Whenever anyone measures educational success, East Asian countries are always top scorers. But in a recent league table, a European country, Finland, was top of the class. South Korea was still in second place, though. Britain was at number 6.
In Korea the school day is long—typically 7 or 8 hours, followed by hours of private tutoring in the evenings. All this hothousing leaves Korean students so tired, they sometimes fall asleep in class next day. Worries about the effects of late night cramming(填鸭式) led the government to force cramming schools to close by 10 pm. Finnish children spend the least time in class in the developed world, often finishing just after lunch, with about one hour of homework a day. Private tuition is uncommon. The British and American school day is quite long in comparison, around 6 hours, and secondary school pupils do 2 or 3 hours of self-study a night.
The Korean education system, like many in Asia, is intensely competitive, with students even competing to get into the best cramming schools, to help them get ahead. Finnish education is far less cut-throat. Classes are all mixed ability, and there are no league tables. British schools again occupy the middle ground, with quite high levels of competition for places at university, and schools and universities battling to come top of league tables for everything from exam results to student satisfaction. Korea and Finland both do well, yet their education systems are so different.
However, there are some similarities in Korea and Finland. In those countries, teachers have high status in society, and education is very highly valued. Those attitudes can't change quickly. But it can be done. They might be the star pupils now, but until the l970s, Finland's educational system was poor. Their thoroughly different approach to schooling has taken them to the top in just a generation.The students spend the least time in school in .
| A．the UK | B．Finland | C．the USA | D．Korea |
According to the text, we think in Korea .
| A．students spend more time in studying |
| B．students are tired of studying in class |
| C．students leave their school early |
| D．students are always top scorers |
The underlined phrase “all this hothousing” in Paragragh 2 probably refers to .
| A．private evening tutoring | B．self-study at home |
| C．long-hour study | D．school study |
From Paragragh 3, we can know that .
| A．Finnish students are less stressed in study |
| B．there're also many cramming schools in Britain |
| C．students in Korea are the most competitive in Asia |
| D．British schools are less competitive than universities |
According to the author, the key to improving education is .
| A．the attitude | B．the schooling time |
| C．star pupils | D．new teaching approach |
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 |
Having a husband means an extra seven hours of housework each week for women, according to a new study. For men, getting married saves an hour of housework a week. “It’s a well-known pattern,” said lead researcher Frank Stafford at University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “Men usually work more outside the home, while women take on more of the housework.”
He points out that differences among households (家庭) exist. But in general, marriage means more housework for women and less for men. “And the situation gets worse for women when they have children.” Stafford said.
Overall, times are changing in the American home. In 1976, women busied themselves with 26 weekly hours of sweeping-and-dusting work, compared with 17 hours in 2005. Men are taking on more housework, more than doubling their housework hours from six in 1976 to 13 in 2005.
Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework, about 12 weekly hours, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most – about 21 hours a week.
Men showed a somewhat different pattern, with older men picking up the broom more often than younger men. Single men worked the hardest around the house, more than that of all other age groups of married men.
Having children increases housework even further. With more than three, for example, wives took on more of the extra work, clocking about 28 hours a week compared with husbands’ 10 hours.According to the “well-known pattern” in Paragraph 1, a married man ________.
| A．takes on heavier work |
| B．does more housework |
| C．is the main breadwinner |
| D．is the master of the house |
How many hours of housework did men do every week in the 1970s?
| A．About 28 | B．About 26 | C．About 13 | D．About 6 |
What kind of man is doing most housework according to the text?
| A．An unmarried man. |
| B．An older married man. |
| C．A younger married man. |
| D．A married man with children. |
The Maldives faces the threat of extinction from rising sea levels, but the government said on Thursday it was looking to the future with plans to build homes and a golf course that float.
An increase in sea levels of just 18 to 59 centimeters would make the Maldives -- a nation of tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean -- virtually uninhabitable by 2100, the UN’s climate change panel has warned.
President Mohamed Nasheed has vowed a fight for survival, and last month he signed a deal with a Dutch company to study proposals for a floating structure that could support a convention centre, homes and an 18-hole golf course. “It is still early stages and we are awaiting a report on the possibility,” a government official said.
The company, Dutch Docklands, is currently building floating developments in the Netherlands and Dubai. There was no immediate comment from the firm but its website said it undertook projects that make “land from water by providing large-scale floating constructions to create similar conditions as on land”.
The Maldives began work on an artificial island known as the Hulhumale near the crowded capital island of Male in 1997 and more than 30,000 people have been settled there to ease congestion. The city, which has a population of 100,000, is already protected from rising sea levels by a 30-million-dollar sea wall, and the government is considering increasingly imaginative ways to combat climate change.
Nasheed, who staged the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting in October to highlight his people’s dilemma , has even spoken of buying land elsewhere in the world to enable Maldivians to relocate if their homes are flooded. He has also pledged the Hulhumale to turn his nation into a model for the rest of the world by becoming “carbon neutral” by 2020. His plan involves ending fossil fuel use and powering all vehicles and buildings from “green” sources.What’s the main idea of the passage?
| A．The Maldives plans to build floating homes for the rising sea level. |
| B．The Maldives’s president signed a deal with a Dutch company. |
| C．The Maldives staged the first underwater cabinet meeting. |
| D．The Maldives is considering ways to fight against the global warming. |
Which statement is true about the Hulhumale?
| A．The Hulhumale is a natural island near the capital of Male. |
| B．The Hulhumale is an artificial island to be built near the capital. |
| C．The Hulhumale was built in 1997 and has settled over 30,000 people. |
| D．The Hulhumale is protected by a 30-million-dollar sea wall. |
According to the passage, the underlined word congestion means _______.
| A．being endangered | B．being crowded |
| C．being flooded | D．being disappearing |
Which of the following is NOT Nasheed’s idea?_______
| A．To purchase land elsewhere in the world to help Maldivians to relocate if their homes are flooded. |
| B．To make his nation a model for the rest of the world by becoming “carbon neutral” by 2020 |
| C．To stop using fossil fuel and power all vehicles and buildings from “green” sources. |
| D．To build more artificial islands for people to settle there. |