Kidsundergoalargeamountofpress-优题课

The U.S. Department of Labor statistics (统计) show that there is an oversupply of college-trained workers and that this oversupply is increasing. Already there have been more than enough teachers, engineers, physicists, aerospace experts, and other specialists. Yet colleges and graduate schools continue every year to turn out highly trained people to compete for jobs that aren't there. The result is that graduates cannot enter the professions for which they were trained and must take temporary jobs which do not require a college degree.
On the other hand, there is a great need for skilled workers of all sorts: carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, TV repairmen.
These people have more work than they can deal with, and their annual incomes are often higher than those of college graduates. The old gap that white-collar workers make a better living than blue-collar workers no longer holds true. The law of supply and demand now favors the skilled workmen.
The reason for this situation is the traditional myth that college degree is a passport to a prosperous future. A large part of American society matches success in life equally with a college degree. Parents begin indoctrinating (灌输) their children with this myth before they are out of grade school. High school teachers play their part by acting as if high school education were a preparation for college rather than for life. Under this pressure the kids fall in line. Whether they want to go to college or not doesn't matter. Everybody should go to college, so of course they must go. And every year college enrollments (入学) go up and up, and more and more graduates are overeducated for the kinds of jobs available to them.
One result of this emphasis on a college education is that many people go to college who do not belong there. Of the sixty percent of high school graduates who enter college, half of them do not graduate with their class. Many of them drop out within the first year. Some struggle on for two or three years and then give up.
1. It's implied but not stated in the passage that .
A. many other countries are facing the same problem
B. white-collar workers in the US used to make more money than blue-collar workers
C. fewer students will prefer to go to college in the future
D. the law of supply and demand has a strong effect on American higher education
2. Which of the following is NOT a reason why college enrollments go up every year?
A. Many people believe that the only way to success is a college education.
B. Many parents want their children to go to college.
C. High school teachers urge their students to go to college.
D. Every young man and woman wants to go to college.
3. By saying that“many people go to college who do not belong there,” the author means that .
A. many people who are not fit for college education go to college
B. many people who do not have enough money go to college
C. many people who go to college drop out within the first year
D. many people who go to college have their hopes destroyed
4. We can infer from the passage that the author believes that .
A. every young man and woman should go to college
B. college education is a bad thing
C. people with a college education should receive higher pay
D. fewer people should go to college while more should be trained for skilled jobs

Let's pretend we're sailing down the Rhine River on a pleasure boat. The Rhine is one of the main waterways of Germany, and the river traffic is heavy. It's interesting to watch the many boats going up and down the river. But the river traffic is not nearly so interesting as the beautiful scenery along the banks and hillsides. The boat is passing many old castles. We can see people working in the vineyards (葡萄园) on the hillsides. There are vineyards as far as the eye can see. Wine from the Rhine Valley is famous all over the world.
Suddenly our boat slows down and begins to turn a little. We are coming to a sharp bend in the river. On our right we can see a rocky cliff over 400 feet high. At first it looks quite ordinary, but there is nothing ordinary about it. There are many stories, poems, and songs about the cliff. We are looking at the Lorelei.
The someone on the boat begins to sing in German, the song of the Lorelei. It is a song about a beautiful siren (美女) who has lured many sailors to their deaths.
The siren is supposed to sit on the rock combing her long golden hair and singing. The sailors who hear her forget to steer, and the current of river hurls their boats on the rocks and dashes them to pieces.
Soon other people on the boat begin to sing. The beautiful song adds to special magic to the moment, and you begin to realize why so many people have made this trip down the Rhine to see the rock of the Lorelei.
1.The more interesting thing to those who are sailing down the Rhine River on a pleasure boat is .
A. to watch many boats going up and down the river
B. to see the beautiful scenery along the banks and hillsides
C. to hear a song about beautiful siren
D. to see a beautiful siren combing her golden hair
2. Which of the following is famous all over the world?
A. The Rhine River. B. The River Traffic.
C. Wine from the Rhine Valley. D. The Lorelei.
3. We can see a rocky cliff over 400 feet high .
A. on our right when coming to a sharp bend B. on the Rhine hillsides
C. from the Rhine Valley D. on the boat
4. The song of the Lorelei is about .
A. The Rhine wine
B. a rocky cliff
C. the beautiful scenery along the Rhine River
D. a beautiful and dangerous woman genie

Part three: Reading Comprehension (20 items; 40 pts.)
The common cold is the world's most widespread illness, which is plagues (瘟疫) that flesh receives.
The most widespread fallacy (谬误) of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in isolated arctic regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.
During the First World War soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches (战壕) cold and wet, showed no increased tendency to catch colds.
In the Second World War prisoners at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp (奥斯维辛集中营), naked and starving, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds.
At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in Experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be dipped with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty room. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose.
If, then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter? Despite the most pains- research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on.
No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain-killer pills such as aspirin, but all they do is relieve the symptoms.
1. The writer offered examples to support his argument.
A. 4 B. 5 C. 6 D. 3
2. Which of the following does not agree with the chosen passage?
A. The Eskimos do not suffer from colds all the time.
B. Colds are not caused by cold.
C. People suffer from colds just because they like to stay indoors.
D. A person may catch a cold by touching someone who already has one.
3. Arctic explorers may catch colds when .
A. they are working in the isolated arctic regions
B. they are writing reports in terribly cold weather
C. they are free from work in the isolated arctic regions
D. they are coming into touch again with the outside world
4. Volunteers taking part in the experiments in the Common Cold Research Unit .
A. suffered a lot B. never caught colds
C. often caught colds D. became very strong
5. The passage mainly discusses .
A. the experiments on the common colds B. the fallacy about the common cold
C. the reason and the way people catch colds D. the continued spread of common colds

Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination(歧视) have been made illegal. But one popular form continues to exist, that is alphabetism (字母排序法). This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames (姓氏) begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet.
It has long been known that the cars of a taxi firm called AAAA have a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers look through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbot has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a quite large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.
Thus the American presidents and vice-presidents have surnames starting with B and C separately and 26 of those before George Bush took office (including his father) had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi ). The world’s three top central bankers (Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami) are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. The same case are the world’s five richest men (Gates, Buffet and so on).
Can this merely happen by chance? At the start of the first year in primary school, teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So shortsighted Zysman gets stuck in the back row, and is seldom asked the improving questions by those teachers. At that time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly.
The unfairness continues. At university graduation parties, the ABCs proudly get their awards first. However, by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are a little tired. Lists of job interviews and conference speakers and attendees all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their readers lose interest as they plough through them.
1. What does the author intend to show with AAAA cars and Zodiac cars?
A. An example of competition of two kinds of cars. B. Some advantages of AAAA cars in the taxi firm.
C. An example of unfairness caused by alphabetism. D. Some disadvantages of Zodiac cars in the taxi firm.
2. What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?
A. The alphabet is to blame for the failure of Zoe Zysman.
B. In both East and West, names are important to success.
C. Customers often pay a lot of attention to companies’ names.
D. The discrimination in alphabetism can be found in many areas.
3. The fourth paragraph suggests that .
A. alphabetically disadvantaged students often escape from class
B. teachers should pay equal attention to all their students
C. questions are often put to the more intelligent students
D. students should be seated according to their eyesight
4. Which of the following is true according to the passage?
A. VIPs in the western world gain a great deal from alphabetism.
B. People with surnames beginning with N to Z are often ill – treated.
C. Putting things alphabetically may lead to unintentional unfairness.
D. The movement to get rid of alphabetism still has a long way to go.

Learners report two main difficulties in reading, which may be linked. There are too many unknown words and as a result reading is simply not a pleasure. For some students, even reading in their own language is a chore.
　　Having a wide vocabulary is essential to making sense of written language. Of course, this is a circular argument, because the more you read the more vocabulary you learn and the more words you know the more easily you can read. Don’t make the mistake of reading with your dictionary beside you, looking up every single new or doubtful word. This is laborious and prevents you from practicing the skill of prediction.
　　Sometimes in reading you find a word you know but the sense doesn’t seem to fit in. This is not surprising because words have so many meanings and degrees of meaning. What is more, part of their meaning is shaped by the words around them. Keep looking at the surrounding words and asking yourself “what sort of meaning would make sense here?”
　　The more that people study the reading process, the better they can pass on to language learners a range of advice to choose from. People have learned to read in all kinds of ways. Here is some information that could help you plan to be a better reader in the foreign language you are studying.
　　1）Work out the general meaning first
　　When people read in a new language they often feel they must take a detailed approach, focusing on every word, particularly those they don’t know. They read as if they were using a microscope, looking carefully at each of the small pieces（the individual words）, but not necessarily seeing the whole picture at first. This is called the “bottom-up” approach. Other readers try to look first at the big picture（the “top-down” approach）, attending to individual bricks only as necessary, a process that involves some intelligent guesswork. Generally this second approach is recommended by successful learners.
　　2）Interactive reading
　　Another way of thinking about reading is to describe it as an interactive process, where the text brings something to you and you bring something to the text. Readers bring together all their knowledge of the world with what they see on the page in front of them. That is why, when reading in our own language, we don’t need to read every word. We add meaning which is not actually stated.
　　3）From supported reading to independent reading
　　Language learners start by needing considerable support as they read. Textbooks supply this support in the form of introductions that summaries the contents, glossaries, pictures, explanations of new grammar points. In your reading you need to move gradually from this support to reading more the text itself.
1. According to the author, ________.
A. looking up the dictionary is of great help for the understanding
B. reading more promotes the gaining of vocabulary
C. the more you read, the less useful the dictionary will be
D. the amount of vocabulary is the key to reading
2. Successful learners recommend ________.
A. trying to look first at the big picture B. looking carefully at each of the small pieces
C. focusing on every word D. “bottom-up” approach
3. The word “chore” in the first paragraph maybe means ________.
A. an important aspect B. a difficult and tiring thing
C. an easy question D. something special
4. You come across a new or doubtful word when you are reading, you can ________.
A. just miss it and let it be B. keep looking at the surrounding words
C. look it up in the dictionary each time D. make sense of it with the help of dictionary

A．Their best ones.	B．Their favourite ones.
C．the easiest ones	D．the most difficult ones