第十三篇:
The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become "better" people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don't go.
But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don't fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other's experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Other find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out-often encouraged by college administrators.
Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves-they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that is a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn't explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We have been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can't absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either.
Some adventuresome educators and watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statisticsupside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn't make people intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, or quick to learn things-may it is just the other way around, and intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up.
1.According to the author, ___.
A.people used to question the value of college education.
B.people used to have full confidence in higher education.
C.all high school graduates went to college.
D.very few high school graduates chose to go to college.
2.In the 2nd paragraph, "those who don't fit the pattern" refer to___.
A.high school graduates who aren't suitable for college education.
B.college graduates who are selling shoes and driving taxis.
C.college students who aren't any better for their higher education.
D.high school graduates who failed to be admitted to college.
3.The dropout rate of college students seems to go up because___.
A.young people are disappointed with the conventional way of teaching at college.
B.many people are required to join the army.
C.young people have little motivation in pursuing a higher education.
D.young people don't like the intense competition for admission to graduate school.
4.According to the passage, the problems of college education partly originate in the fact that___.
A.society cannot provide enough jobs for properly trained graduates.
B.High school graduates do not fit the pattern of college education.
C.Too many students have to earn their own living.
D.College administrators encourage students to drop out.
5.In this passage the author argues that___.
A.more and more evidence shows college education may not be the best thing for high school graduates.
B.College education is not enough if one wants to be successful.
C.College education benefits only the intelligent, ambitious, and quick-learning people.
D.Intelligent people may learn quicker if they don't go to college.
答案:BCCAA
第十四篇:
A controversy erupted in the scientific community in early 1998 over the use of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid ) fingerprinting in criminal investigations. DNA fingerprinting was introduced in 1987 as a method to identify individuals based on a pattern seen in their DNA, the molecule of which genes are made. DNA is present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. DNA fingerprinting has been used successfully in various ways, such as to determine paternity where it is not clear who the father of a particular child is.
DNA fingerprinting and other DNA analysis techniques have revolutionized criminal investigations by giving investigators powerful new tools in the attempt to trove guilt, not just establish innocence. When used in criminal investigations, a DNA fingerprint pattern from a suspect is compared with a DNA fingerprint pattern obtained from such material as hairs or blood found at the scene of a crime. A match between the two DNA samples can be used as evidence to convict a suspect.
The controversy in 1998 stemmed form a report published in December 1991 by population geneticists Richard C. Lewontin of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and Daniel L. Hartl called into question the methods to calculate how likely it is that a match between two DNA fingerprints might occur by chance alone. In particular, they argued that the current method cannot properly determine the likelihood that two DNA samples will match because they came from the same individual rather than simply from two different individuals who are members of the same ethnic group. Lewontin and Hartl called for better surveys of DNA patterns methods are adequate.
In response to their criticisms, population geneticists Ranajit Chakraborty of the University of Texas in Dallas and Kenneth K.Kidd of Yale University in New Haven, Conn., argued that enough data are already available to show that the methods currently being used are adequate. In January 1998, however, the federal Bureau of Investigation and laboratories that conduct DNA tests announced that they would collect additional DNA samples form various ethnic groups in an attempt to resolve some of these questions. And, in April, a National Academy of Sciences called for strict standards and system of accreditation for DNA testing laboratories.
1.Before DNA fingerprinting is used, suspects____.
A.would have to leave their fingerprints for further investigations
B.would have to submit evidence for their innocence
C.could easily escape conviction of guilt
D.cold be convicted of guilt as well
2.DNA fingerprinting can be unreliable when ____.
A.the methods used for blood- cell calculation are not accurate
B.two different individuals of the same ethnic group may have the same DNA fingerprinting pattern
C.a match is by chance left with fingerprints that happen to belong to two different individuals
D.two different individuals leave two DNA samples.
3.To geneticists like Lewontin and Hartl, the current method ____.
A.is not so convincing as to exclude the likelihood that two DNA samples can never come from two individuals
B.is arguable because two individuals of the same ethnic group are likely to have the same DNA pattern.
C.Is not based on adequate scientific theory of genetics
D.Is theoretically contradictory to what they have been studying
4.The attitude of the Federal Bereau of Investigation shows that ____.
A.enough data are yet to be collected form various ethnic groups to confirm the unlikelihood of two DNA samples coming from two individual members
B.enough data of DNA samples should be collected to confirm that only DNA samples form the same person can match
C.enough data are yet to be collected from various ethnic groups to determine the likelihood of two different DNA samples coming form the same person
D.additional samples from various ethnic groups should be collected to determine that two DNA samples are unlikely to come from the same person
5.National Academy of Sciences holds the stance that ____.
A.DNA testing should be systematized
B.Only authorized laboratories can conduct DNA testing
C.The academy only is authorized to work out standards for testing
D.The academy has the right to accredit laboratories for DNA testing
答案:CBABB
第十五篇:
Racket, din clamor, noise, whatever you want to call it, unwanted sound is America's most widespreadnuisance. But noise is more than just a nuisance. It constitutes a real and present danger to people's health. Day and night, at home, at work, and at play, noise can produce serious physical and psychological stress. No one is immune to this stress. Though we seem to adjust to noise by ignoring it, the ear, in fact, never closes and the body still responds-sometimes with extreme tension, as to a strange sound in the night.
The annoyance we feel when faced with noise is the most common outwardsymptom of the stress building up inside us. Indeed, because irritability is so apparent, legislators have made public annoyance the basis of many noise abatement programs. The more subtle and more serious health hazards associated with stress caused by noise traditionally have been given much less attention. Nevertheless, when we are annoyed or made irritable by noise, we should consider these symptoms fair warning that other thing may be happening to us, some of which may be damaging to our health.
Of many health hazards to noise, hearing loss is the most clearly observable and measurable by health professionals. The other hazards are harder to pin down. For many of us, there may be a risk that exposure to the stress of noise increases susceptibility to disease and infection. The more susceptible among us may experience noise as a complicating factor in heart problems and other diseases. Noise that causes annoyance and irritability in health persons may have serious consequences for these already ill in mind or body.
Noise affects us throughout our lives. For example, there are indications of effects on the unborn child when mothers are exposed to industrial and environmental noise. During infancy and childhood, youngsters exposed to high noise levels may have trouble falling asleep and obtaining necessary amounts of rest.
Why, then, is there not greater alarm about these dangers? Perhaps it is because the link between noise and many disabilities or diseases has not yet been conclusively demonstrated. Perhaps it is because we tend to dismiss annoyance as a price to pay for living in the modern world. It may also be because we still think of hearing loss as only an occupational hazard.
1.In Paragraph 1, the phrase "immune to" are used to mean ___.
A.unaffected by
B.hurt by
C.unlikely to be seen by
D.unknown by
2.The author's attitude toward noise would best be described as ___. A.unrealistic
B.traditional
C.concerned
D.hysterical
3.Which of the following best states the main idea of the passage?
A.Noise is a major problem; most people recognize its importance.
B.Although noise can be annoying, it is not a major problem.
C.Noise is a major problem and has not yet been recognized as such.
D.Noise is a major problem about which nothing can be done.
4.The author condemns noise essentially because it ___.
A.is against the law
B.can make some people irritable
C.is a nuisance
D.in a ganger to people's health
5.The author would probably consider research about the effects noise has on people to be ___.
A.unimportant
B.impossible.
C.a waste of money
D.essential
答案:ACCDD
第十六篇:
Is language, like food, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick I in the thirteenth century, it may be hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent.
All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected.
Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed.
Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes bowel ? like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man's brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to commect the sight and feel of, say, a toy ? bear with the sound pattern "toy ? bear"。 And even more incredible is the young brain's ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyse, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways.
But speech has to be induced, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child's babbling, grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals,。 Sensitivity to the child's non ? verbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.
1.The purpose of Frederick I's experiment was ____.
A.to prove that children are born with ability to speak
B.to discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speak
C.to find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak
D.to prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language
2.The reason that some children are backward in speaking is most likely that ____.
A.they are incapable of learning language rapidly
B.they are exposed to too much language at once
C.their mothers respond inadequately to their attempts to speak
D.their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them
3.What is particularly remarkable about a child is that ____.
A.he is born with the capacity to speak
B.he has a brain more complex than an animal's
C.he can produce his own sentences
D.he owes his speech ability to good nursing
4.Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A.The faculty of speech is inborn in man.
B.The child's brain is highly selective.
C.Most children learn their language in definite stages.
D.All the above
5.If a child starts to speak later than others, he will ____in future.
A.have a high IQ B.be less intelligent
C.be insensitive to verbal signals D.not necessarily be backward
答案:BCCDD