Упражнения уровня TOEFL по английскому языку. № 3.

Eighty years ago children lived out their earliest years in an extended family of mum, dad, and grandparents. They watched, listened and learned as they served a sort of apprenticeship for adulthood. Nowadays, in our more mobile society, there seems to be a move away from this natural approach towards formal, structured learning. Children from the earliest days attend creches, playgroups and nurseries. Obsessive, driving parents arrange swimming and junior gym then cram in reading, number work and music lessons on top of all that. We live in a very competitive world and we can't help noticing how other people manage their homes, relationships and children. Our lives are often lived constantly looking over our shoulder to see that we and our children are performing up to scratch. Is this really a great step forward, or is it a misguided stagger to the side?

I think that those of us who are privileged enough to have normal, healthy children should give thanks for what we've got, give them the best love, attention and example we can provide, and not seek to turn them from normal children into something super-normal. Happiness and success in life depend on many things other than academic tutoring. These efforts often do more for the givers' own egos and hang-ups than help the child to cope better with the real, harsh world they will have to live in. Children who enjoy learning should be encouraged, but not pushed to ridiculous lengths. Parents must also be cautioned that many apparently clever tricks are in reality much less spectacular than they would appear.

Сопоставьте слова из текста 1-5 с их значениями a-e.
Match the words from the text 1-5 with their meanings a-e.

Words in text
(1) e apprenticeship
(2) d cram in
(3) a up to scratch
(4) b misguided stagger
(5) c hang up

Meaning
a) to normal standards
b) foolish movement
c) psychological preoccupation
d) force
e) period of learning