There was a time when parents who wanted an educational present for their children would buy a typewriter, a globe or an encyclopedia set.

Now those 【21】______ seem hopelessly old-fashioned: this Christmas, there were a lot of 【22】______ computers under the tree. 【23】______ that computers are their key to success, parents are also frantically insisting that children 【24】______ taught to use them on school—as early as possible. The problem for schools is that when it 【25】______ computers, parents don’t always know best. Many schools are 【26】______ parental impatience and are purchasing hardware without 【27】______ educational planning, so they can say, OK, we've moved into the computer age. Teachers 【28】______ themselves caught in the middle of the problem — between parent pressure and 【29】______ educational decisions.

Educators do not even agree 【30】______ how computers should be used. A lot of money is going for computerized educational materials 【31】______ research has shown can be taught 【32】______ with pencil and paper. Even those who believe that all children should 【33】______ to computer warn of potential 【34】______ to the very young.

The temptation remains strong largely because young children 【35】______ so well to computers. First graders have been 【36】______ willing to work for two hours on math skills. Some have an attention span of 20 minutes.

【37】______ school, however, can afford to go into computing, and that creates 【38】______ another problem: a division between the have’s and havenot’s. Very few parents ask 【39】______ computer instruction in poor school districts, 【40】______ there may be barely enough money to pay the reading teacher.

【21】

A．items

B．toys

C．sets

D．series