between boys and girls.Sound extreme? Think about this. In every movie where advanced time­traveling beings come to our planet there's one constant: You can't tell the male aliens from the female aliens!

　　But that's the future.Kids today are soft and fat. People ask why. Is it junk food? No. Junk food has been around for fifty years. Is it video games？No. Video games have been around for thirty years.None of the kids playing them back in the day were terribly obese. We're all scratching our heads trying to figure out what we've introduced to society to ruin our kids. But it's not anything we've added that has ruined our kids. It's stuff we've gotten rid of.

　　Take the gym rope for example. Remember that thing that stretched from the floor to the ceiling in your gym class that you could never climb？Most of the kids couldn't make it to the top. But that wasn't the point; the point was you had to try while some middle­aged guys who couldn't make it up a flight of stairs shouted at you. We should have put our son on that rope, and given him a head start. But we didn't want to shame the boy, so we took it down.

　　Taking down the rope would be a good idea if there were no ropes in life.But they're everywhere. You just can't see them.They're in every goal unrealized and expectation not met. The point everyone missed about the rope is you weren't supposed to make it to the top. It was there to create a fire that burned in the oversized belly of every kid.

　　8.What is the example of aliens used to show?

　　A．Girls are growing like boys.

　　B．There will be little difference between boys and girls.

　　C．There are really time­traveling beings.

　　D．Alien movies are popular with children.

　　解析：选B　细节理解题。第二段作者给出了电影中外星人的例子是为了证明本段的主题句"you won't be able to tell the difference between boys and girls"。故答案为B项。

　　9．What causes kids today to be soft and fat?

　　A．Junk food.

　　B．Video games.

　　C．Stuff introduced to society.

　　D．Things removed from society.

解析：选D　细节理解题。根据第三段中的"But it's not anything we've added that has