Passage One
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage:
Testing has replaced teaching in most public schools. My own children’s school week is focused on pretests, drills, tests, and retests. I believe that my daughter Erica, who gets excellent marks, has never read a chapter of any of her school textbooks all the way through. And teachers are often heard to state proudly and openly that they teach to the state test.
Teaching to the test is a curious phenomenon. Instead of deciding what skills students ought to learn, helping students learn them, and then using some sensible methods of assessment (评估) to discover whether students have mastered the skills, teachers are encouraged to reverse the process. First one looks at a test. Then one draws the skills needed not to master, say, reading, but to do well on the test. Finally, the test skills are taught.
The ability to read or write or calculate might imply the ability to do reasonably well on standard tests. However, neither reading nor writing develops simply through being taught to take tests. We must be careful to avoid mistaking preparation for a test of a skill with the acquisition of that skill. Too many discussions of basic skills make this fundamental confusion because people are test obsessed rather than concerned with the nature and quality of what is taught.
Recently many schools have faced with what could be called the crisis of comprehension or, in simple terms, the phenomenon of students with grammar skills still being unable to understand what they read. These students are good at test taking, but they have little or no experience reading or thinking, and talking about what they read. They are taught to be so concerned with grade that they have no time or ease of mind to think about meaning, and reread things if necessary.
61. What does the writer say about his daughter?
A、She teaches in a middle school.
B、She reads many good books.
C、She does well on tests.
D、She is proud of her way of learning.
62. What are students encouraged to do nowadays at school?
A、To master basic reading skills.
B、To learn how to deal with tests.
C、To read well in order to pass tests.
D、To master all kinds of skills.
63. Which of the following statements would the writer agree with the most?
A、The nature and quality of subjects are more important than marks on them.
B、Teachers should force students to learn to red and write and calculate well.
C、Good preparation for standard tests is necessary for students.
D、Most students are clear about how to acquire basic skills.
64. What do students do when they are test obsessed?
A、They pay attention only to tests.
B、They hate tests very much.
C、They try to avoid rereading things.
D、They often join in discussion.
65. What kind of students does the writer dislike most?
A、Students with poor test marks and without creative thinking.
B、Students active in thinking yet unable to talk about what they read.
C、Students who are too well prepared for any test.
D、Students unable to understand what they read.
Passage Two
Questions 66 to 70 are based on the following passage:
Eye contact is nonverbal (非语言的) technique that helps the speakers “sell” their ideas to an audience. Besides its persuasive powers, eye contact helps hold listeners’ interest. A successful speaker must maintain eye contact with an audience. To have good relation with listeners, a speaker should maintain direct eye contact for at least 75 percent of the time. Some speakers focus only on their notes. Others look over the heads of their listeners. Both are likely to lose audience’s interest and respect. People who maintain eye contact while speaking, whether from a podium or from across the table, are regarded not only as exceptionally friendly by their target but also as more believable and earnest.
To show the power of eye contact in daily life, we have only to consider how passers-by behave when their glances happen to meet on the street. At one extreme are those people who feel obliged to smile when they make eye contact. At the other extreme are those who feel uncomfortable and immediately look away. To make eye contact, it seems, is to make a certain link with someone.
Eye contact with an audience also lets a speaker know and monitor (观察) his listeners. It is, in fact, essential to analyze an audience during a speech. Visual feedback (视觉反馈) from the audience can indicate that a speech is boring, that the speaker is talking too much about a particular point, or that a particular point requires further explanation. As we have pointed out, visual feedback from listeners should play an important role in shaping a speech as it is delivered.
66. What does the writer believe about a speaker’s eye contact?
A、It makes the speaker closer to his audience.
B、It makes the audience lose the interest in his speech
C、It makes the audience frightened of him.
D、It makes listeners see the speaker more clearly.
67. What does the word “target” (Para.1) refer to?
A、Speakers
B、Listeners
C、Friends
D、Objects
68. Why does the writer give the example of passers-by in Paragraph 2?
A、To show that people are not comfortable with eye contact from strangers.
B、To show that strangers can get to know each other easily through eye contact.
C、To prove the point that people look more friendly with direct eye contact.
D、To prove the point that eye contact plays a role in social communication.
69. What does the writer imply about visual feedback in the last paragraph?
A、It can make the speaker adjust his speech.
B、It can make the speech more informative.
C、It may discourage and stop the speaker.
D、It may cause the speaker make less eye contact.
70. What is the main point of the passage?
A、Eye contact is a good way to attract the audience.
B、It is necessary to maintain direct eye contact with the audience.
C、Eye contact is important to a successful speech.
D、A speaker’s eye contact is more important than his notes.
Passage Three
Questions 71 to 75 are based on the following passage:
The whole industrial process, which makes many of the goods and machines we need and use in our daily lives, will unavoidably create a number of waste products which upset the environmental balance. Many of these waste products can be prevented or disposed of (处置) properly, but clearly while more and more new goods are produced and made complex, there will be new, dangerous wastes to be disposed of, for example, the waste products from nuclear power stations. Many people see pollution as only part of a large and more complex problem, that is, the whole process of industrial production and consumption of goods. Others see the problem mainly in connection with agriculture, where new methods are helping farmers grow more and more on their land to feed our ever-increasing population.
Whatever reasons behind it, there is no doubt that much of the pollution caused could be controlled if only companies, governments and people would make more efforts. In the home there is an obvious need to control litter (乱扔的废物) and waste. Food comes wrapped up three or four times in packages that all have to be disposed of; drinks are increasingly sold in bottles or tins which cannot be reused. This not only causes a litter problem, but also is a great waste of resources, in terms of glass, metals and paper. Advertising has helped this process by persuading many of us not only to buy things we neither want nor need, but also to throw away much of what we do buy. Pollution and waste combine to be a problem everyone can help to solve by cutting out unnecessary buying and careless disposal of the products we use in our daily lives.
71. What will happen if the industrial process continues according to the passage?
A、Environmental balance will be achieved easily.
B、Less land will be used for agriculture.
C、New environmental problems will have to be dealt with.
D、World population will be reduced.
72. Why does the writer mention food and drinks in Paragraph 2?
A、To show the problem of litter and waste.
B、To show the problem of overproduction.
C、To show how they are consumed.
D、To show how they are wrapped.
73. What does the writer say about advertising?
A、It causes pollution directly.
B、It wastes energy.
C、It puts litter under control.
D、It brings about waste.
74. What is the writer’s attitude towards the solution to environmental problems?
A、Doubtful
B、Excited
C、Hopeful
D、Disappointed
75. Which of the following best describes the structure of the passage?
A、Question and answer.
B、Problem and solution.
C、Situation and explanation.
D、Statement and conclusion.
