The findings of a new survey have American professors talking about the good old days—when A's were a lot tougher to earn．
Sites like RateMyProfessors．com make it easy for students to find a class taught by a professor who is known as an "easy grader"．A recent survey by Kaplan Test Prep found that 46 percent of the more than 1,200 students polled admitted to using the site for just such a purpose．
"Our research shows that many of today's college students are looking at multiple factors when picking out courses: overall teacher quality that will result in a good learning experience, but also instructors who don't like to award a lot of C's and D's," said Jeff Olson, vice president of research at Kaplan Test Prep．
"While it makes sense that students would choose kinder graders, it also helps explain the recent popularity of grade inflation（膨胀）．"
Grade inflation is seen by many professors as poisoning the learning environment．Some, like former Duke University professor Stuart Rojstaczer, are righting it head-on．
On his website, Gradelnflation．com, he releases an annual list of schools where grade inflation is the worst．
This year, he decided to name the schools where grades were inflated the least．He praised, for example, Princeton University, as well as Purdue University, where the average GPA has remained around 2．8 for over 30 years．
"Purdue doesn't even seem to know that grade inflation exists in the US," Rojstaczer says．"Ignorance is bliss（极大的幸福）．"
68．From the passage we may know that Kaplan Test Prep is most probably _____
A．an institute B．a professor
C．a vice president D．a course
69．Grade inflation is spreading because _____．
A．it's poisoning the learning environment
B．instructors intend to improve their overall teaching quality
C．many instructors adapt to the students' expectations
D．students get easy access to sites like RateMyProfessors．com
70．The passage suggests that _____．
A．universities will employ hard graders
B．if we want to be happy, we should be ignorant
C．A's are becoming easy to earn at most US universities
D．professors and instructors should give students higher grades
71．The writer tends to _____．
A．favor easy graders B．see grade inflation as unavoidable
C．oppose Kaplan Test Prep D．miss the days when A's were hard to earn
One day, Mary asked her mother, “Mum, what do people mean by saying they have a skeleton(骨架）in the closet(衣橱)?” Her mother paused thoughtfully and said, “Well, it’s something that you would rather not have anyone else know about. For example, if in the past, someone in Dad’s family had been arrested for stealing a horse, it would be a skeleton in his family’s closet. He really wouldn’t want any neighbor to know about it.”
“Why pick my family?” Mary’s father said with anger. “Your family history isn’t so good, you know. Wasn’t your great-great-grandfather a prisoner who was transported to Australia for his crimes?” “Yes, but people these days say that you are not a real Australian unless your ancestors arrived as prisoners.” “Gosh, sorry I asked. I think I understand now.” Mary cut in before things grew worse.
After dinner, the house was quiet. Mary’s parents were quite angry with each other. Her mother was ironing clothes and every now and then she glared at her husband, who hid behind his newspaper pretending to read. When she finished, she gathered the freshly pressed clothes in her arms and walked to Mary’s closet. Just as she opened the door and reached in to hang a skirt, a bony arm stuck out from the dark depths and a bundle of white bones fell to the floor. Mary’s mother sank into a faint(晕倒), waking only when Mary put a cold, wet cloth on her forehead. She looked up to see the worried faces of her husband and daughter.
“What happened? Where am I?” she asked. “You just destroyed the school’s skeleton, Mum,” explained Mary. “I brought it home to help me with my health project. I meant to tell you, but it seemed that as soon as I mentioned skeletons and closets, it caused a problem between you and Dad.” Mary looked in amazement as her parents began to laugh madly. “They’re crazy,” she thought. According to Mary’s mother, “a skeleton in a closet” means _______.
| A．a family honor | B．a family wealth |
| C．a family story | D．a family secret |
What can we learn about some Australians’ ancestors from Paragraph 2?
| A．They were brought to Australia as prisoners. |
| B．They were the earliest people living in Australia. |
| C．They were involved in some crimes in Australia. |
| D．They were not regarded as criminals in their days. |
Mary’s mother fell down into a faint because she was_________.
| A．knocked | B．terrified | C．injured | D．surprised |
Why did Mary bring a skeleton home?
| A．She was curious about it. | B．She planned to keep it for fun. |
| C．She needed it for her school task. | D．She intended to scare her parents. |
Mary’s parents laughed madly at the end of the story probably because________.
| A．They were mentally ill. |
| B．They were over happy. |
| C．They understood what had really happened. |
| D．They both thought they had won the quarrel. |
For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2-year-old dog, and Winnie, a cute cat, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
As Amy Paul choked(哽住) on a piece of apple at her home, her dog jumped up, landing hard on her chest and forcing the piece in her throat out. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be killed by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at the wife Cathy’s hair until she woke up and called for help.
No one could explain their timely heroics.
Both pets were rescued by their owners in infancy-----Toby as a 4-week-old thrown into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Cathy’s husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.
As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used broke down, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie went to rescue, the couple’s 14-year-old son was already unconscious. “Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry sound,” Cathy Keesling said. The state police responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house.
Amy Paul’s husband was at his job when she took a midday break from making jewelry and bit into an apple. “Normally I peel them, but I read in Good Housekeeping Magazine that the skin has all the nutrients, so I ate the skin, and that’s what caused me to choke,” she recalled. “I couldn’t breathe and I was in panic when Toby jumped on me. He never does that, but he did, and saved my life.”
Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon.What would be the suitable title for the passage?
| A．Great Honors for Cat and Dog |
| B．Dog and Cat Honored for Saving Their Masters |
| C．Unforgettable Experiences |
| D．So Smart Animals Are |
Winnie saved the lives of its owner’s whole family in an accident by __________.
| A．jumping onto its owner | B．calling for help |
| C．making some strange noises | D．clawing at Cathy’s hair |
Which of the following has the similar meaning to the underlined word “infancy” in Paragraph 4?
| A．babyhood | B．Youth | C．Middle age | D．agedness |
What caused the carbon monoxide spreading through the house?
| A．A pump breaking down. | B．A driver breaking into the house. |
| C．The burning gas. | D．The poisonous gas. |
Why did Amy Paul choke on a piece of apple?
| A．She was too young to care for herself. |
| B．She had a big bite. |
| C．She didn’t peel the skin as usual. |
| D．The apple was too hard. |
Ever since man began to use the telephone, there have been new problems arising from the carrying of messages. At first, each message was carried by a pair of overhead wires. As a result, telephone exchanges were soon surrounded by thousands of wires. The wires were then replaced by cables (电缆)，each containing many pairs of wires. Each cable is capable of carrying many messages. These cables, laid underground, replaced the overhead wires.
The more extensive telephone services have become, the more demand for these services has increased, particularly the demand for long-distance services. In China, for example, this growth is now over 30% every year. Long-distance telephone exchanges are usually in crowded cities, where is not easy to lay new labels for expanding services.
The use of radio to send telephone message and to link all telephone exchanges makes it possible to get rid of overhead wires and some underground cables.
Now man has invented the microwave system ( 微波系统 ). In a microwave system messages from various places can be brought together, and then they are sent out and received by radio. After that, the messages are split into their original form. Finally, they are sent to the places where they are going to be sent.The word “message” ( in paragraph 1) is close in meaning to “______”.
| A．electricity | B．industry | C．information | D．wave |
A cable is different from an overhead wire, because it ________.
| A．is made of wood |
| B．needs more exchange |
| C．carries more messages |
| D．is much longer |
What does the word extensive mean？
| A．growing | B．using | C．holding | D．understanding |
The best title for the passage would be “________”.
| A．The Telephone and Its Past |
| B．From the Wire to the Microwave System |
| C．The Needs for Better Telephones |
| D．How to Use the Telephone |
There is very simple way of measuring the height of a water-tower, which we cannot measure by climbing.
Suppose, for example, that we wish to find out the height of the water-tower, AB, in a factory. We first of all go to where the water-tower is standing and measure a distance of, say, 25 feet from it. Then we take a stick, and stand it in the ground at the spot we have just marked.
Let us suppose the stick we are using is 4 feet in height. We now walk farther away from the water –tower in the same straight line as when we measured off the distance of 25 feet. We go from the water-tower until we come to point E, where with our head on the ground, we see the top of the stick and the top of the water-tower in the same height line---that is, the top of the stick just covers the highest part of the water-tower. Every schoolboy can work out the height of the water-tower now.
Suppose that the line CE is five feet. We know that the stick is 4 feet high and the distance BE is 30 feet. Thus, 5 is to 4 as 30 is to AB.If we want to know how high a tall tree is,_______.
A. we have to climb up the tree
B. we have no way out
C. we must cut down the tree
D we needn’t climb up the tree According to the passage, which of the following is correct?
It is clear from this that the problem can be settled by _________.
| A．a child |
| B．the boy who has little schooling |
| C．everyone |
| D．a girl at middle school |
To measure a water-tower in this way, _________.
| A．no tool is needed |
| B．Besides a stick, tape-measure (卷尺) or at least a ruler is necessary. |
| C．we have to use nothing but a stick |
| D．we have to prepare a set of expensive tools |
When John Weston awoke that morning, he remembered that his mother was going into hospital. He hadn’t worked out quite what was wrong with her. He knew, though that she hadn’t been well for some time now, and it had become almost familiar to him to see her eyes narrowed in a sudden attack of pain, and her hand pressing against her heart. Their own doctor, who she had finally gone to for advice, had sent her to an expert who knew all about these things. He had told her that just as soon as there was a bed for her, she would have to come into his hospital where he could look after her himself.
During the weeks since then the pains had come even more frequently, and the narrowed eyes became an almost permanent part of her expression. Always rather sharp, she began losing her temper over little things so that John’s father kept his thoughts to himself more and more. John, as ready as possible to make allowances, tried to think what it would be like to have toothache all the time and how bad-tempered that would make you.
So his mother would go into hospital for a few days. He was going to stay with his Aunt Daisy till she came back, and his father would stay on at home by himself. John’s cousin, Mona, was to come in and make the bed and wash the pots and dust round now and again. That was the arrangement, and John didn’t care much for it. Apart from missing his mother(and he was glad she was going away because they would make her better), he wasn’t very fond of his Aunt Daisy because she was even more bad-tempered than his mother.Mrs Weston went to see her doctor_________.
| A．as soon as she realized that something was wrong |
| B．only after her husband advised her to |
| C．a long time after the trouble began |
| D．when John asked what was wrong with her |
what did Mrs Weston’s own doctor decide to do?
| A．he decided to send her to hospital |
| B．he decided to get an expert to examine her |
| C．He decided to treat her himself |
| D．He advised her to wait for a few weeks. |
how did John react to his mother’s bad temper?
| A．he tried to imagine himself in her place. |
| B．He tried not to notice it. |
| C．He pretended that he had toothache. |
| D．He behaved himself as well as possible. |
John regarded ______as most bad-tempered.
| A．his father | B．his mother | C．his cousin Mona | D．his aunt Daisy |