. The television habit distorts the sense of time. It renders other experiences vague and
curiously unreal while taking on a greater reality for itself. It weakens relationships by reducing and
sometimes eliminating normal opportunities for talking, for communicating.
And yet television does not satisfy, else why would the viewer continue to watch hour after hour, day
after day? “The measure of health,” writes Lawrence Kubie, “is flexibility . . . and especially the freedom
to cease when sated.” But the television viewer can never be sated with his television experiences—they
do not provide the true nourishment that satiation requires—and thus he finds that he cannot stop
watching.
Questions for Critical Thinking:
1. In paragraph one, what is the loose definition of the word “addiction?” What examples does
the author provide? (6%)
2. According to the author what is the more serious definition of the term “addiction”? One way to
give a definition is to provide the identifying characteristics for the term. What are the identifying
characteristics of “addiction” that the author presents? Highlight these characteristics or list them
separately on a piece of paper. What example does the author provide? (10%)
3. What is the main idea or thesis of this essay? Do you agree or disagree with the author’s opinion?
(10%)
4. List the effects of TV addiction in the order the author presents them. (6％)
5. Where does the author quote somebody? Why do you think the author chooses to include this
quote? （6%）
6. Pick a term like “junk food” that could have a range of definitions. Start by giving one definition
of the term with some examples and then give your definition. Give as many identifying characteristics as
possible. Then give examples to clarify your position. (12%)
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QUESTION (2): 50%
The Internet?
CLIFFORD STOLL
Electronics have already transformed our world, and new technology is being developed at an ever
faster pace. Not everyone welcomes this technology, however, as the following essay indicates.
Clifford Stoll’s thoughts on the Internet may represent a minority point of view, but as you read his
opinions on this popular means of communication, you might want to consider if there are parts of
the writer’s argument with which you are in agreement.
After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the
Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today I’m uneasy about this most
trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries
and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce
and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital
networks will make government more democratic.
Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will
replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer
network will change the way government works.
Consider today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post
messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be
heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophony more closely resembles
citizens band radio, complete with handles, harassment and anonymous threats. When most everyone
shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an
unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you
can’t tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that
we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.
What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is that the Internet is an ocean of unedited data, without
any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland
of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World
Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15
minutes to unravel them—one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game
that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my
search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connections, try again later.”
Won’t the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when
Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and
position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how
many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.
Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re told that multimedia will make
schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by
expertly tailored software. Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? These
expensive toys are difficult I in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love
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EXTENSIVE READING
videogames—but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of
decades past? I’ll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who difference in your life.
Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great
deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales
contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon
than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the
Internet—which there isn’t—the network is missing a most essential in radient of capitalism:
salespeople.
What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning
techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A
network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display
comes close to the excitement of a live concert. While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing
an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it
is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of Education and
Progress—important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.
Questions for Critical Thinking:
1. How many paragraphs make up the introduction of this essay? Explain what the author does in his
introduction. Is this an effective method for introducing a controversial issue? (9%)
2. Find the author’s thesis and underline it in the text. (5%)
3. Find an example of the author’s use of a quotation from an expert. Does he agree or disagree with the
expert? （7％）
4. An effective argument considers the opponent’s point of view. Review each paragraph in the essay
and underline those sentences where Clifford Stoll presents the point of view of his opponents. What
are Stoll’s responses to each of his opponent’s points? Do you think Stoll’s point of view represents a
majority or minority position? (10%)
5. Where does the writer use examples? Mark the paragraphs that contain examples. In each case, does
he use a listing of examples or give an extended example? (5%)
6. What does the writer claim are the results of the continuing use of the Internet? （5％）
7. Based on what you know about the Internet and the information provided in this essay, do you feel
persuaded that the Internet is a poor substitute for human interaction? (9％)
__________000_________
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