Students and Technology in the Classroom
I love my blackberry—it’s my little connection to the larger world that can go anywhere with me . I also love my laptop computer ，as it holds all of my writing and thoughts .Despite this love of technology ,I know that there are times when I need to move away from these devices（设备） and truly communicate with others.
On occasion, I teach a course called History Matters for a group of higher education managers. My goals for the class include a full discussion of historical themes and ideas .Because I want students to thoroughly study the material and exchange their ideas with each other in the classroom ,I have a rule —no laptop ,iPads ,phones ,etc .When students were told my rule in advance of the class, some of them were not happy .
Most students think that my reasons for this rule include unpleasant experiences in the past with students misusing technology . There’s a bit of truth to that. Some students think that I am anti-technology . There’s no truth in that at all . I love technology and try to keep up with it so I can relate to my students.
The real reason why I ask students to leave technology at the door is that I think there are very few places in which we can have deep conversions and truly engage complex ideas. Interruptions by technology often break concentration and allow for too much dependence on outside information for ideas . I want students to dig deep within themselves for inspiration and ideas. I want them to push each other to think differently and make connections between the course the material and the class discussion .
I’ve been teaching my history class in this way for many years and the evaluations reflect student satisfaction with the environment that I create .Students realize that with deep conversation and challenge , they learn at a level that helps them keep the course material beyond the classroom .
I’m not saying that I won’t ever change my mind about technology use in my history class, but until I hear a really good reason for the change ,I’m sticking to my plan. A few hours of technology-free （没有科技）dialogue is just too sweet to give up. Some of the students in the history class were unhappy with____
| A．the course material |
| B．others’ misuse of technology |
| C．discussion topics |
| D．the author’s class regulations |
According to the author ,the use of technology in the classroom may ____
| A．keep students from doing independent thinking |
| B．encourage students to have in-depth conversations |
| C．help students to better understand complex themes |
| D．affect students’ concentration on course evaluation |
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that the author ____
| A．is quite stubborn |
| B．will give up teaching history |
| C．will change his teaching plan soon |
| D．values technology-free dialogues in his class |
Motorists used to listening to the radio or their favorite tunes on CDs may have a new way to entertain themselves, after engineers in Japan developed a musical road surface.
The Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a number of “melody roads”, which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel.
The concept works by using grooves(凹槽). They are cut at very specific intervals(间隔) in the road surface. The melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes(音符).
Depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them will produce a series of high or low notes, and designers are able to create a distinct tune.
Patent documents for the design describe it as notches “formed in a road surface so as to play a melody without producing simple sound or rhythm and reproduce melody-like tones”.
There are three musical roads in central and northern Japan---one of which plays the tune of a Japanese pop song. Reports say the system was invented by Shizuo Shinoda. He scraped some markings into a road with a bulldozer(推土机) before driving over them and found that they helped to produce all kinds of tones.
The optimal speed for melody road is 44 kph, but people say it is not always easy to get the intended sound.
“You need to keep the car windows closed to hear well,” wrote one Japanese blogger. “Driving too fast will sound like playing fast forward, while driving around 12 mph (20 kph) has a slow-motion effect, making you almost car-sick.”
59. According to the passage, to create different notes, melody roads use ______.
A. cars B. grooves C. spaces between internals D. bulldozers
60. We can learn from the passage that the highness of notes is dependent on ______.
A. how far the grooves are B. how big the grooves are
C. the number of the grooves D. the speed of the car
61. The underlined word “optimal” in the passage might mean ______.
A. fastest B. possible C. bestD. suitable
62. In order to hear the music well, you have to ______.
A. drive very fast B. drive slowly
C. open the window wide D. keep the window closed
| Short Story Contest : Win $8,000 First Prize $5,000 in Cash Writers Creative Writing Correspondence Program offers non-professional authors an opportunity to have a novel, book of short stories, volume of poetry, or a work of creative non-fiction, critiqued(评论) by professors and professionals. Second Prize $2,000 / Third Prize $1,000 |
Short Story Contest Rules
·The contest begins at 9 am Friday, November 29, 2008 and ends at 4 pm Thursday, January 17,2009.
·The contest is open to all residents of Ontario who are at 16 or over, except for employees, judges, and anyone living with any employee of the sponsors or judges.
·The author’s name, address, phone number, and a 25-50-word self-introduction must be included with each entry on a separate sheet of paper. The name of the author should not appear in the story itself.
· Stories must be original and unpublished up to the time the winners are declared on June 23, 2009.
·Stories must be written on a computer or typewriter, be double-spaced and no longer than 2,500 words. Total word count should be printed on the front page of the story.
· No changes to a story are allowed once the Star receives your entry. Manuscripts will not be returned.
· A $5 entry fee must accompany each entry. Cheques or money orders should be made out to the Sunday Star Short Story Contest. Please do not send coins.
·Winners will be informed by telephone between 9 am and 5 pm on June 23, 2009.
·Professors from the writing Centre at Ryerson University will complete the first round of judging. Another group of professional writers will select the final three.
SEND YOUR STORY TO:
SHORT STORY CONTEST, THE SUNDAY STAR ONE YONGE STREET, TORONTO, Ontario M5E1E6
Full contest rules are available at www.the star.com / contests Tel: 416 – 367 – 2000
56. Which of the following is allowed to be written on the front page of the story?
A. The total word count. B. The author’s name.
C. The author’s self-introduction. D. The author’s phone number.
57. From the above advertisement, we can find out ______.
A. the topic of the stories
B. the number of winners
C. the money the sponsors give to the organizer
D. the total number of contestants
58. It can be learned from the passage that ______.
A. Winners will get a book of short stories besides the money
B. Citizens over 16 living in Ontario can compete in the contest
C. Contestants should send printed stories to the organizer
D. Professors from universities will decide the winners
The concept of personal choice in relation to health behaviors is an important one. An estimated 90 percent of all illnesses may be preventable if individuals would make sound personal health choice and do not like to see it restricted when it is within the legal and moral boundaries of society. The structure of American society allows us to make almost all our own personal decisions that may concern our health. If we so desire, we can smoke, drink excessively, refuse to wear seat belts, eat whatever foods we want, and live a completely sedentary life style without any exercise. The freedom to make such personal decisions is a fundamental aspect of our society, although the wisdom of these decisions can be questioned. Personal choices relative to health often cause a difficulty. As one example, a teenager may know the facts relative to smoking cigarettes and health but may be pressured by friends into believing it is the socially accepted thing to do.
A multitude of factors, both inherited and environmental, influence the development of health related behaviors, and it is beyond the scope of this text to discuss all these factors as they may affect any given individual. However, the decision to adopt a particular health related behavior is usually one of personal choices. There are healthy choices and there are unhealthy choices. In discussing the morals of personal choice, Fries and Grapo drew a comparison. They suggest that to knowingly give oneself over to a behavior that has a statistical probability of shortening life is similar to attempting suicide. Thus, for those individuals who are interested in preserving both the quality and quantity of life, personal health choices should reflect those behaviors that are associated with a statistical probability of increased vitality and longevity.
68．The concept of personal choice concerning health is important because ____.
A．personal health choice helps cure most illness
B．it helps raise the level of our medical knowledge
C．it is essential to personal freedom in American society
D．wrong decisions could lead to poor health
69．To “live a completely sedentary life style”(L7,Para.1)in the passage means____.
A．to “live an inactive life” B．to “live a decent life”
C．to “live a life with complete freedom” D．to “live a life of vice”
70．Sound personal health choice is often difficult to make because ____.
A．current medical knowledge is still insufficient
B．there are many factors influencing our decisions
C．few people are willing to trade the quality of life for the quantity of life
D．people are usually influenced by the behavior of their friends
ADC
Attitudes differed to small errors of grammar and usage, or inappropriateness of vocabulary and idiom, with the native speakers finding such errors a little irksome(令人厌烦的)，though sometimes amusing, while the Chinese panel members paid hardly any attention to such errors as, for example, misuse of phrasal verbs and similar usages: “When I saw the job description, I decided to apply the position.” “I expect to find out a lot of challenge in the job.” “I can deal the emergency situations efficiently.”
Errors of idiom or appropriateness caused more comment, during the post interview discussion, from the native speakers than from the Chinese panel members, on whom the errors were sometimes lost. For example, one candidate, when asked what salary he expected, replied: “I don’t care about it.” The message was clear enough, namely that he was primarily interested in the job, but the formulation of the message was not quite right. Even such ribticklers(笑话)as “I am a well planned person .”and “I would like to expose myself in another field”(both actually heard at interviews) tended to cause lipbiting among the expatriate rather than the Chinese interviewers.
Panels with two Chinese and one expatriate used to be more common, but are becoming less common. The reason is that with more of the interview now being conducted in Chinese, the non Chinese speaker does not know what has already been asked and is liable to repeat in English questions that have already been covered in Chinese. This caused, naturally enough, confusion in the interviewee and can adversely affect the whole interview.
The sensible procedure would seem to be to open the interview in the mother tongue of the candidates, to put them at their ease, then at a later stage turn to English, to test English proficiency. In practice, however, possibly because of the problem mentioned in the previous paragraph when the panel contains a foreigner, it is often the reverse, with a few, fairly standard, opening questions in English, and if these are successfully answered, then the job interview properly gets underway in Cantonese.
One of the worst interview scenarios(方案)is when a foreigner who thinks she/he can speak Cantonese (but does so, in fact, badly) decides to question the interviewee in Cantonese. In other circumstances of a social nature the interviewee would no doubt politely compliment the foreigner on his or her good Cantonese, but in the seriousness of a job interview situation, the Chinese is confused and slightly embarrassed for the foreigner. These forays(初步尝试)into Chinese usually end pretty quickly with one of the Chinese members of the panel rescuing the foreigner and continuing the interview in English.
64．Concerning misuses of phrasal verbs,____.
A．both Chinese and the native speakers of English find them amusing
B．the Chinese interviewers tend to be tolerant
C．the Chinese interviewers and the English native speaker interviewers often have a discussion
D．might sometimes become a laughing stock to the native speakers of English but draw hardly any attention from the Chinese
65．It is implied in the passage that ____.
A．Chinese are generally liable to make mistakes in English grammar and vocabulary usage
B．expatriate interviewers are generally more friendly with interviews
C．braver candidates can often get the upper hand
D．the candidates often deliver an improper message for the use of inappropriate expressions
66．Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A．The non Chinese speaking interviewer might ask the questions which have already been asked by the Chinese and hence cause confusion.
B．It is more practicable to start an interview with a few fairly standard questions in English before switching to Chinese.
C．The best procedure of an interview would seem to be beginning in Cantonese and then testing English proficiency.
D．The Chinese interviewee often politely compliments the foreign interviewer if he or she speaks cantonese if it is not actually so good in the interview.
67．This passage is mainly concerned with ____.
A．whether language proficiency or work ability counts in job interviews
B．how to avoid awkward situation in a job interview in HongKong
C．the language used in a job interview with both Chinese and expatriate panel members
D．the sensible procedure of getting on with an interview where the Chinese interviewee’s English is to be tested
In the eighteenth—century one of the first modern economists, Adam Smith, thought that the “whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country” provided revenue to “three different orders of people: those who live by rent, those who live by wages, and those who live by profit”. Each successive stage of the industrial revolution, however, made the social structure more complicated.
Many intermediate groups grew up during the nineteenth century between the upper middle class and the working class. There were small—scale industrialists as well as large ones, small shopkeepers and tradesmen, officials and salaried employees, skilled and unskilled workers, and professional men such as doctors and teachers. Farmers and peasants continued in all countries as independent groups.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the possession of wealth inevitably affected a person’s social position. Intelligent industrialists with initiative made fortunes by their wits which lifted them into an economic group far higher than that of their working—class parents. But they lacked social training of the upper class, who despised them as the “new rich.”
They often sent their sons and daughters to special school to acquire social training. Here their children, mixed with the children of the upper classes, were accepted by them, and very often found marriage partners from among them. In the same way, a thrifty, hardworking labourer, though not clever himself, might save for his son enough to pay for an extended secondary school education in the hope that he would move in a “white collar” occupation, carrying with it a higher salary and a move up in the social scale.
In the twentieth century the increased taxation of higher incomes, the growth of the social services, and the wider development of educational opportunity have considerably altered the social outlook. The upper classes no longer are the sole, or even the main possessors of wealth, power and education, though inherited social position still carries considerable prestige.
60．If you compare the first and second paragraph, what groups of people did Adam Smith leave out in his classification?
A．Officials and employees. B．Peasants and farmers.
C．Doctors and teachers. D．Tradesmen and landlords.
61．Who were the ‘new rich’ during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
A．They were still the upper class people.
B．They were owners of large factories.
C．They were intelligent industrialists.
D．They were skilled workers who made their fortune.
62．According to the passage, what did those people do who intended to make their children move up in the social ladder?
A．They saved a lot of money for their children to receive higher education.
B．They tried to find marriage partners from the children of the upper class.
C．They made greater fortunes by their wits.
D．They worked even harder to acquire social training.
63．In the twentieth century class differences have been partly smoothed out by ____.
A．increased income and decreased taxation
B．taxation, social services and educational opportunities
C．education, the increase of income and industrial development
D．the decrease of the upper class population
C 61—65 DBC