大学英语四级阅读-32
下决心英语短语
(总分100, 做题时间90分钟)
Reading Comprehension
Directions: In this ction, you are going to read a passage with 10 statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choo a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the question by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
Small Schools Rising
This year's list of the top 100 high schools shows that today, tho with fewer students ar
e flourishing.
A. Fifty years ago, they were the latest thing in educational reform: big, modem, suburban high schools with students counted in the thousands. As baby boomers (二战后婴儿潮时期出生的人) came of high-school age, big schools promid economic efficiency, a greater choice of cours, and, of cour, better football teams. Only years later did we understand the trade-offs this involved: the creation of excessive bureaucracies (官僚机构), the difficulty of forging personal connections between teachers and students. SAT scores began dropping in 1963; today, on average, 30% of students do **plete high school in four years, a figure that ris to 50% in poor urban neighbourhoods. While the emphasis on teaching to higher test-driven standards as t in "No Child Left Behind" resulted in significantly better performance in elementary (and some middle) schools, high schools for a variety of reasons emed to have made little progress.
B. Size isn't everything, but it does matter, and the past decade has en a noticeable countertrend toward smaller schools. This has been due, in part, to the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, which has invested $1.8 billion in American high schools, helping to open about 1,000 small schools—most of them with about 400 kids each with an average enrollment of only 150 per grade. About 500 more are on the drawing board. Districts all over the country are taking notice, along with mayors in cities like New York, Chicago and San Diego. The movement includes independent public charter schools, such as No. 1 BASIS in Tucson, with only 120 high-schoolers and 18 graduates this year. It embraces district-sanctioned magnet schools, such as the Talented and Gifted School, with 198 students, and the Science and Engineering Magnet, with 383, which share a building in Dallas, as well as the City Honors School in Buffalo, N.Y., which grew out of volunteer evening minars for students. And it includes alternative schools with students lected by lottery (抽签), such as H-B Woodlawn in Arlington, Va. And most noticeable of all, there is the phenomenon of large urban and suburban high schools that have split up into smaller units of a few hundred, generally houd in the same grounds that once boasted thousands of students all marching to the same band.
C. Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., is one of tho, ranking No. 423—among
the top 2% in the country—on Newsweek's annual ranking of America's top high schools. The success of small schools is apparent in the listings. Ten years ago, when the first Newsweek list bad on college-level test participation was published, only three of the top 100 schools had graduating class smaller than 100 students. This year there are 22. Nearly 250 schools on the full Newsweek list of the top 5% of schools nationally had fewer than 200 graduates in 2007.
D. Although many of Hillsdale's students came from wealthy houholds, by the late 1990s average test scores were sliding and it had earned the unaffectionate nickname (绰号) "Hillsjail." Jeff Gilbert, a Hillsdale teacher who became principal last year, remembers sitting with other teachers watching students file out of a graduation ceremony and asking one another in astonishment, "How did that student graduate?"
E. So in 2003 Hillsdale remade itlf into three "hous," romantically named Florence, Marrakech and Kyoto. Each of the 300 arriving ninth graders are randomly (随机地) assigned to one of the hous, where they will keep the same four core subject teachers for two years, before moving on to another for 11th and 12th grades. The cloness this s
ystem cultivates is reinforced by the institution of "advisory" class. Teachers meet with students in groups of 25, five mornings a week, for open-ended discussions of everything from homework problems to bad Saturday-night dates. The advirs also meet with students privately and stay in touch with parents, so they are deeply invested in the students' success. "We're constantly talking about one another's advies," says English teacher Chris Crockett. "If you hear that yours isn't doing well in math, or e them sitting outside the dean's office, it's like a personal failure." Along with the new structure came a more demanding academic program; the percentage of freshmen taking biology jumped from 17 to 95. "It was rough for some, but by nior year, two-thirds have moved up to physics," says Gilbert. "Our kids **ing to school in part becau they know there are adults here who know them and care for them." But not all schools show advances after downsizing, and it remains to be en whether smaller schools will be a cure-all solution.
F. The Newsweek list of top US high schools was made this year, as in years past, according to a single metric, the proportion of students taking college-level exams. Over the years this system **e in for its share of criticism for its simplicity. But that is also its str
ength: it's easy for readers to understand, and to do the arithmetic for their own schools if they'd like.
G. Ranking schools is always controversial, and this year a group of 38 superintendents (地区育主管) from five states wrote to ask that their schools be excluded from the calculation. "It is impossible to know which high schools are 'the best' in the nation," their letter read, in part. "Determining whether different schools do or don't offer a high quality of education requires a look at many different measures, including students' overall academic accomplishments and their subquent performance in cortege, and taking into consideration the unique needs of **munities."
H. In the end, the superintendents agreed to provide the data we sought, which is, after all, public information. There is, in our view, no real dispute here; we are all eking the same thing, which is schools that better rve our children and our nation by encouraging students to tackle tough subjects under the guidance of gifted teachers. And if we keep working toward that goal, someday, perhaps, a list won't be necessary.
爱你的心永不变
1.
Schools funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are mostly small in size.
该题您未回答:х 该问题分值: 2
答案:B
[解析] B段首先提到了中学规模不断缩小的趋势，接着解释了一个原因：盖茨基金的资助，并指出该基金帮助开办了1000所小型学校，并具体介绍了这些学校的情况。题干中的funded对应原文中的in...，其余部分是对定位句的概述，故为B。
大学生演讲
关于爱的网名2.
Newsweek ranked high schools according to their college-level test participation.
幼儿园开学该题您未回答:х 该问题分值: 2
怎样泡发海参
答案:C
[解析] 该段介绍了《新闻周刊》对中学排名的依据是college-level test participation，即大学水平测试的参与情况。题干中的according to是对定位句中的bad on的同义转述，故为C。
3.
Fifty years ago, big, modem, suburban high schools were established in the hope of providing good education for baby boomers.
该题您未回答:х 该问题分值: 2
答案:A
[解析] 文章首句说明，五十年前教育改革的主要任务是在城郊建立能够容纳上千名学生的大型现代化高中。随后第二句说明了其原因：即婴儿潮时期出生的人已经到了上高中的年龄，大型学校能够保证经济效率，提供更多课程。题干是对这两句话的整合，故为A。
4.
The most noticeable trend in high school education is that some large schools have split up into smaller ones.
该题您未回答:х 该问题分值: 2
答案:B
蓝另一种蓝[解析] 本题的关键是找出定位句中most noticeable of all中的all所指代的内容。该段上文先是提到在过去十年中，高中已经出现了一个非常明显的逆趋向：规模不断缩小。接着又指出这一趋势覆盖了许多独立的公立特许学校。由此可知，定位句中的all指代的就是上文出现过的countertrend或movement，二者都意为“趋势”。定位句与题干一致，故为B。
5.
As a result of tting up big schools, students' performance declined.
该题您未回答:х 该问题分值: 2
答案:A
[解析] A段首先分析建立大型中学带来的益处：提高经济效益，提供更多可以选择的课程，有更好的足球队；然后分析其弊端：官僚机构臃肿，师生之间难以建立起良好的关系，更重要的是，学生的SAT成绩持续下滑。题干中的students' performance是对原文中scores began dropping及do **plete high school的概述，故为A。
6.
Simplicity is still considered a strength of Newsweek's school ranking system in spite of the criticism it receives.
该题您未回答:х 该问题分值: 2
答案:F梧桐山攻略
[解析] 定位句提到，《新闻周刊》的排名标准因其单一性备受指责，但这也正是其优势所在。题干是对这两句话的整合，故为F。
7.
The establishment of "advisory" class at Hillsdale enhances clor relationships between students and their teachers.
