More and more pupils are giving teachers presents, but the practice only creates insecurity in parents and staff.
I’ve certainly noticed some pupils being feverishly overgenerous of late. Last year, I received not one bottle of wine but four for helping a disaffected pupil through his GCSEs. By and large, my colleagues report the gifts differing along gender lines. Gentlemen get ties, mugs, booze and, if they’re really lucky, tickets to football matches. The ladies are often presented with flowers, jewels, chocolates and so on.
When my son was at private school, I noticed there was a real competitiveness between the students about giving presents to teachers, with expensive baskets from fancy stores and huge bouquets being handed out on the last days of term. Since my wife and I only let my son give thank-you cards, it was clear we were not “classy”. Now he is at an inner-city primary, we’ve noticed that this kind of nonsense seems to have more or less disappeared．For one thing, there isn’t that kind of money floating around – but there isn’t that kind of competitive culture either.
Personally, I think gifts to teachers should be banned beyond the thank-you card they cause many more problems than they solve, creating insecurity in both parents and staff. Perhaps the recession and the lack of money in people’s pockets might be a good excuse for the government to issue some guidelines to schools that gifts shouldn’t be accepted by teachers.
The gifts that I really value are the cards which say a genuine thank you. I still keep them in a file at home.What can the author most probably be?
| A．A teacher. | B．A school nurse. |
| C．A researcher. | D．A gift shop owner. |
The underlined word “nonsense” in Paragraph 3 refers to the fact that ________.
| A．the son only gives thank-you cards to teachers |
| B．the author and his wife are not classy |
| C．the son goes to an inner-city primary |
| D．the students give gifts to teachers |
To solve the problem, the author thinks it’s a good way to ________.
| A．forbid the students to give any gifts to teachers |
| B．create insecurity by giving thank-you cards |
| C．make people have less money in pockets |
| D．issue some guidelines by the government |
Which of the following can be the best title?
| A．Don’t Forget to Give Gifts to Your Teachers |
| B．Presents Won’t Make Pupils Teachers’ Pets |
| C．Learn the Competitive Culture of Gifts |
| D．Refuse Presents from Your Students |
International Studies (BA)
Key features
● Recognizes the “global community”（国际社会）
● Has close connections with practical research
● Much of the teaching is done in small discussion groups
About the course
The course gives you chances to know great power polities between nation states. It will provide more space to study particular issues such as relationship among countries in the European Union, third world debt, local and international disagreement, and the work of such international bodies as the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, and the World Bank.
The course puts theories into the working of the international system with close attention to particular countries. You will also have a better knowledge of methods of solving the international problems.
Related（相关的）courses
BA (Hons) Community Management
BA (Hons) Public Policy and Management
Employment possibilities
International organizations
International business
Earth Science (BSc)
Key features
● Based on key courses and the latest research findings
● Pays much attention to practical skills
● Offers chances for fieldwork（实地考察）
About the course
The demand for natural resources is becoming an increasingly serious problem for the future of mankind. Graduates in Earth Science will play an important role in meeting this demand, and in knowing the meaning of using the natural resources.
The course covers geography and geology. You will carry out fieldwork in the UK and possibly overseas, and a research in an area of interest to you in the final year.
Related courses
BSc (Hons) Geograhpy
BSc (Hons) Geology
Employment possibilities
Mineral, oil, water or other related engineering industriesInternational Studies is a course in ________.
| A．international polities | B．international business |
| C．international systems | D．international bodies |
After taking the course of International Studies, the students will _______.
| A．become practical and open-minded |
| B．have a greater ability to discuss theories |
| C．know how to settle international problems |
| D．have good jobs in any international organizations |
Earth Science, as described in the second text, ________.
| A．is attractive because of the chances for fieldwork |
| B．pays more attention to practical skills than theories |
| C．is built on important courses and the results of recent studies |
| D．encourages students to play a role in using natural resources |
It can be inferred that the above two texts are written for the students who _______.
| A．enjoy research work | B．plan to choose courses |
| C．study in the UK | D．are interested in overseas fieldwork |
Gene technology to benefit people
Among all the fast growing science and technology, the research of human genes, or biological engineering as people call it, is drawing more and more attention now. Sometimes it is a hot topic discussed by people.
The greatest thing that gene technology can do is to cure serious diseases that doctors at present can almost do nothing with, such as cancer and heart disease. Every year, millions of people are murdered by these two killers. And to date, doctors have not found an effective way to cure them. But if the gene technology is applied, not only these two diseases can be cured completely, bringing happiness and more living days to the patients, but also the great amount of money people spend on curing their diseases can be saved, therefore it benefits the economy as well. In addition, human life span(寿命) can be prolonged.
Gene technology can help people to give birth to more healthy and clever children. Some families, with the English imperial family being a good example, have hereditary(遗传的) diseases. This means their children will for sure have the family disease, which is a great trouble for these families. In the past, doctors could do nothing about hereditary diseases. But gene technology can solve this problem perfectly. The scientist just need to find the wrong gene and correct it, and a healthy child will be born.
Some people are worrying that the gene research can be used to manufacture human beings in large quantities. In the past few years, scientists have succeeded in cloning a sheep, therefore these people predict that human babies would soon be cloned. But I believe cloned babies will not come out in large quantities, for most couples in the world can have babies in very normal way. Of course, the governments must take care to control gene technology.What does "these two killers" in the second paragraph refer to?
| A．gene technology and another treatment of the two diseases. |
| B．The two murderers who killed the cloned baby |
| C．The two diseases of cancer and heart disease |
| D．Hereditary diseases and cancer |
What's the main idea of the third paragraph?
| A．How gene technology can be applied in the field of treating hereditary diseases. |
| B．Gene technology can be used to clone human babies. |
| C．Gene technology can help people to give birth of a baby. |
| D．Gene technology can help the English imperial family out |
In what way gene technology can help to treat hereditary diseases?
| A．Using gene technology, people with hereditary diseases can have more living days. |
| B．Using gene technology, scientist finds the wrong gene and corrects it. |
| C．Using gene technology, human babies can be cloned. |
| D．Doctors can cure cancer and heart disease with the help of gene technology. |
What is the main purpose of writing this passage?
| A．Expressing the writer's idea that gene technology will benefit people |
| B．Telling people the advantages of gene technology |
| C．Telling the readers that gene technology will not benefit people |
| D．Explaining that gene technology will also do harm to the humanity |
In bringing up children, every parent watches eagerly the child's acquisition (学会) of each new skill m the first spoken words, the first independent steps, or the beginning of reading and writing. It is often tempting to hurry the child beyond his natural learning rate, but this can set up dangerous feelings of failure and states of worry in the child. This might happen at any stage. A baby might be forced to use a toilet too early, a young child might be encouraged to learn to read before he knows the meaning of the words he reads. On the other hand, though, if a child is left alone too much, or without any learning opportunities, he loses his natural enthusiasm for life and his desire to find out new things for himself.
Parents vary greatly in their degree of strictness towards their children. Some may be especially strict in money matters. Others are severe (严格的) over time of coming home at night or punctuality for meals. In general, the controls represent the needs of the parents and the values of the community as much as the child's own happiness.
As regards the development of moral standards in the growing child, consistency is very important in parental teaching. To forbid a thing one day and excuse it the next is no foundation for morality (道德). Also, parents should realize that "example is better than precept". If they are not sincere and do not practice what they preach (说教), their children may grow confused when they grow old enough to think for themselves, and realize they have been to some extent fooled.
A sudden awareness of a marked difference between their parents' principles and their morals can be a dangerous disappointment. Eagerly watching the child's acquisition of new skills, ___________.
| A．should be avoided |
| B．is universal among parents |
| C．sets up dangerous states of worry in the child |
| D．will make the child lose interest in learning new things |
In the process of children's learning new skills, parents ________.
| A．should encourage them to read before they know the meaning of the words they read |
| B．should expect a lot of the children |
| C．should achieve a balance between pushing them too hard and leaving them on their own |
| D．should create as many learning opportunities as possible |
The second paragraph mainly tells us that ___________.
| A．parents should be strict with their children |
| B．parental controls reflect only the values of the community |
| C．parental restrictions vary, and are not always for the benefit of the children alone |
| D．it's parents' and society's duty to control the children |
The word "precept" in Paragraph 3 probably means "___________".
| A．opinion | B．punishment | C．behavior | D．instruction |
In terms of moral matters, parents should _________.
| A．follow the rules themselves |
| B．be aware of the huge difference between adults and children |
| C．forbid their children to follow hook teachings |
| D．always ensure the security of their children |
Centuries ago, man discovered that removing moisture from food helps to store it, and that the easiest way to do this is to expose the food to sun and wind.
All foods including water — cabbage and other leaf vegetables contains as much as 93% water, potatoes and other root vegetables 80%, lean (瘦的) meat 75% and fish, anything from 80% to 60%, depending on how fatty it is. If this water is removed, the activity of the bacteria which cause food to go bad is controlled.
Nowadays most foods are dried mechanically. The conventional method of such dehydration (脱水) is to put food in chambers (室) through which hot air is blown at temperature of about ll0'C at entry to about 43'C at exit. This is the usual method for drying such things as vegetables, minced meat, and fish.
Liquids such as milk, coffee, tea, soups and eggs may be dried by pouring them over a heated steel cylinder (圆筒), then put them into a chamber through which a current of hot air passes. In the first process, the dried material comes off the roller (滚筒) as a thin film which is then broken up into small, though still relatively flakes (薄片). In the second process it falls to the bottom of the chamber as small powder. Where recognizable pieces of meat and vegetables are required, as in soup, the ingredients (成分) are dried separately and then mixed.
Dried foods take up less room and weigh less than the same food packed in cans or
frozen, and they do not need to be stored in special conditions. For these reasons they
are invaluable to the climbers, explorers and soldiers in battle, who have little storage
space. They are also popular with housewives because it takes so little time to cook
them.It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
| A．the rattier fish contain as much water as the lean one |
| B．the rattier the fish is, the more water it may contain |
| C．a fatty fish holds less water than a lean one |
| D．the water content of fish has nothing to do with the content of their fat |
The underlined word "conventional" in Paragraph 3 can most probably be replaced by _________.
| A．particular | B．scientific | C．usual | D．special |
Which of the following statements is NOT true about drying food?
| A．The removal of water in food helps prevent it from going rotten. |
| B．The open-air method of drying food has been known for hundreds of years. |
| C．In the course of dehydration, the temperature of hot current coming from entry to exit is gradually going up. |
| D．The process of drying liquids is much more complex than that of drying solid food. |
The last paragraph mainly talks about __________.
| A．the reason why housewives like dried food |
| B．the general convenience of dried food |
| C．the methods of storing food |
| D．the advantages of dried, canned and frozen food |
If you are a high school senior graduating and looking to enter college in 2006, you will take the new exam.
The biggest change to the SAT (美国学术能力倾向测验) will be the introduction of a new writing section. The writing section will consist of two parts: an essay and a multiple-choice section. Students will be given 25 minutes to respond to a prompt (提示) and construct a well-organized essay that effectively deals with the task. The essay question may require students to complete a statement, to react to a quote, or to agree or disagree with a point of view. In any case, a good essay will support the chosen position with specific reasons and examples from literature, history, art, science, current affairs, or even a student's own experiences.
Essays will be scored based on the procedures for the current SAT II: Writing Test. Essays will be graded by two independent readers On a scale of 1～6, and their two scores will be combined to form an essay subscore that ranges from 2 to 12. Should the readers' scores vary by more than 2 points, a third reader will score the essay; The readers will be high school teachers and college professors who teach composition. To ensure that essays will be scored in a timely manner, they will be scanned and made available to readers on the Internet for grading purpose.
The writing section will also include multiple-choice grammar and usage questions. Some of these questions will call upon students to improve given sentences and paragraphs. Others will present students with sentences and require them to identify mistakes in diction (措辞), grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage.
The highest possible score on the new writing section will be 800. Scores on the essay and multiple-choice section will be combined to produce a single score. A writing subscore will also be assigned. The highest possible scores on the Critical Reading and Math sections will remain 800 each, making 2,400 a perfect score on the new SAT.Which parts are included in the writing section of SAT according to the passage?
| A．Essay and multiple-choice. | B．Essay and critical writing. |
| C．Multiple-choice and math. | D．Multiple-choice and literature. |
In Paragraph 3, the writer of this passage mainly described _________.
| A．application of the Internet in scoring the essay |
| B．relationship between high tech and testing |
| C．cheating in the essay scoring procedure |
| D．the scoring procedure of the essay |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．The SAT is designed for high school seniors wishing to enter a college. |
| B．The writer criticized the multiple-choice in the SAT. |
| C．Good specific examples are encouraged in essay writing. |
| D．The SAT consists of the Critical Reading, Math and the Writing sections. |
Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?
| A．The new SAT scoring. | B．Language testing reform. |
| C．College entrance exam reform. | D．The new writing section of SAT. |