One of the most fascinating things about television is the size of the audience.

One of the most fascinating things abouttelevision is the size of the audience. A novel can be on the “best seller”lists with a sale of up to 100,000 copies, but a popular TV show might have 70

million TV viewers. TV can make anything oranyone well-known overnight.

  This is the principle behind “quiz”or “game” shows, which put ordinary people on TV to play a game for prizes andmoney. A quiz show can make anyone a star, and it can give away thousands ofdollars. Charles Van Doren, an English instructor, became rich and famous afterwinning money on several shows. He even had a career as a televisionpersonality. But one of the losers proved that Charles Van Doren was cheating.It turned out that the show’s producers, who were pulling the strings, gave theanswers to the most popular contestants beforehand. Why? Because if theaudience didn’t like the person who won the game, they turned the show off. Theresult of this cheating was a huge scandal(丑闻). Based on the show off, a movie titled “QuizShow” is on 40 years later.

  Charles Van Doren is no longerinvolved with TV. But game shows are still here, though they aren’t takenseriously. In fact, some of them try to be as ridiculous as possible. There areshows that send strangers on vacation trips together, or that try to causenewly-married couples to fight on TV, or that punish losers by humiliating(羞辱) them. The entertainmentnow is to see what people will do just to be on TV. People still win money, butthe real prize is to be in front of an audience of millions.

1.What is the most important thing as to television?

 A. How many viewers they canattract       B. Becoming the best seller on the list

 C. How much money can be givenaway    D. The number of people attending shows

2.What does the underlined part “pulling the strings” probably mean?

 A. Planning the shows witheffort          B. Drawing the curtainon the stage

C. Controlling the resultsecretly          D. Playing “quiz” or “game”openly

3.Charles Van Doren stopped his career as a television personalitybecause ________.

 A. he had earned enough wealth andfame.

 B. one of the participants had toldthe truth

 C. the film “Quiz Show” was beingshown

 D. his frequent appearance had boredthe audience

4. It can be inferred from the passage that _______.

 A. TV Game Shows are more popular thanbefore.

 B. the scandal was not made knownuntil 40 years later

 C. getting money is the only purposeof people taking part in shows

 D. people can make themselves famousby taking part in shows

试题答案

【答案】

1.A 2. C3.B4.D

【解析】略