Have you ever thought about what determines the way we are when we grow up? Remember the TV program Seven Up? It started following the lives of a group of children in 1973. We first meet them as wide-eyed seven-year-olds and catch up with them at seven-year intervals: nervous 14-year-olds, serious 21-year-olds and then grown-ups. Some of the stories are inspiring, others sad, but what is interesting in almost all the cases is the way in which the children’ s early hopes and dreams are shown in their future lives. For example, at seven, Tony is a lively child who says he wants to become a sportsman or a taxi driver. When he grows up, he goes on to do both. How about Nicki? She says, “I would like to find out about the moon.“ And she goes on to become a space scientist. As a child, soft-spoken Bruce says he wants to help “poor children“ and ends up teaching in India. But if the lives of all the children had followed this pattern, the program would be far less interesting than it actually was. It was the children whose childhood did not prepare them for what was to come that made the program so interesting. Where did their ideas come from about what they wanted to do when they grew up? Are children influenced by what their parents do, by what they see on television or by what their teachers say? How great is the effect of a single important event? Many film directors, including Steven Spielberg, say that an early visit to the cinema was the turning point in their lives. Dr. Margaret McAllister, who has done a lot of research in this area, thinks that the major factors are parents, friends and the wider society.

Labor Day is a national holiday in the United States. It has been celebrated on the first Monday in September since the 1880s in order to honor the country’s workers. Today, it is a family holiday. Many people go on a picnic to the beach, the lake, or the mountains. But the first Labor Day celebration was not about family or fun. Instead, it was about making life better for America’ s working class. In America workers were not always treated well. In the early days of the 1880s, hundreds of new immigrants from Europe came to the United States every day. Most spent all their money getting to America. By the time they arrived, they would take any job they could find. They worked for very little pay. Owners of businesses and factories often took advantage of the situation. They were able to get a lot of labor for little money. They expected their employees to work 10 to 14, even 16 hours a day. What’s more, jobs were often dangerous. Even children worked in situations where a mistake could mean death. Women and children worked for lower wages than men, and owners employed them for this reason. In the 1880s, the fight for worker’s rights was led by men who were workers themselves. They organized the workers into labor unions. The American Federation of Labor(AFL)was organized in 1886. Later the Congress of Industrial Organizations(CIO)was founded. Wages, hours of labor, and working conditions have improved since that time. Labor unions have persuaded the federal and state governments to pass laws that limit how many hours a week people can be required to work and decide what the minimum wage should be. They have determined that child labor, as well as unfair treatment based on sex, religion, color, and national origin is now illegal. Strikes occur when workers feel that their employer is behaving unfairly. In order to celebrate their early successes, Labor Day was started in 1882 by a union called the Knights of Labor. On the first Labor Day, a long parade was held in New York City, followed by a festival for the workers and their families. By 1894, Congress had recognized it as a national holiday and it is still celebrated today.

Baekeland and Hartmann report that the “short sleepers“ had been more or less average in their sleep needs until the men were in their teens. But at about age 15 or so, the men voluntarily began cutting down their nightly sleep time because of pressures from school, work, and other activities. These men tended to view their nightly periods of unconsciousness as bothersome interruptions in their daily routines. In general, these “short sleepers“ appeared ambitious, active, energetic, cheerful, conformist in their opinions, and very sure about their career choices. They often held several jobs at once, or worked full-or part-time while going to school. And many of them had a strong urge to appear“normal“ or “acceptable“ to their friends and associates. When asked to recall their dreams, the “short sleepers“ did poorly. More than this, they seemed to prefer not remembering. In similar fashion, their usual way of dealing with psychological problems was to deny that the problem existed, and then to keep busy in the hope that the trouble would go away. The sleep patterns of the “short sleepers“ were similar to, but less extreme than, sleep patterns shown by many mental patients categorized as manic. The “long sleepers“ were quite different indeed. Baekeland and Hartmann report that these young men had been lengthy sleeps since childhood. They seemed to enjoy their sleep, protected it, and were quite concerned when they were occasionally deprived of their desired 9 hours of nightly bed rest. They tended to recall their dreams much better than did the “short sleepers.“ Many of the “long sleepers“ were shy, anxious, introverted, inhibited, passive, mildly depressed, and unsure of themselves(particularly in social situations). Several openly state that sleep was an escape from their daily problems.

Mayra Avila is looking forward to her high school prom. Avila, 18, the West Potomac High School senior is, among hundreds of thousands of teenagers getting a head start on an associate’s or bachelor’s degree—and saving on tuition—by taking college courses in high school. President Obama, who set the goal of having the United States claim the highest share of college graduates of any country by 2020, is counting on the success of students such as Avila, a Mexican immigrant whose parents never finished high school. One approach policymakers are harnessing to help students such as her: dual enrollment programs that lower tuition and attract students who don’ t think college is within reach. The partnership between Fairfax County schools and Northern Virginia Community College sets Avila, one of six children, on a path to earn a bachelor’s degree. She wants to study dental hygiene at the community college in the fall and then transfer to Virginia Commonwealth University. Heading straight to a four-year university isn’t an option. “If I had the opportunity, I would, but there’s no money for it,“ Avila said. Her English credits will make college less expensive. She’s paying reduced tuition and the high school buys the books. “As I tell kids and parents, it’s the best deal since sliced bread,“ said Bruce Jankowitz, assistant principal at West Potomac High, which offers six dual-enrollment sessions in English and government, up from two last year. “These are kids who have not come from the orientation that college is in your future. It serves a niche for students who are motivated to go to college—maybe they are the first in their family to go to college.“ Raising the rate depends on getting more minority students into higher education. In the decade leading up to 2014-15, public high schools are expected to produce about 207,000 more Hispanic graduates—a 54 percent jump, according to a report by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. There will be more Asian and black graduates and fewer whites.

What does the text mainly discuss?

In the TV program Seven Up, we can meet______.

What are the examples in Paragraph 2 meant to show?

Spielberg’ s story is meant to show that_____.

What does the writer think of the TV program?