Arguing that pop culture is not dumbing us down but making us more intelligent is guaranteed to generate media buzz. In the United States, Everything Bad is Good for You, the new book by the American pop science writer, Steven Johnson, has sparked a flurry of comment, much of it 57 his claims about the beneficial effects of watching reality TV and The Sopranos.

Much attention has focused more on Johnson's observations that computer games require  58,forward planning, lateral thinking and sustained problem solving and, as such, offer a cognitive workout that can benefit  59 mental development.

In the past few years academics, teachers and software developers have experimented with different ways to harness the cognitive  60 of games in more directed ways.

Gee, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, argues that the best games offer a  61.learning experience and suggests teachers can learn useful lessons by looking at how games draw players in and  62 them to concentrate and tackle complex problems.

“Academic areas, like biology or history, are themselves like games,”Gee says. “Scientists act and interact 63 certain identities and values and use knowledge and information to accomplish certain sorts of goals. So learning science should be about 1earning how to ‘play the game' of science.”Obviously he is critical  64 “skill and drill”teaching, which focuses on lists of facts and repetitive testing.

57. A. depended on    B. centered on     C. circulated through   D. clustered round

58. tration  B. determination  C. perseverance        D. tolerance

59. A. complete      B. extraordinary  C. thorough            D. overall

60．A．reforms       B. innovations    C. reproductions       D. revision

61. A. model         B. moral          C. morale              D. mode

62. A．propel        B．motivate       C. provoke             D. compel

63. A. on account of         B. on the strength of       C. in defiance of      D. in terms of

64. A. with          B. of              C. at                  D. in