We live in a noisy world. Young and old alike are troubled by sounds over which we may have little or no control: car and house alarms, motorcycles, loudspeakers, even movie previews.

We attend rock concerts, weddings, parties and sports events at which the music is so loud that you can hardly hear the person sitting next to you. At home, televisions, stereos and computer games are often turned up so loud that listeners cannot hear a doorbell or a telephone.

As if environmental noise were not enough, now we surround children with noisy toys and personal listening devices that can permanently damage their hearing. A series of studies conducted in 2002 indicated that even moderate (緩和的) background noise can interfere with how they learn language. In fact, children in classrooms on the noisy side of a school had lower reading scores than those whose classes were on the quiet side.

Noise-induced (噪音誘發(fā)的) hearing loss can come about in two ways: from a brief exposure to a very loud noise or from consistent exposure to moderate-level noise. Thus, there is much concern about the lasting effects of MP3 players that are turned up loud enough to block out surrounding sound, like street noise. An MP3 player at maximum volume produces about 105 decibels（分貝）— 100 times as severe as 85 decibels, where hearing damage begins.

So, before buying noise-making toys, parents would do well to listen to how loud they are. If the item comes with a volume control, monitor its use to make sure it is kept near the lowest level. Consider returning gifts that make loud noises, or disable the noise-making function. Children who play computer games and stereo equipment should be warned to keep the volume down. Most iPads have a control that allows parents to set a maximum volume.

Avoid taking children to loud action movies. If you do go and the sound seems deafening, ask the management to turn down the volume or insist on your money back.

The League for the Hard of Hearing urges parents to encourage participation in quiet activities, like reading, doing puzzles, making things with construction toys, playing educational computer games, drawing and painting, and visiting libraries and museums.

Complete the sentences with the given words in their proper forms（用括號中所給單詞的適當形式完成下列句子，每空格限填一詞)? (共8分)

1.Three ___________ shared 2013 Nobel Medicine Prize.? (winner)

2.Wellington, New Zealand is the ___________ capital city to greet the beginning of a new day.? (one)

3.We live in a world where a lot of things happen around ___________.? (we)

4.How I wish the heavy haze(霾) could ___________ in our city!? (appear)

5.On your computer at home or work, make a note to “call friends” ___________.? (regular)

6.How far does your ___________ go back?? (memorize)

7.Thank you so much for coming. Have a ___________ drive home.? (safely)

8.Only by working hard can we ___________ in doing everything.? (success)

Sunday is more like Monday than it used to be. Places of business that used to keep daytime “business hours” are now open late into the night. And on the Internet, the hour of the day and the day of the week have become irrelevant. A half century ago in the United states, most people experienced strong and precise dividing lines between days of rest and days of work, school time and summer time. Today the dividing lines are still there, but they seem not clear.
The law in almost all states used to require stores to close on Sunday; in most, it no longer does. It used to keep the schools open in all seasons except summer, in most, it still does. And whether the work week should strengthen its legal（法律的）limits, or whether it should become more changeable, is often debated（爭論）. How should we, as a society, organize our time? Should we go even further in relaxing the dividing lines of time until we live in a world in which every minute is much like every other?
These are not easy questions even to ask. Part of the difficulty is that we seldom recognize the “l(fā)aw of time” even when we meet it face to face. We know as children that we have to go to  school a certain number of hours, a certain number of days, a certain number of years – but unless we meet the truant officer（學監(jiān)）, we may well think that we should go to school because of social custom and parents’ requirement rather than to the law. As adults we know “extra pay for overtime working” very well, but less familiar with the fact that what constitutes（構(gòu)成）“overtime” is a matter of legal thing. When we turn the clock forward to start daylight – saving time, have we ever thought to ourselves: “Here is the law in action”? As we shall see, there is a lot of law that has great influence on how organize and use time: compulsory education law, overtime law, and daylight-saving law – as well as law about Sunday closing, holidays, being late to work, time zones, and so on. Once we begin to look for it, we will have no trouble finding a law of time to examine and assess.
【小題1】What does the underlined word “irrelevant” probably mean?