Recently, a student used his Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to film a female teacher scolding and tearing the work of a classmate. The public discussion that the incident caused started on the Internet. However, when it came to the media’s attention, it quickly became a major topic in the education circles. The reactions so far suggest that the focus of the debate has been on one question: whom to blame?
Teachers who are anxious to defend their professional dignity have tried to put the blame on the students. They mentioned their right to privacy 隐私）and for this reason they requested the Ministry of Education (MOE) to prohibit PDAs in schools. On the other hand, some parents and students have taken a different position. They feel that the teacher is also at fault. Caught up in the war of words between both sides, people are no longer interested in the “truth” of the matter which seems now unimportant. It was left to newspapers to discover the central point of the controversial issue, by stressing the problems that are not always easily noticed in our educational system.
For those responsible for educating the young, this PDA incident conveys the message that “Times have changed”，a reality that must have been felt even more strongly by the female teacher when reflecting on this unpleasant experience. Different times call for different professional approaches in education. The ability to understand the students they are teaching has always been the quality of successful teachers. Despite some factors, the incident shows that the teacher lacks good qualities on her part. Besides, the rules under current system to deal with recalcitrant students need to be improved. Also, it is an example which shows the issue we are familiar with: what to do with new technology? With PDA, the new technology, the interaction (交流）between the teacher and students in classroom has been changed.The author’s purpose in writing this passage is to______.
| A．improve the teachers’ way of teaching |
| B．stress the using of PDA in the classroom |
| C．change the students’ behavior in the classroom |
| D．discuss the potential problems of educational system |
The underlined word “recalcitrant” in paragraph 3 probably means______?
| A．difficult to control | B．interested in nothing |
| C．unwilling to learn | D．ready to obey rules |
The writer’s attitude toward the PDA incident is______.
| A．optimistic | B．critical |
| C．uncertain | D．approval |
What might be the best title for the passage?
| A．Whom to blame? |
| B．The PDA incident |
| C．Times have changed |
| D．What to do with new technology? |
COLUMBUS, Ohio—The heart operation taking place in the pale-green operating room at the Ohio State University Medical Center was unusual. The patient, a 62-year-old man, was made to sleep, tied with blue drapes（消毒帷帘）and lying face up on a narrow table. But no one was touching him.
Instead, the operation was being performed by a robot, whose three metal arms went through pencil-sized holes in the man’s chest. At the ends of the robot’s arms were tiny metal fingers, with turning wrists, which held a tiny instrument, a light and a camera. The robot’s arms and fingers were controlled by Dr. Randall K. Wolf, sitting at a computer in a corner of the operating room about 20 feet away.
This sort of operation, heart surgeons say, is the start of what may be the biggest change in their profession since heart bypass surgery（心脏搭桥手术）began nearly 30 years ago. “The reason we make cuts is that we have big hands,” said Dr. Wolf, the director of the surgery at Ohio State. The robot’s dainty fingers, no longer than a nail on the small finger, at the end of the long sticks could work better.
Eventually, surgeons believe, most heart surgery will be done by robots whose arms are put in through pencil-sized holes punched in patients’ chests. Instead of directly staring into a patient’s body, surgeons will view magnified images of the operation on computer screens. In theory, the doctor would not have to be in the same room, or even the same country, as the patient.In this passage, the underlined word “dainty” means ______.
| A．weak | B．small | C．fat | D．quick |
According to the passage, the reason that most operations require large cuts is that ______.
| A．patients have large organs | B．surgeons have large hands |
| C．large cuts take less time | D．large cuts cost less money |
The main idea of this passage is that heart surgery by robots ______.
| A．is quicker than surgery done by doctors | B．may replace surgery done by doctors |
| C．is a new and risky procedure | D．was developed at Ohio State University |
Based on the information in this passage, all of the following conclusions are true EXCEPT ______.
| A．Robot surgery is being developed at Ohio State |
| B．Robot surgery will be used on many patients in the near future |
| C．All doctors at Ohio Sate develop new surgical techniques |
| D．Many hospitals will eventually offer robot surgery to patients |
Recently a group of children in America poured some gasoline on a sleeping man and set him on fire. When caught, the children said they had done what they’d seen on TV.
The incidents make people angry who believe that American children are harmed by watching too much TV. They claim children can’t tell between the fiction of TV and reality, and TV distracts them from learning and makes them violent.
To estimate the impact of TV on young people, “Life” magazine hires a company to interview hundreds of school children in Nora Springs, Iowa and in Dallas, Texas. Although the two cities are very different, the company finds children in each city watch the same TV shows.
Many Iowa children, who watch an average of three hours of TV a day, recognizing that life on TV is rosier than what they experience. Their favourite shows are situation comedies about American families in trouble. Many boys like violent shows about police detectives or heroes, girls particularly soap operas-stories about families and friends.
On the whole, children find real violence on news programs hard to take. “If you see a bus crash on the news, it’s frightening,” one fifth grader says. By and large, the Iowa children agree that the best thing about TV is it makes you laugh.
Children in Dallas are savvier about programs of drug use on TV. “They don’t really show them doing it right. On TV they are not real.” A fifth grader says.
“Life” agrees with a 1988 study by the U. S Department of education that finds children are none the worse for watching TV. The study finds TV doesn’t have lasting effect on children. On the contrary, kids show good judgment about what they watch. “There are very few good shows on TV anymore,” a 10-year-old boy says.
While the debate about TV is so heated, the “Life” survey gives hope that American kids aren’t wasting three or four hours a day (what is worse, by the time young people enter college today, they will have devoted more time to watching television than they will spend in college). However, a child watching TV isn’t reading a good book or joining in healthful sports.The main idea of the passage is .
| A．children who watch more TV are smarter than those who watch only one hour a day |
| B．children learn about drugs from watching TV |
| C．watching too much TV can cause children to go out and kill people |
| D．children learn from TV and can tell reality from what they see on it |
Children who see real violence on TV news programs .
| A．change the channel to watch other programs | B．live in Iowa or Texas |
| C．are sometimes upset and scared | D．think TV gives a very positive image of friendship |
Children who enter college today.
| A．usually cause the satisfaction of the society |
| B．think life on TV is happier than their life at home |
| C．have spent more time watching TV than they will spend in college |
| D．watch most the same TV shows as children in Dallas |
The “Life” survey of children’s TV habits .
| A．concludes that watching up to seven hours a day of TV is good for children |
| B．agrees with the U.S. Department of Education study that finds few negative effects from watching TV |
| C．concludes that there aren’t any good shows on TV any more |
| D．concludes that children shouldn’t pour gasoline on sleeping man |
This year some twenty-three hundred teenagers (young people aged from 13-19) from all over the world will spend about ten months in U. S. homes. They will attend U.S. schools, meet U.S. teenagers, and form impressions of the real America. At the same time, about thirteen hundred American teenagers will go to other countries to learn new languages and gain a new understanding of the rest of the world.
Here is a two-way student exchange in action. Fred, nineteen, spent last year in Germany with George’s family. In turn, George’s son Mike spent a year in Fred’s home in America.
Fred, a lively young man, knew little German when he arrived, but after two months’ study, the language began to come to him. School was completely different from what he had expected-much harder. Students rose respectfully when the teacher entered the room. They took fourteen subjects instead of the six that are usual in the United States. There were almost no outside activities.
Family life, too, was different. The father’s word was law, and all activities were around the family rather than the individual(个人). Fred found the food too simple at first. Also, he missed having a car. “Back home, you pick up some friends in a car and go out and have a good time. In Germany, you walk, but you soon learn to like it.”
At the same time, in America, Mike, a friendly German boy, was also forming his idea. “I suppose I should criticize (批评) American schools”, he says. “It is far too easy by our level. But I have to say that I like it very much. In Germany we do nothing but study. Here we take part in many outside activities. I think that maybe you schools are better in training for citizens. There ought to be some middle ground between the two.”This year _____ teenagers will take part in the exchange programme between America and other countries.
| A．over three thousand | B．thirteen hundred |
| C．twenty three hundred | D．less than two thousand |
The whole exchange programme is mainly to _____.
| A．have teen-agers learn new languages |
| B．send students in America to travel in Germany |
| C．help teen-agers in other countries know the real America |
| D．let students learn something about other countries |
Fred and Mike agreed that _____.
| A．American food tasted better than German food |
| B．Americans and Germans were both friendly |
| C．German schools were harder than American schools |
| D．There were more cars on the streets in America |
What is particular in American schools is that _____.
| A．students go outside to enjoy themselves in a car |
| B．there are a lot of after-school activities |
| C．students usually take fourteen subjects in all |
| D．there is some middle ground between the two teaching buildings |
After experiencing the American school life, Mike thought _____.
| A．German schools trained students to be better citizens |
| B．a better education should include something good from both America and Germany |
| C．American schools were not as good as German schools |
| D．the easy life in the American school was more helpful to students |
Reading to oneself is modern activity which was almost unknown to the learned in the early days of the history, while during the fifteenth century the term “reading” undoubtedly meant reading aloud. Only during the nineteenth century did silent reading become popular.
One should be careful, however, of supposing that silent reading came about simply because reading aloud is distraction（分散注意力）to others. Examination of reasons connected with the historical development of silent reading shows that it became the usual mode of reading for most adult reading tasks mainly because the tasks themselves changed in character.
The last century saw a gradual increase in literacy（读写能力）and thus in the number of readers. As readers increased, so the number of listeners dropped, and thus there was some reduction in the need to read aloud. As reading for the benefit of listeners grew less common, so came the popularity of reading as a private activity in such public places as libraries, trains and offices, where reading aloud would disturb other readers in a way.
Towards the end of the century there was still heated argument over whether books should be used for information or treated respectfully, and over whether the reading of material such as newspapers was in some way mentally weakening. Indeed this argument remains with us still in education. However, whatever its advantages, the old shared literacy culture had gone and was replaced by the printed mass media on the one hand and by books and magazines for a specialized readership on the other.
By the end of the century students were being advised to have some new ideas of books and to use skill in reading them which were not proper, if not impossible, for the oral reader. The social, cultural, and technological developments in the century had greatly changed what the term “reading” referred to.Why was reading aloud common before the nineteenth century?
| A．Because silent reading had not been discovered. |
| B．Because few people could read for themselves. |
| C．Because there were few places for private reading. |
| D．Because people depended on reading for enjoyment. |
The development of silent reading during the nineteenth century showed .
| A．a change in the nature of reading | B．a change in the position of literate people |
| C．an increase in the number of books | D．an increase in the average age of readers |
Educations are still arguing about .
| A．the amount of information provided by books and newspapers |
| B．the importance of silent reading |
| C．the value of different types of reading material |
| D．the effects of reading on health |
What is the writer of this passage attempting to do?
| A．To show how reading methods have improved. | B．To encourage the growth of reading. |
| C．To change people’s way to read. | D．To explain how present-day reading habits developed. |
My father had returned from his business visit to London when I came in, rather late, to supper. I could tell at once that he and my mother had been discussing something. In that half-playful, half-serious way I knew so well, he said, "How would you like to go to Eton?"
"You bet," I cried quickly catching the joke. Everyone knew it was the most expensive, the most famous of schools. You had to be entered at birth, if not before. Besides, even at 12 or 13, I understood my father. He disliked any form of showing off. He always knew his proper station in life, which was in the middle of the middle class, our house was medium-sized; he had avoided joining Royal Liverpool Golf Club and went to a smaller one instead; though once he had got a second-hand Rolls-Royce at a remarkably low price, he felt embarrassed driving it, and quickly changed it for an Austin 1100.
This could only be his delightful way of telling me that the whole boarding school idea was to be dropped. Alas! I should also have remembered that he had a liking for being different from everyone else, if it did not conflict(冲突) with his fear of drawing attention to himself.
It seemed that he had happened to be talking to Graham Brown of the London office, a very nice fellow, and Graham had a friend who had just entered his boy at the school, and while he was in that part of the world he thought he might just as well phone them. I remember my eyes stinging(刺痛) and my hands shaking with the puzzlement of my feelings. There was excitement, at the heart of great sadness.
"Oh, he doesn't want to go away," said my mother, "You shouldn't go on like this.” “It's up to him," said my father. "He can make up his own mind."The house the writer's family lived in was ________.
| A．the best they could afford | B．right for their social position |
| C．for showing off | D．rather small |
His father sold his Roils-Royce because ________.
| A．it made him feel uneasy | B．it was too old to work well |
| C．it was too expensive to possess | D．it was too cheap |
The writer's father enjoyed being different as long as ________.
| A．it drew attention to him | B．it didn't bring him in arguments |
| C．it was understood as a joke | D．there was no danger of his showing off |
What was the writer's reaction to the idea of going to Eton?
| A．He was very unhappy. | B．He didn't believe it. |
| C．He was delighted. | D．He had mixed feelings. |
We can know from the passage that ________.
| A．Children who can go to Eton are very famous |
| B．Children can go to Eton if they will |
| C．It is very difficult for a child to get admitted by Eton |
| D．Children don't have the right to decide whether they will go to Eton |