Reading. Use of English 10-11

Read the text and do the task.

TO UPROOT COUCH POTATO

A television set that will only work if children pedal an exercise bicycle to provide the electricity has been invented by researches examining weight problems at a New York hospital.

Experiments involving overweight children aged between eight and twelve showed that those who had to pedal when they wanted to watch their favourite programmes not only watched far less television, but also recorded impressive loss of fat.

The ’couch potato TV’ was developed by researches at St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital as a result of grooving concern over weight problems among an increasing number of American children. David Allison, who headed the research, said: ’I am not naïve enough to think we’re going to solve the world’s weight problems with TVs hooked to bicycles. But there are other things we could do that are only limited by our imagination’.

Mr. Allison once proposed that people should be charged to travel in lifts in an effort to encourage them to use the stairs. He said that only 13% of American children were considered seriously overweight, and that the number was growing. During the tests children who had the ’couch potato TV sets’ watched on average one hour of television a week, while children in a second ’control’ group watched more than twenty hours.

Decide if the the following statement is true or false.

The new invention is a television set combined with a bicycle.

Decide if the the following statement is true or false.

The aim of the experiment was to measure how much electricity we can generate through exercise.

Decide if the the following statement is true or false.

Mr. Allison says watching television limits children’s imagination.