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英语四级段落信息匹配练习题和答案Deborah Kennys "Born to Rise" Tells Story of Harlem Village AcademiesA) Deborah Kenny, CEO of the Harlem Village Academies, is frustrated with the nations current education system. Unlike most, though, she decided to do something about it. Part declaration part record, her book Born to Rise writes down her journey toward creating and running her own system of progressive charter schools in Harlem in New York City.What is your educational philosophy?B) We want our students to receive the same high-quality education as students who are privileged to attend the best private schools in the country. Personally, I believe a progressive education is superior as long as its delivered by really smart, talented teachers who know how to execute well. Its a sophisticated approach that really only works well in the hands of a really sophisticated educator. Were dealing with a little bit of a challenge because students enter this school from the regular public system. And when they enter in fifth grade, theyre not yet well-trained in the basics reading, writing, and math--which means that we have to catch them up on basic math skills, on the basics of writing. And many of them come in at a kindergarten, first, second-grade level in reading. So we have to accelerate their mastery of the basics, but we reject the idea that if you do that you cant teach that at a high level. We push ourselves constantly to think about how we can make sure that our students will catchup while we teach at the highest possible level. It means asking difficult, delicate questions, not accepting an answer that is not backed up by evidence, the kinds of things that you would expect to see in the best private schools. We aim for a high level in rich discussions where the students are asked to analyze a challenging text and where the teacher does not accept just any answer simply because the student is behaving. What makes the Harlem Village Academies different?C) First of all, I have to say what we have in common with other charter schools because we have learned so much from them: creating an expectation that all students will attend college, naming classrooms after colleges, the longer school day, the longer school year. I feel its important to give credit where credit is due because I learned from them. In those early years when I opened the school, most of these other schools bad been around for seven years, ten years, some of them even longer.D ) As far as what makes us different, Ill tell you what the teachers say: teachers tell us that the level of professionalism and passion for teaching at a high level and teaching above the test, not to the test, and working in an environment, where everybody is trusted to do their job and continually learning--theres this incredible culture of learning. Theres this incredible workplace culture where the adults are continually becoming better and learning more about how to become a better lead her. The teachers get to make all of the decisions about their own professional development rather than being enforced to at tend the training. They are treated like professional-grade doctors and lawyers at the. Highest level. They actually make the decisions not only about what books to use and what teaehing methed, but even about what their own professional development Ioukslike.Theres a very clear set of standards far what the students needto know and be "able to do at the end of each year and quarter, and we hold people accountable for that end goal. But we give them complete freedom to decide how theyre going to achieve it, which is how all professionals are treated. Unfortunately, its not how most teachers are treated inthis country. Most teachers are treated like factory workers, where theres a hig set ofrules on how they have to do everything.What does the curriculum look like at Harlem Village Academy schools?E) It looks like a classic liberal-arts curriculum, where math, reading, and writing are not the only subjects taught. Even if the state focuses its testing on those things, we do not let the state dictate our curriculum. We are interested in a rich curriculum that includes art and music and seience and social studies and a wide variety of electives, and character education is integrated throughout.How do you address the criticisms people have regarding charter schools?F) Id say that the .main criticisms are stemming from the fact that in a charter system the teachers are not unionized, and theyre treated as professionals instead of as manual laborers. The charter movement is challenging the current situation, its eoming along and saying we used to completely change the underlying premiere ( 前提) of how we go about public education. Parents should be able to choose the scherzi. We should give power to all parents, regardless of socioeonomie level, to choose where they send their child, and that creates market competition: if you have an amazing school with caring teachers and great results, parents are going to ~ant to choose that school. The charter movement is putting the needs of children first anti is holding teachers accountable. Itehalleuges the notion of tenure (终身教职), where theres no accountability at all.Whats next for you and the Harlem Village Academies?G) We are going to triple (增至三倍) in size in the next twn years. We will have a full K -12 system. Were starting two new elementary schools, we will be serving 2,000 children, but we are not eager to grow super-big. We want to use the platform of what we re learned and the results that weve produced--that ant teachers have produced--to have an ational influence on policy and on teaching methods. The laws that govern how school srun constrain the ability of the printcipal to run the school well. Theyre not allowed to build a team. And building a team where teachers are trusted, happy and cooperative is really the foundation for an excellent school. So we want to find a way to get our message out nationally and continue to be part of the movement.1. In the Harlem Village Academies. teachers can decide themselves how they are going to achieve the teaching objectives.2. The charter movement challenges the tenure system in making childrens needs apriority and holding, teachers responsible.3. The Harlem Village Academies will be able to enroll 2,000 ehildren in the next twoyears4. Deborah Kenny admits that she learns a lot from other charter schools.5. The curriculum at Harlem Village Academies not only includes the subjects frequentlytested.6.The Harlem Village Academies are eager to exert a national influence on policy and teaching methods.7. Students entering the Harlem Village Academies are from the regular public system.8. Deborah Kenny decides to create and run the Harlem Village Academies because sheis disappointed about the current education system.9. Charter schools are mainly criticized for treating the teachers as professionals.10. One of the challenges facing the Harlern Village Academies is how to accelerate students mastery of the basics.。
长篇阅读——匹配题Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains informationgiven in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph fromwhich the information is derived. You may choose a paragraphmore than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answerthe questions by marking the corresponding letter on AnswerSheet 2.Passage 1Paper — More than Meets the EyeA) We are surrounded by so much paper and card that it is easy to forgetjust how complex it is. There are many varieties and grades of paper materials, and whilst it is fairly easy to spot the varieties, it is far more difficult to spot the grades.B) It needs to be understood that most paper and card is manufacturedfor a specific purpose, so that whilst the corn-flake packet may look smart, it is clearly not something destined for the archives. It is made to look good, but only needs a limited life span. It is also much cheaper to manufacture than high grade card.C) Paper can be made from an almost endless variety of cellulose（纤维素化合物）-based material which will include many woods, cottons and grasses of which papyrus is an example and from where we get the word "paper". Many of these are very specialized, but the preponderance of paper making has been from soft wood and cotton or rags, with the bulk being wood-based.Paper from WoodD) In order to make wood into paper it needs to be broken down into finestrands. Firstly by powerful machinery and then boiled with strong alkalies(碱) such as caustic soda, until a fine pulp of cellulose fibers is produced. It is from this pulp that the final product is made, relying on the bonding together of the cellulose into layers.That, in a very small nutshell, is the essence of paper making from wood. However, the reality is rather more complicated. In order to give us our white paper and card, the makers will add bleach and other materials such as china clay and additional chemicals.E) A further problem with wood is that it contains a material that isnot cellulose. Something called lignin. This is essential for the tree since it holds the cellulose fibres together, but if it is incorporated into the manufactured paper it presents archivists witha problem. Lignin eventually breaks down and releases acid productsinto the paper. This will weaken the bond between the cellulose fibers and the paper will become brittle and look rather brown and careworn.We have all seen this in old newspapers and cheap paperback books.It has been estimated that most paperback books will have a life of no greater than fifty years, not what we need for our archives. F) Since the lignin can be removed from the paper pulp during manufacture,the obvious question is "why is it left in the paper". The answer lies in the fact that lignin makes up a considerable part of the tree.By leaving the lignin in the pulp a papermaker can increase his paper yield from a tree to some 95%. Removing it means a yield of only 35%.It is clearly uneconomic to remove the lignin for many paper and card applications. It also means, of course, that lignin-free paper isgoing to be more expensive.G) However, it is nevertheless what the archivist must look for in hissupplies. There is no point whatsoever in carefully placing our valuable artifacts in paper or card that is going to hasten their demise. Acid is particularly harmful to photographic materials, causing them to fade and in some cases simply vanish!H) So, how do we tell a piece of suitable paper or card from one thatis unsuitable? You cannot do it by simply looking, and rather disappointingly, you cannot always rely on the label. "Acid-free"might be true inasmuch as a test on the paper may indicate that it is a neutral material at this time. But lignin can take years before it starts the inevitable process of breaking down, and in the right conditions it will speed up enormously.I) Added to this, as I have indicated earlier, paper may also containother materials added during manufacture such as bleach, china clay, chemical whiteners and size. This looks like a bleak picture, and it would be but for the fact that there are suppliers who will guarantee the material that they sell. If you want to be absolutely sure that you are storing in, or printing on, the correct material then this is probably the only way.J) Incidentally, acids can migrate from material to material. Lining old shoe boxes with good quality acid-free paper will do little to guard the contents. The acid will get there in the end.Paper from RagK) Paper is also commonly made from cotton and rag waste. This has the advantage of being lignin-free, but because there is much less cotton and rag than trees, it also tends to be much more expensive than wood pulp paper. You will still need to purchase from a reliable source though, since even rag paper and card can contain undesirable additives.L) A reliable source for quality rag papers is a recognized art stockiest. Many water color artists insist on using only fine quality rag paper and board.M) The main lesson to learn from this information is that you cannot rely on purchasing archival materials from the high street. The only safe solution is to purchase from specialist suppliers. It may cost rather more, but in the end you will know that your important and valuable data and images have the best home possible.1. The corn-flake packet is cheaper than high grade card.2. There are a lot of materials which can be used for making paper, butthe superior ones are soft wood, cotton and rags.3. During the whole manufacturing process, the final product is madefrom a pulp of cellulose fibres.4. In order to make white paper and card, the makers will add bleach.5. Lignin is essential for the tree but it will make paper easy to break.6. Many paper producers will preserve lignin during manufacture, becauseleaving the lignin will make more paper from a tree.7. Acid is particularly harmful to photographic materials.8. If the lignin is removed from the paper, the paper will be more expensive.9. Although free of lignin, paper made from cotton and rag waste canalso cost more money than wood pulp paper because there is much lesscotton and rag than trees.10. What we can learn from “Paper from Rag” is that you had betterbuy archival materials from specialist suppliers.文章精要：本文主要介绍了我们平常所见所用的纸的复杂性，通过介绍用木头和破布料造纸的过程，使我们对纸的类别、属性有了更深入的了解。
英语四级段落信息匹配练习题（6）英语四级段落信息匹配练习题F) In the second report, Dr. Robert J. Hancox from the University of Ot ago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and colleagues found, regardless of your intelligence or social background, if you watch a lot of TV during childhood, you are a lot less likely to have a college degree by your mid-20s. In their study, the researchers followed 1,037 people born in 1972 and 1973. Every two years, between the ages of5 and 15, they were asked how much television they watched. The researchers found that those who watched the most television during these years had earned fewer degrees by the time they were 26."We found that the more television the child had watched, the more likely they were to leave school without any qualifications," Hancox said in a prepared statement. "Those who watched little television had the best chance of going on to university and earning a degree."G) Hancox's team found that watching TV at an early age had the most effect on graduating from college. "An interesting finding was that although teenage viewing was strongly linked to leaving school without any qualifications, it was earlier childhood viewing that had the greatest impact on getting a degree," he said. "This suggests that excessive television in younger children has a long-lasting adverse effect on educational performance."H) In the third paper, Frederick J. Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis from the University of Washington report that, for very young children, watching TV can result in lower test scores in mathematics, reading recognition and reading comprehension. "We looked at how much television children watched before age 3 and then at ages 3 to 5," Zimmerman said. "We found that forchildren who watched a small amount of TV in the earlier years, there was co nsider able beneficial effect compared to children who watched a lot of TV."I) For children aged 3 to 5, the effect was not as clear, Zimmerman said. "There were some beneficial effects of watching TV on reading, but no beneficial effects for math or vocabulary," he noted. "The worst pattern was to watch more than three hours of TV before age 3. Those kids had a significant disadvantage compared to the other kids." Parents should follow the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation, which is no TV for children under 2, Zimmerman said. "Personally, I feel the cutoff should be children under 3, because there is just not any good content for children under 3."J) One expert believes that TV can have both positive and negative effects, but it all depends on what children are watching. "Content matters," said Deborah L. Line barger, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who co-authored an accompanying editorial. "Educational content has been found to be related to performance on school readiness tests, higher grades when they are teen-agers, whereas, non-educational content tends to be associated with lower academic performance."K) Another expert agrees. "TV watching takes up space that could be used by more useful things," said Dr. Christopher P. Lucas, a clinical coordinator at the Early Childhood Evaluation and Treatment Program at the New York University Child Study Center. "TV is not necessarily toxic, but is some-thing that has to be done in moderation; something that balances the other needs of the child for healthy development."L) Lucas puts the responsibility for how much TV kids watchand what they watch squarely on parents. "The amount of TV watching certainly has a link with the reduced amount of time reading or doing homework," he said. "The key is the amount of control parents have in limiting the amount of access. Get the TV out of the bedroom; be aware of what is being watched; limit the amount of TV watching."46. According to Borzekowski, children having chances to use a family computer are likely to acquire better results on the different tests.47. The reports issued in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescents Medicine find that watching too much TV leads to poor performance in school.48. Watching more than three hours of TV before age 3 has bad effect on kids.49. According to the second report, the chance for one to acquire a college degree depends on the amount of his TV watching during childhood.50. In Deborah L. Lingbarger's opinion, educational content is helpful for teenagers to get better results on school readiness tests.51. The environment of family media greatly affects children's test scores according to the first report.52. Borzekowski believes that TV's negative effect on children's marks may mainly lie in what children watch on TV and how much time they spend on it.53. Lucas thinks parents should take the responsibility to supervise kids' TV watching.下载文档润稿写作咨询。
英语四级长篇阅读段落信息匹配题练习及答案解析（11）英语四级长篇阅读段落信息匹配题练习及答案解析(11)Jaguars Don't Live Here AnymoreA)Earlier this month, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would appoint" critical habitat" for the endangered jaguar. Jaguars--the world's third-largest wild cats, weighing up to 250 pounds, with distinctive black rosettes ( 玫瑰花色) on their fur--are a separate species from the smaller, tawny (黄褐色的) mountain lions, which still roam large areas of the American West in the United States and take the first steps toward mandating (批准) a jaguar recovery plan. This is a policy reversal and, on the surface, it may appear to be a victory for the conservation community and for jaguars, the largest wild cats in the Western Hemisphere.B) But as someone who has studied jaguars for nearly three decades, I can tell you it is nothing less than a slap in the face to good science. What's more, by changing the rules for animal preservation, it stands to weaken the Endangered Species Act.C)The debate on what to do about jaguars started in 1997, when, at the urging of many biologists ( including me), the Fish and Wildlife Service put the jaguar on the United States endangered species list, because there had been occasional sightings of the cats crossing north over the United States-Mexico border. At the same time, however, the agency ruled that it would not be "prudent" (谨慎的) to declare that the jaguar has critical .habitat--a geographic area containing features the species needs to survive--in the United States. Determining an endangered species' critical habitat is a first step towarddeveloping a plan for helping that species recover.D)The 1997 decision not to determine critical habitat for thejaguar was the right one, because even though they cross the border from time to time, jaguars don't occupy any territory in our country--andthat probably means the environment here is no longer ideal for them.E)In prehistoric times, these beautiful cats inhabited significant areas of the western United States, but in the past 100 years, there have been few, if any, resident breeding populations here. The last time a female jaguar with a cub ( 幼兽) was sighted in this country was inthe early 1900s.F)Two well-intentioned conservation advocacy groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, sued the Fish andWildlife Service to change its ruling. Thus in 2006, the agency reassessed the situation and again determined that no areas in theUnited States met the definition of critical habitat for the jaguar. Despite occasional sightings, mostly within 40 miles of the Mexican border, there were still no data to indicate jaguars had taken up residence inside the United States.G ) After this second ruling was made, an Arizona rancher ( 牧场主), with support from the state Game and Fish Department, set infrared-camera (红外摄像机) traps togather more data, and essentially confirmed the Fish and Wildlife Service's findings. The cameras did capture transient jaguars, including one male jaguar, nick named Macho, B, who roamed the Arizona borderlands for more than a decade. But Macho B, now dead, might have beenthe sole resident American jaguar, and hisextensive travels indicated he was not having an easy time surviving in this dry, rugged region.1H) Despite the continued evidence, the two conservation advocacy groups continued to sue the government. Apparently, they want jaguars to repopulate the United State seven if jaguars don't wan! to. Last March,a federal district judge in Arizona ordered the Fish and WildlifeService to revisit its 2006 determination on critical habitat.I)The facts haven't changed: there is still no area in the United States essential to the conservation of the jaguar. But, having asserted this twice already, the service, nowunder a new president, has bent to the tiresome litigation (诉讼). On Jan. 12, Fish and Wildlife officials, claimed to have evaluated new scientific information that had become available after the July 2006 ruling. They determined that it is now prudent to appoint critical habitat for the jaguar in the United States.J)This means that Fish and Wildlife must now also formulate a recovery plan for the jaguar. And since jaguars have not been able to reestablish themselves naturally over the past century, the government will likely have to go to significant expense to attempt to bring them back--especially if the cats have to be reintroduced.K)So why not do everything we can, at whatever cost, to bring jaguars back into the United States? To begin with, the American Southwest is, at best, marginal habitat for the animals. More important, there are better ways to help jaguars. South of our border, from Mexico to Argentina, thousands of jaguars liveand breed in their true criticalhabitat. Governments and conservation groups (including the one I head) are already working hard to conserve jaguar populations and connect them to one another through an initiative called the Jaguar Corridor.L).The jaguars that now and then cross into the United States most likely come from the northernmost population of jaguars, in Sonora, Mexico. Rather than demand jaguars return to our country, we should help Mexico and other jaguar-range countries conserve the animals' true habitat itM )The recent move by the Fish and Wildlife Service means that the rare federal funds devoted to protecting wild animals will be wasted on efforts that cannot help save jaguars. It also stands to weaken the Endangered Species Act, because if critical habitat is redefined as any place where a species might ever have existed, and where you or I might want it to exist again, then the door is open for many other sense less efforts to bring back long-lost creatures.N)The Fish and Wildlife officials whose job is to protect the country's wild animals need to grow a stronger backbone--stick withtheir original, correct decision and save their money for more useful preservation work. Otherwise, when funds are needed to preserve all those small, ugly, non-charismatic endangered species at the back of the line, there may be no money left.1. It is still a fact that there is no suitable place for jaguarsto live safely in the United States.2. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service should be more determined and saving for the conservation work.3. Jaguars were regarded as endangered species because oftheir rare appearance at the United States-Mexico border.4. Money was not spent effectively in helping save jaguars in the recent move by the Fish and Wildlife Service.5. It can be inferred that the United States is not the best choice for jaguars to live from the evidence that they don't settle anywhere here.6. South of the United States' border, from Mexico to Argentina, is the true critical habitat for jaguars.7. The number of jaguars breeding populations in significant areas of the western United States has deceased in the past century.8. It is necessary for the government to invest lots of funds in order to help jaguars to reestablish.9. It didn't indicate that jaguars had settled down in the United States even though they were seen within 40 miles of the Mexican border at times.10. Fish and Wildlife officials were sure enough to appointcritical habitat for the jaguar in the United States.1.I)。
大学英语四级段落信息匹配题训练大学英语四级段落信息匹配题训练：Creative Book Report IdeasA.Are you at a loss for creative book report ideas for your students?If yes.then this article will help you make reading and reviewing books more creative for your class.In an age of PSPs，Xbox，anime and gaming arcades，reading has lost its foothold in the list of hobbies that children tend to cite.Most of the reading that kids do today,comes in the form of compulsory books that they need to read for school and maybe that is the reason they find reading to be an insurmountable and boring task.If you want to inculcate the love for languages and literary masterpieces in your students and want them to devour books everyone should read，then a good way of going about the same would be to get them to start working on creative book report ideas.While working on creative ideas for book reports，your students will have to understand the book in a way that allows them to come up with new ways to present to the class，the essence of the book.B.As a teachel while egging your students to activate their creative gray cells.you will have to help them out with basic ideas that they can work on.Depending on the age bracket that your students belong to，the creative book report ideas will vary.This is so，not just because of the varying attention spans that children of various age groups posses butalso because of the amount of work that kids can put into the report.While a middle school student wiIl be comfortable handling a handy cam，a student from elementary school will be more fascinated if he is working with paints and puppets.So do you want to know how to write a book report creatively?In this article.we will list out for you，a couple of good creative book report ideas for elementary students and for middle school students.C.A book report sandwich is a good creative idea for book reports.As a teacher you can get drawings of a sandwich on sheets of Paper that are of the color of the ingredients of your sandwich，for example，a cream sheet of paper to resemble mayonnaise，red to represent tomato and likewise.Ob.viously,each ingredient should be cut in a way that when assembled together,it looks like a sandwich.Now,give each of your students one of these book sandwiches to create their book report.It can start with the name of the book and the authors name on the top slice of the sandwich.The second ingredient can have the summary of the book on it.Each subsequent ingredient can have a description of the main characters，the setting of the book，the plot，and then his or her views about the book.Once they are done with their book reports，they can staple the book sandwich together and then，you can create a class bulletin board with all the book report sandwiches on display.D.One of the good techniques to retell a story,it is also one of the favorite creative book report ideas among students.The job that the student will have is to read the book and then pick a few objects at his/her home which will allow him/her to retell the story in a way that makes it interesting for his/ her audience.Every time he/she picks out an objectfrom the bag to report the book he/she has read，there has to be a valid connection between the book and the object，which the student can first ask the audience to guess and then go ahead and explain it.This idea is spin—off on the normal show and tells and allows for an interactive book report session.E.This is one of the creative ideas for book reports in which.as the teacher, you will have to divideyour class into groups and give them one book each.The students can then read the book and get together and write a play and act it out for the class.To give a deeper insight into the book，one of the students can play the role of the author and as a group，the students can try and recreate the thought Drocess of the author.The student playing the role of the author can then interrupt the play at lmportant iunctllres and talk about the reasons for these twists in the play and how he/she came up with these plot lines.F.As a voung adult，your students fascination may go beyond the immediate concerns of the book.He/she may want to understand the circumstances in which the book was written，the times then，the events happening in the world and get the authors perspective about the book.Encourage your students to mink on those lines.Divide the class into pairs and give each pair one book to read.Let them then do the roles of the author and a journalist.You can have an interview session in front of the class.enabling them to dissect the book and get a peek into the authors world.G.In a technology—obsessed world，it maybe a very tiny minority of your class that does not get excited with the Drospect of shooting a film.One of the best creative book report ideas for middle school， youwill need to divide the class into groups and give them at least two months to adapt the book that thev have been assigned，into a film.The movie should have a well—adapted screenplay,and allother prerequisites，like a lighting engineer,sound engineer, costume designer,etc.At the end of the given time，the film can be screened in front of the class and then discussed.H.If you are on the lookout for good individual creative book report ideas，then this one could be for you.Assign every student a book and then ask them to start maintaining a diary,from the authorsDoint of vie w.Ask them to come up with imaginary incidents from the authors life and use historical events to explain why the author wrote the book in a certain manner.Alternately, you can also ask your students to give a surrogate ending to the story.I)、These are just few of the options that you could use to inspire your students to come up with creative book report ideas.As kids we tend to be more imaginative and creative .Encourage your students to mink om of the box and appreciate them for their efforts.This will help you have a class that is not only lively and inquisitive by nature but also a class that will cultivate a love for words.46.11eachers can create a class bulletin board to display all the book report sandwiches after their students finish their reports.47.Adopting the method of knowing your author,teachers can encourage students to think beyond the immediate concerns of the book.48.Asking me students to write from their own point of view is suitable for teachers who are on the lookout for good individual creative book report ideas.49.Retelling a story is one of the favorite creative book report ideas among students and it tells and allows for an interactive book report session.50.Nowadays，most of book children read are those they need to read for school.51.Teachers tend to be more imaginative and creative as kids.52.While working on creative ideas for book reports，students will have to understand the book.53.The creative book report ideas vary according to ages because children in different age groups have different attention span.54.If teachers ask their students to shoot a film about a book，they should give them no fewer than two months.55.Teachers have to divide their class into groups and give them one book each is a good creative book report ideas.。
大学英语四级段落匹配题目自2013年12月份开始,大学英语四六级考试采用了新题型,其中改革的一大题型便是快速阅读,改为长篇阅读理解,也可称之为段落信息匹配题。
下面是店铺带来的大学英语四级段落匹配，欢迎阅读!大学英语四级段落匹配1Essay-Grading Software Offers Professors a Break[A] Imagine taking a college exam, and, instead of handing in a blue book and getting a grade from a professor a few weeks later, clicking the “send” button when you are done and receiving a grade back instantly, your essay scored by a software program. And then, instead of being done with that exam, imagine that the system would immediately let you rewrite the test to try to improve your grade.[B]EdX, the nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)to offer courses on the Internet, has just introduced such a system and will make its automated(自动的)software available free on the Web to any institution that wants to use it. The software uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers, freeing professors for other tasks.[C] The new service will bring the educational consortium(联盟)into a growing conflict over the role of automation in education. Although automated grading systems for multiple-choice and true-false tests are now widespread, the use of artificial intelligence technology to grade essay answers has not yet received widespread acceptance by educators and has many critics.[D] Anant Agarwal, an electrical engineer who is president of EdX, predicted that theinstant-grading software would be auseful teaching tool, enabling students to take tests and write essays over and over and improve the quality of their answers. He said the technology would offer distinct advantages over the traditional classroom system, where students often wait days or weeks for grades. “There is a huge value in leaning with instant feedback,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Students are telling us they learn much better with instant feedback.”[E] But skeptics(怀疑者)say the automated system is no match for live teachers. One longtime critic, Les Perelman, has drawn national attention several times for putting together nonsense essays that have fooled software grading programs into giving high marks. He has also been highly critical of studies claiming that the software compares well to human graders.[F] He is among a group of educators who last month began circulating a petition(呼吁)opposing automated assessment software. The group, which calls itself Professsionals Against MachineScoring of Student Essays in High-Stakes Assessment, has collected nearly 2,000 signatures, including some from famous people like Noam Chomsky.[G] “Let’s face the realities of automatic essay scoring,” the group’s statement reads in part. “Computers cannot ‘read’.They cannot measure the essentials of effe ctive written communication: accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethical(伦理的)position, convincing argument, meaningful organization, and clarity, among others.”.[H] But EdX expects its software to be adopted widely by schools and universities. It offers free online classes from Harvard, MIT and the University of Californian-Berkeley; this fall, it will add classes from Wellesley, Georgetown and the University of Texas. In all, 12 universities participate in EdX, which offers certificatesfor course completion and has said that it plans to continue to expand next year, including adding international schools.[I] The EdX assessment tool requires human teachers, or graders, to first grade 100 essays or essay questions. The system then uses a variety of machine-learning techniques to train itself to be able to grade any number of essays or answers automatically and almost instantly. The software will assign a grade depending on the scoring system created by the teacher, whether it is a letter grade or numerical(数字的)rank.[J] EdX is not the first to use the automated assessment technology, which dates to early computers in the 1960s. There is now a range of companies offering commercial programs to grade written test answers, and four states—Louisiana, North Dakota, Utah and West Virginia—are using some form of the technology in secondary schools. A fifth, Indiana, has experimented with it. In some cases the software is used as a “second reader,”to check the reliability of the human graders.[K] But the growing influence of the EdX consortium to set standards is likely to give the technology a boost. On Tuesday, Stanford announced that is would work with EdX to develop a joint educational system that will make use of the automated assessment technology.[L] Two start-ups, Coursera and Udacity, recently founded by Stanford faculty members to create “massive open online courses,”or MOOCs, are also committed to automated assessment systems because of the value of instant feedback. “It allows students to get immediate feedback on their work, so that learning turns into a game, with students naturally gravitating(吸引) toward resubmitting the work until they get it right,” said Daphne Koller, a computer scientist and a founder of Coursera.[M] Last year the Hewlett Foundation, a grant-making organization set up by one of the Hewlett-Packard founders and his wife, sponsored two $100,000 prizes aimed at improving software that grades essays and short answers. More than 150 teams entered each category. A winner of one of the Hewlett contests, Vik Paruchuri, was hired by EdX to help design its assessment software.[N] “One of our focuses is to help kids learn how to think critically,”said Victor Vuchic, a program officer at the Hewlett Foundation. “It’s probably impossible to do that with multiple-choice tests. The challenge is that this requires human graders, and so they cost a lot more and they take a lot more time.”[O] Mark D. Shermis, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio, supervised the Hewlett F oundation’s contest on automated essay scoring and wrote a paper about the experiment. In his view, the technology—though imperfect—has a place in educational settings.[P] With increasingly large classes, it is impossible for most teachers to give students meaningful feedback on writing assignments, he said. Plus, he noted, critics of the technology have tended to come from the nation’s best universities, where the level of teaching is much better than at most schools.[Q]“Often they come from very famous institutions where, in fact, they do a much better job of providing feedback than a machine ever could,”Dr. Shermis said. “There seems to be a lack of appreciation of what is actually going on in the real world.”注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
大学英语四级段落信息匹配专项练习（附答案）练习1Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten 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 choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.A Grassroots RemedyA) Most of us spend our lives seeking the natural world. To this end, we walk the dog, play golf, go fishing, sit in the garden, drink outside rather than inside the pub, have a picnic, live in the suburbs, go to the seaside, and buy a weekend place in the country. The most popular leisure activity in Britain is going for a walk. And when joggers (慢跑者) jog, they don't run the streets. Every one of the minstinctively heads to the park or the river. It is my profound belief that not only do we all need nature, but we all seek nature, whether we know we are doing so or not.B) But despite this, our children are growing up nature-deprived (丧失) , I spent my boyhood climbing trees on Stratham Common, south London. These days, children are robbed of these ancient freedoms, due to problems like crime, traffic, the loss of the open spaces and odd new perceptions about what is best for children, that is to say, things that can be bought, rather than things that can be found.C) The truth is to be found elsewhere. A study in the U.S. families had moved to better housing and the children were assessed for ADHD --attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (多动症). Those whose accommodation had more natural views showed an improvement of 19%; those who had the same improvement in material surroundings but no nice view improved just 4%.D) A study in Sweden indicated that kindergarten children who could play in a natural environment had less illness and greater physical ability than children usedonly to a normal playground. A U.S. study suggested that when a school gave children access to a natural environment, academic levels were raised across the entire school.E) Another study found that children play differently in a natural environment. In playgrounds, children create a hierarchy (等级) based on physical abilities, with the tough ones taking the lead. But when a grassy area was planted with bushes, the children got much more into fantasy play, and the social hierarchy was now based on imagination and creativity.F) Most bullying (恃强凌弱) is found in schools where there is a tarmac (柏油碎石) play ground; the least bullying is in a natural area that the children are encouraged to explore. This reminds pleasantly of Sunny hill School in Stratham, with its harsh tarmac, where I used to hang about incomers fantasizing about wildlife. The children are frequently discouraged from involvement with natural spaces, for health and safety reasons, for fear that they might get dirty or that they might cause damage. So, instead, the damage is done to the children themselves: not to their bodies but to their souls.G) One of the great problems of modem childhood is ADHD, now increasingly and expensively treated with drugs. Yet one study after another indicates that contact with nature gives huge benefits to ADHD children. However, we spend money on drugs rather than on green places.H) The life of old people is measurably better when they have access to nature. The increasing emphasis for the growing population of old people is in quality rather than quantity of years. And study after study finds that a garden is the single most important thing in finding that quality.I) In wider and more difficult areas of life, there is evidence to indicate that natural surroundings prove all kinds of things. Even problems with crime and aggressive behavior are reduced when there is contact with the natural world. Dr. William Bird, researcher from the Royal Society for the Protection of birds, states in his study, “A natural environment can reduce violent behavior because its restorative process helps reduce anger and impulsive behavior.” Wild places need encouraging for this reason, no matter how small their contribution.J) We tend to look on nature conservation as some kind of favor that human beings are granting to the natural world. The error here is far too deep: not only do humans need nature for themselves, but the very idea that humanity and the natural world are separable things is profoundly damaging. Human beings are a species of mammals (哺乳动物). For seven million years they lived on the planet as part of nature. Our ancestral selves miss the natural world and long for contact with nonhuman life. Anyone who has patted a dog, stoked a cat, sat under a tree with a pint of beer, given or received a bunch of flowers or chosen to walk through the park on a nice day, understands that. We need the wild world. It is essential to our well-being, our health, our happiness. Without the wild world we are not more but less civilized. Without other living things around us we are less than human.K) Five Ways to Find Harmony with the Natural World Walk: Break the rhythm of permanently being under a roof. Get off a stop earlier, make a circuit of the park at lunchtime, walk the child to and from school, get a dog, feel yourself moving in moving air, look, listen, absorb.Sit: Take a moment, every now and then, to be still in an open space. In the garden, anywhere that's not in the office, anywhere out of the house, away from the routine. Sit under a tree, look at water, and feel refreshed, ever so slightly renewed.Drink: The best way to enjoy the natural world is by oneself; the second best way is in company. Take a drink outside with a good person, a good gathering: talk with the sun and the wind with bird-song for background.Learn: Expand your boundaries. Learn five species of bird, five butterflies, five trees, five bird songs. That way, you see and hear more: and your mind responds gratefully to the greater amount of wildness in your life.Travel: The places you always wanted to visit: by the seaside, in the country, in the hills. Take a week-end break, a day-trip, get out these and do it: for the scenery, for the way through the woods, for the birds, for the bees. Go somewhere special and bring specialness home. It lasts forever, after all.46. The study in Sweden shows that more access to nature makes children less likely to fall ill.47. The author's profound belief is that people instinctively seek nature in different ways.48. It can be very helpful to provide more green spaces for children with ADHD.49. Elderly people will enjoy a life of better quality when they contact more with nature.50. Nowadays, people think things that can be bought are best for children, rather than things that can be found.51. Dr. William Bird suggests in his study that access to nature contributes to the reduction of violence.52. According to a study in the U. S. Children with ADHD whose accommodation had more natural views showed much better improvement.53. Children who have chances to explore natural areas are less likely to be involved in bullying.54. We can find harmony with the natural world in various ways, among which there are walking, sitting, drinking, learning and traveling.55. It is extremely harmful to think that humanity and the natural world can be separated.练习2Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten 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 choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.Endangered PeoplesA) Today, it is not distance, but culture that separates the peoples of the world. The central question of our time may be how to deal with cultural differences. So begins the book, Endangered Peoples, by Art Davidson. It is an attempt to provideunderstanding of the issues affecting the world's native peoples. This book tells the stories of 21 tribes, cultures, and cultural areas that are struggling to survive. It tells each story through the voice of a member of the tribe. Mr. Davidson recorded their words. Art Wolfe and John Isaac took pictures of them. The organization called the Sierra Club published the book.B) The native groups live far apart in North America or South America, Africa or Asia. Yet their situations are similar. They are fighting the march of progress in an effort to keep themselves and their cultures alive. Some of them follow ancient ways most of the time. Some follow modern ways most of the time. They have one foot in ancient world and one foot in modern world. They hope to continue to balance between these two worlds. Yet the pressures to forget their traditions and join the modern world may be too great.C) Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1992, offers her thoughts in the beginning of the book Endangered Peoples. She notes that many people claim that native people are like stories from the past. They are ruins that have died. She disagrees strongly. She says native communities are not remains of the past. They have a future, and they have much wisdom and richness to offer the rest of the world.D) Art Davidson traveled thousands of miles around the world while working on the book. He talked to many people to gather their thoughts and feelings. Mr. Davidson notes that their desires are the same. People want to remain themselves he says. They want to raise their children the way they were raised. They want their children to speak their mother tongue, their own language. They want them to have their parents' values and customs. Mr. Davidson says the people’s cries are the same: “Does our culture have to die? Do we have to disappear as a people?”E) Art Davidson lived for more than 25 years among native people in the American state of Alaska. He says his interest in native peoples began his boyhood when he found an ancient stone arrowhead. The arrowhead was used as a weapon to hunt food. The hunter was an American Indian, long dead. Mr. Davidson realized then that Indians had lived in the state of Colorado, right where he was standing. And itwas then, he says, that he first wondered: “Where are they? Where did they go?” He found answers to his early question. Many of the native peoples had disappeared. They were forced off their lands. Or they were killed in battle. Or they died from diseases brought by new settlers. Other native peoples remained, but they had to fight to survive the pressures of the modern world.F) The Gwich'in are an example of the survivors. They have lived in what is now Alaska and Canada for 10,000 years. Now about 5,000 Gwich'in remain. They are mainly hunters. They hunt the caribou, a large deer with big horns that travels across the huge spaces of the far north. For centuries, they have used all parts of the caribou: the meat for food, the skins for clothes, the bones for tools. Hunting caribou is the way of life of the Gwich'in.G) One Gwich'in told Art Davidson of memories from his childhood. It was a time when the tribe lived quietly in its own corner of the world. He spoke to Mr. Davidson in these words: “As long as I can remember, someone would sit by a fire on the hilltop every spring and autumn. His job was to look for caribou. If he saw a caribou, he would wave his arms or he would make his fire to give off more smoke. Then the village would come to life! People ran up to the hilltop. The tribes seemed to be at its best at these gatherings. We were all filled with happiness and sharing!”H) About ten years ago, the modern world invaded the quiet world of the Gwich’in. Oil companies wanted to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve. This area was the please where the caribou gave birth to their young. The Gwich'in feared the caribou would disappear. One Gwich’in woman describes the situation in these words: “Oil development threatens the caribou. If the caribou are threatened, then the people are threatened. Oil company official and American lawmakers do not seem to understand. They do not come into our homes and share our food. They have never tried to understand the feeling expressed in our songs and our prayers. They have not seen the old people cry. Our elders have seen parts of our culture destroyed. They worry that our people may disappear forever.”I) A scientist with a British oil company dismisses (驳回) the fears of the Gwich'in. He also says they have no choice. They will have to change. The Gwich’in,however, are resisting. They took legal action to stop the oil companies. But they won only a temporary ban on oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve. Pressures continue on other native people, as Art Davidson describes in his book. The pressures come from expanding populations, dam projects that flood tribal lands, and political and economic conflicts threaten the culture, lands, and lives of such groups as the Quechua of Peru, the Malagasy of Madagascar and the Ainu of Japan.J) The organization called Cultural Survival has been in existence for 22 years. It tries to protect the rights and cultures of peoples throughout the world. It has about 12,000 members. And it receives help from a large number of students who work without pay. Theodore MacDonald is director of the Cultural Survival Research Center. He says the organization has three main jobs. It does research and publishes information. It works with native people directly. And it creates markets for goods produced by native communities.K) Late last year, Cultural Survival published a book called State of the Peoples: a Global Human Rights Report on Societies in Danger. The book contains reports from researchers who work for Cultural Survival, from experts on native peoples, and from native peoples themselves. The book describes the conditions of different native and minority groups. It includes longer reports about several threatened societies, including the Penan of Malaysia and the Anishina be of North American. And it provides the names of organizations similar to Cultural Survival for activists, researchers and the press.L) David May bury-Lewis started the Cultural Survival organization. Mr. May bury-Lewis believes powerful groups rob native peoples of their lives, lands, or resources. About 6,000 groups are left in the world. A native group is one that has its own langue. It has a long-term link to a homeland. And it has governed itself. Theodore MacDonald says Cultural Survival works to protect the rights of groups, not just individual people. He says the organization would like to develop a system of early warnings when these rights are threatened.Mr. MacDonald notes that conflicts between different groups within a country have been going on forever and will continue. Such conflicts, he says, cannot be prevented. But they do not have tobecome violent. What Cultural Survival wants is to help set up methods that lead to peaceful negotiations of traditional differences. These methods, he says, are a lot less costly than war.46. Rigoberta Menchu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1992, writes preface for the book Endangered Peoples.47. The book Endangered Peoples contents not only words, but also pictures.48. Art Davidson's initial interest in native people was aroused by an ancient stone arrowhead he found in his childhood, which was once used by an American Indian hunter.49. The native groups are trying very hard to balance between the ancient world and the modern world.50. By talking with them, Art Davidson finds that the native people throughout the world desire to remain themselves.51. Most of the Gwich'in are hunters, who live on hunting caribou.52. Cultural Survival is an organization which aims at protecting the rights and cultures of peoples throughout the world.53. According to Theodore MacDonald, the Cultural Survival organization would like to develop a system of early warnings when a society's rights are to be violated.54. The book State of the Peoples: a Global Human Rights Report on Societies in Danger describes the conditions of different native and minority groups.55. The Gwich' in tried to stop oil companies from drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve for fear that it should drive the caribou away练习3Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten 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 choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.The Art of FriendshipA) One evening a few years ago I found myself in an anxiety. Nothing was really wrong my family and I were healthy, my career was busy and successful -- I was just feeling vaguely down and in need of a friend who could raise my spirits, someone who would meet me for coffee and let me rant until the clouds lifted. I dialed my best friend, who now lives across the country in California, and got her voice mail. That's when it started to dawn on me -- lonesomeness was at the root of my dreariness. My social life had dwindled to almost nothing, but somehow until that moment I'd been too busy to notice. Now it hit me hard. My old friends, buddies since college or even childhood, know everything about me; when they left, they had taken my context with them.B) Research has shown the long-range negative consequences of social isolation on one's health. But my concerns were more short-term. I needed to feel understood right then in the way that only a girlfriend can understand you. I knew it would be wrong to expect my husband to replace my friends: He couldn't, and even if he could, to whom would I then complain about my husband? So I resolved to acquire new friends -- women like me who had kids and enjoyed rolling their eyes at the world a little bit just as I did. Since I'd be making friends with more intention than I'd ever given the process, I realized I could be selective, that I could in effect design my own social life. The down side, of course, was that I felt pretty frightened.C) After all, it's a whole lot harder to make friends in midlife that it is when you're younger ----a fact woman I've spoken with point out again and again. As Leslie Danzig, 41, a Chicago theater director and mother, sees it, when you're in your teens and 20s, you're more or less friends with everyone unless there's a reason not to be. Your college roommate becomes your best pal at least partly due to proximity. Now there needs to be a reason to be friends. “There are many people I'm comfort-able around, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them friends. Comfort isn't enough to sustain a real friendship,” Danzig says.D) At first, finding new companions felt awkward. At 40, I couldn't run up topeople the way my 4-year-old daughters do in the playground and ask, “Will you be my friend? Every time you start anew relationship, you're vulnerable again,” agrees Kathleen Hall, D Min, founder and CEO of the Stress Institute, in Atlanta. “You're asking, ‘Would you like to come into my life?' It makes us self-conscious.”E) Fortunately, my discomfort soon passed. I realized that as a mature friend seeker my vulnerability risk was actually pretty low. If someone didn't take me up on my offer, so what: I wasn't in junior high, when I might have been rejected for having the wrong clothes or hair. At my age I have amassed enough self-esteem to realize that I have plenty to offer.F) We're all so busy, in fact, that mutual interests ---say, in a project, class, or cause that we already make time for --- become the perfect catalysts for bringing us in contact with candidates for camaraderie. Michelle Mertes, 35, a teacher and mother of two in Wausau, Wisconsin, says anew friend she made at church came as a pleasant surprise. “In high school I chose friends based on their popularity and how being part of their circle might reflect on me. Now's it's our shared values and activities that count.” Mertes says her pal, with whom she organized the church's youth programs, is nothing like her but their drive and organizational skills make them ideal friends.G) Happily, as awkward as making new friends can be, self-esteem issues do not factor in ---- or if they do, you can easily put them into perspective. Danzig tells of the mother of a child in her son's pre-school, a tall, beautiful woman who is married to a big-deal rock musician. “I said to my husband, she's too cool for me,'” she jokes. “I get intimidated by people. But once I got to know her, she turned out to be pretty laid-back and friendly.” In the end there was no chemistry between them, so they didn't become good pals. “I realized that we weren't each other's type, but it wasn't about hierarchy.” What midlife friendship is about, it seems, is reflecting the person you've become (or are still becoming) back at yourself, thus reinforcing the progress you've made in your life.H) Harlene Katzman, 41, a lawyer in New York City, notes that her oldest friends knew her back when she was less sure of herself. As much as she loves them, she believes they sometimes respond to is-sues in light of who she once was. An old chumhas the goods on you. With recently made friends, you can turn over a new leaf.I) A new friend, chosen right, can also help you point your boat in the direction you want to go. Hanna Dershowitz, 39, an attorney and mother in Los Angeles, found that a new acquaintance from workwas exactly what she needed in a friend. In addition to liking and respecting Julia, Dershowitz had a feeling that the fit and athletic younger woman would help her to get in shape.J) While you're busy making new friends, remember that you still need to nurture your old ones. We asked Maria Paul, author of The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making, and Keeping Friends When You're Not a Kid Anymore, for the best ways to maintain these important relationships. Keep in touch. Your friends should be a priority; schedule regular lunch dates or coffee catch-up sessions, no matter how busy you are. Know her business. Keep track of important events in a friend's life and show your support. Call or e-mail to let her know you're thinking of her. Speak your mind. Tell a friend (politely) if something she did really upset you. If you can't be totally honest, then you need to reexamine the relationship. Accept her flaws. No one is perfect, so work around her quirks --she's chronically late, or she's a bit negative ----to cut down on frustration and fights. Boost her ego. Heartfelt compliments make everyone feel great, so tell her how much you love her new sweater or what a great job she did on a work project.46. Leslie Danzig thought making friends at one's middle age needed some reasons.47. A well-chosen new friend can help you go in the direction that you like.48. A few years ago the author felt lonely and depressed when she phoned her best friend in another city who was much wanted then but unavailable.49. According to Kathleen Hall, one might feel sensitive in the first curse of making new friends.50. Midlife friendship can help you realize your direction of life and reinforce the progress you've made in your life.51. In Maria Paul's book, to be a better friend, you should keep track with your friends, care for your friend's job, express yourself, accept her flaws and complimentyour friend for her/his good dressing and job.52. For the author, a girl friend might be the right person to under “stand her and erase her negative feeling.53. According to Michelle Metes, midlife friendship is based on the shared values and activities54. As a mature friend seeker, the author finds herself with enough confidence to offer and take rejection with grace.55. With newly made friends, you can have a chance to take on a new look in your life.练习4Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten 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 choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.Promote Learning and Skills for Young People and AdultsA) This goal places the emphasis on the learning needs of young people and adults in the context of lifelong learning. It calls for fair access to learning programs that are appropriate, and mentions life skills particularly.B)Education is about giving people the opportunity to develop their potential, their personality and their strengths. This does not merely mean learning new knowledge, but also developing abilities to make the most of life. These are called life skills, including the inner capacities and the practical skills we need.C)Many of the inner capacities---often known as psycho-social skills cannot be taught as subjects. They are not the same as academic or technical learning. They must rather be modeled and promoted as part of learning, and in particular by teachers. These skills have to do with the way we behave---towards other people, towardsourselves, towards the challenges and problems of life.They include skills in communicating, in making decisions and solving problems, in negotiating and expressing ourselves, in thinking critically and understanding our feelings.D)More practical life skills are the kinds of manual skills we need for the physical tasks we face. Some would include vocational skills under the heading of life skills---the ability to lay bricks, sew clothes, catch fish or repair a motorbike. These are skills by which people may earn their livelihood and which are often available to young people leaving school. In fact, very often young people learn psycho-social skills as they learn more practical skills. Learning vocational skills can be a strategy for acquiring both practical and psycho-social skills.E)We need to increase our life skills at every stage of life, so learning them may be part of early childhood education of primary and secondary education and of adult learning groups. Life skills can be put into the categories that the Jacques Delors report suggested; it spoke of four pillars of education, which correspond to certain kinds of life skills---Learning to know: Thinking abilities: such as problem-solving, critical thinking, decision making, understanding consequences. Learning to be: Personal abilities: such as managing stress and feelings, self-awareness, self-confidence. Learning to live together: Social abilities: such as communication, negotiation, teamwork. Learning to do: Manual skills: practicing know-how required for work and tasks.F)In today's world all these skills are necessary, in order to face rapid change in society. This means that it is important to know how to go on learning as we require new skills for life and work. In addition, we need to know how to cope with the flood of information and turn it in to useful knowledge. We also need to learn how to handle change in society and in our own lives.G)Life skills are both concrete and abstract---practical skills can be learned directly, as a subject. For example, a learner can take a course in laying bricks and learn that skill. Other life skills, such as self-confidence, self-esteem, and skills for relating to others or thinking critically cannot be taught in such direct ways. They。
四级长篇阅读段落信息匹配题练习及答案（1）D irections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten 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 choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter.长篇阅读Paper--More than Meets the EyeA) We are surrounded by so much paper and card that it is easy to forget just how complex it is. There are many varieties and grades of paper materials, and whilst it is fairly easy to spot the varieties, it is far more difficult to spot the grades.B) It needs to be understood that most paper and card is manufactured for a specific purpose, so that whilst the corn-flake packet may look smart, it is clearly not something destined for the archives. It is made to look good, but only needs a limited life span. It is also much cheaper to manufacture than high grade card.C) Paper can be made from an almost endless variety of cellulose-based material which will include many woods, cottons and grasses or which papyrus is an example and from where we get the word "paper". Many of these are very specialized, but the preponderance of paper making has been from soft wood and cotton or rags, with the bulk being wood-based.Paper from WoodD) In order to make wood into paper it needs to be broken down into fine strands. Firstly by powerful machinery and then boiled with strong alkalies such as caustic soda, until a fine pulp of cellulose fibers is produced. It is from this pulp that the final product is made, relying on the bonding together of the cellulose into layers. That, in a very small nutshell, is the essence of paper making from wood. However, the reality is rather more complicated. In order to give us our white paper and card, the makers will add bleach and other materials such as china clay and additional chemicals.E) A further problem with wood is that it contains a material that is not cellulose. Something called lignin. This is essential for the tree since it holds the cellulose fibres together, but if it is incorporated into the manufactured paper it presents archivists with a problem. Lignin eventually breaks down and releases acid products into the paper. This will weaken the bond between the cellulose fibers and the paper will become brittle and look rather brown and careworn. We have all seen this in old newspapers and cheap paperback books. It has been estimated that most paper back books will have a life of not greater than fifty years. Not what we need for our archives.F) Since the lignin can be removed from the paper pulp during manufacture, the obvious question is "why is it left in the paper?" The answer lies in the fact that lignin makes up a considerable part of the tree. By leaving the lignin in the pulp a papermaker can increase his paper yield from a tree to some 95%. Removing it means a yield of only 35%. It is clearly uneconomic to remove the lignin for many paper andcard applications.G) It also means, of course, that lignin-free paper is going to be more expensive, but that is nevertheless what the archivist must look for in his supplies. There is no point whatsoever in carefully placing our valuable artifacts in paper or card that is going to hasten their demise. Acid is particularly harmful to photographic materials, causing them to fade and is some cases simply vanish!H) So, how do we tell a piece of suitable paper or card from one that is unsuitable? You cannot do it by simply looking, and rather disappointingly, you cannot always rely on the label. "Acid-free" might be true inasmuch as a test on the paper may indicate that it is a neutral material at this time. But lignin can take years before it starts the inevitable process of breaking down, and in the right conditions it will speed up enormously.I) Added to this, as I have indicated earlier, paper may also contain other materials added during manufacture such as bleach, china clay, chemical whiteners and size. This looks like a bleak picture, and it would be but for the fact that there are suppliers who will guarantee the material that they sell. If you want to be absolutely sure that you are storing in, or printing on, the correct material then this is probably the only way.J) Incidentally, acids can migrate from material to material. Lining old shoe boxes with good quality acid-free paper will do little to guard the contents. The acid will get there in the end.Paper from RagK) Paper is also commonly made from cotton and rag waste. This has the advantage of being lignin-free, but because there is much less cotton and rag than trees, it also tends to be much more expensive than wood pulp paper. You will still need to purchase from a reliable source though, since even rag paper and card can contain undesirable additives.L) A reliable source for quality rag papers is a recognized art stockiest. Many water color artists insist on using only fine quality rag paper and board.M) The main lesson to learn from this information is that you cannot rely on purchasing archival materials from the high street. The only safe solution is to purchase from specialist suppliers. It may cost rather more, but in the end you will know that your important and valuable data and images have the best home possible.1. The corn-flake packet is cheaper than high grade card.2. There are a lot of materials which can be used for making paper, but the superiority ones are soft wood, cotton and rags.3. During the whole manufacturing process, the final product is made from a pulp of cellulose fibres.4. In order to make white paper and card, the makers will add bleach.5. Liguin is essential for the tree but it will make paper easy to break.6. Many paper producers will preserve lignin during manufacture, because leaving the lignin will make more paper from a tree.7. Acid is particularly harmful to photographic materials.8. If the lignin is removed from the paper, the paper will be more expensive.9. Although free of lignin, paper made from cotton and rag waste can also cost more money than wood pulp paper because there is much less cotton and rag than trees. 10. What we can learn from "Paper from Rag" is that you had better buy archival materials from specialist suppliers.文章精要：本文主要介绍了我们平常所见所用的纸的复杂性，通过介绍用木头和破布料造纸的过程，使我们对纸的类别、属性有了更深入的了解。
(一).The Touch-Screen GenerationA.On a chilly day last spring, a few dozen developers of children's apps (应用程序) for phones andtablets (平板电脑) gathered at an old beach resort in Monterey, California, to show off their games.The gathering was organized by Warren .Buckleitner, a longtime reviewer of interactive children'smedia. Buckleitner spent the breaks testing whether his own remote-control helicopter could reachthe hall's .second story, while various children who had come with their parents looked up in awe(敬畏) and delight. But mostly they looked down, at the iPads and other tablets displayed around thehall like so many open boxes of candy. I walked around and talked with developers, and severalquoted a famous saying of Maria Montessori's, "The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence."B. What, really, would Maria Montessori have made of this scene? The 30 or so children here were notdown at the shore poking (戳) their fingers in the sand or running them along stones or pickingseashells. Instead they were all inside, alone or in groups of two or three, their faces a few inchesfrom a screen, their hands doing things Montessori surely did not imagine.C. In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated .its policy on very young children and media- In1999, the group had discouraged television viewing for children younger than 2, citing research onbrain development that showed this age group's critical need for "direct interactions with parents andother significant care givers." The updated report began by acknowledging that things had changedsignificantly since then. In 2006, 90% of parents said that their children younger than 2 consumedsome form of electronic media. Nevertheless, the group took largely the same approach it did in1999, uniformly discouraging passive media use, on any type of screen, for these kids. (For olderchildren, the academy noted,"high-quality programs" could have"'educational benefits.") The 2011report nentioned"smart cell phone" and"new screen" technologies, but did not address interactive- apps. Nor did it bring up the possibility that has likely occurred to those 90% of American parentsthat some good might come from those little swiping (在电子产品上刷) fingers.D. I had come to the developers' conference partly because I hoped that this particular set of parents,enthusiastic as they were about interactive media, might help me out of this problem, that they mightoffer some guiding principle for American parents who are clearly never going to meet the academy'sideals, and at some level do not want to. Perhaps this group would be able to express clearly some benefits of the new technology that the more cautious doctors weren't ready to address.E. I fell into conversation with a woman who had helped develop Montessori Letter Sounds, an app thatteaches preschoolers the Montessori methods of spelling. She was a former Montessori teacher and amother of four. I myself have three children Who are all fans of the touch screen. What games didher kids like to play, I asked, hoping for suggestions I could take home."They don't play all that much."Really? Why not?"Because I don't allow it. We have a rule of no screen time during the week, unlessit's clearlyeducational."No screen time? None at all? That seems at the outer edge of restrictive, even by the standards ofovercontrolling parents."On the weekends, they can play. I give them a limit of half an hour and then stop. Enough."F. Her answer so surprised me that I decided to ask some of the other developers who were alsoparents what their domestic ground rules for screen time were. One said only on airplanes and longcar rides. Another said Wednesdays and weekends, for half an hour. The most permissive said halfan hour a day, which was about my rule at home. At one poing I sat with one of the biggestdevelopers of e-book apps for kids, and his family. The small kid was starting to fuss in her highchair, so the morn stuck an iPad in front of her and played a short movie so everyone else couldenjoy their lunch. When she saw me watching, she gave me the universal tense look of mothers whofeel they are being judged. "At home," she assured me, "I only let her watch movies in Spanish."G. By their reactions, these parents made me understand the problem of our age: as technology becomesalmost everywhere in our lives, American parents are becoming more, not less, distrustful of what itmight be doing to their children. Technological ability has not, for parents, translated into comfortand ease. On the one hand, parents want their children to swim expertly in the digital s~ream thatthey will have to navigate (航行) all their lives; on the other hand, they fear that too much digitalmedia, too early, will sink them. Parents end up treating tablets as precision surgical (外科的)instruments, devices that might perform miracles for their child's IQ and help him win some greatrobotics competitionbut only if they are used just so. Otherwise, their child could end up one of~ those sad, pale creatures who can't make eye contact and has a girlfriend who lives only in thevirtual world.H. Norman Rockwell, a 20th-century artist, never painted Boy Swiping Finger on Screen, and our ownvision of a perfect childhood has never been adjusted to accommodate that now-common scene. Addto that our modern fear that every parenting decision may have lasting consequences--that everyminute of enrichment lost or mindless entertainment indulged (放纵的) will add up to somepermanent handicap (障碍) in the futureand you have deep guilt and confusion. To date, no bodyof research has proved that the iPad will make your preschooler smarter or teach her to speakChinese, or alternatively that it will rust her nervous system--the device has been out for only threeyears, not much more than the time it takes some academics to find funding and gather researchsubjects. So what m a parent to do?注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答.46. The author attended the conference, hoping to find some guiding principles for parenting in theelectronic age.47. American parents are becoming more doubtful about the benefits technology is said to bring to theirchildren.48. Some experts believe that human intelligence develops by the use of hands.49. The author found a former Montessori teacher exercising strict control over her kids' screen time.50. Research shows interaction with people is key to babies' brain development.51. So far there has been no scientific proof of the educational benefits of iPads.52. American parents worry that overuse of tablets will create problems with their kids' interpersonalrelationships.53. The author expected developers of children's apps tospecify the benefits of the new technology.54. The kids at the gathering were more fascinated by the iPads than by the helicopter.55. The author permits her children to use the screen for at most half an hour a day.Section C触屏一代A)在去年一个寒冷的春日，几十家研发手机及平板电脑儿童应用程序的开发商聚集在加州蒙特利的一个旧海滨度假村，展示他们的游戏应用。
英语四级段落信息匹配练习题（12）英语四级段落信息匹配练习题C)If it’s TV that keeps you from cultivating this delicious habit，I can offer a sure remedy.Take home from the library a stack of books that might look interestin9.Pile them on the TV set.Next time you are tempted to turn on a program you really don’t want to see，reach for a book instead.D)Over the years，people collect a mental list of books they mean to read.If you don’t have such a list，here is the suggestion.Take from the library some of the books you might have enjoyed dramatized on TV, like Remargue’s All Quiet on the Western Front，Clavell’s Shegun，T olkien’s The Hobbit，or Victor Hugo’s Les Mise Rables.If you like what you read、you can follow up with other satisfying books by the same authors.E)Some people in their reading limit themselves to current talked—about best sellers.Oh，what they miss! The library is full of yesterday’s best sellers;and they still make compelling reading today. Some that I've enjoyed：A.B.Guthrie’s The Big Sky，Carl Van Doren’s Benjamin Franklin，Mari Sandoz’s.Old Jules，and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.F) How do you find these or any other books you’re looking for? It’s easy—with the card catalog. Every time I go to the library——and I go more than once a week——I invariably make a beeline to the card catalog before anything else.It’s the nucleus of any public library.The card catalog lists every book in the library by：1.author;2.title;3.subject.Let’s pick an interesting subject to look up.I have always been fascinated by astronomy.You’ll be surprised at the wealth of material you will find under “a strong my” to draw upon.And the absorbingbooks you didn’t know existed on it.CAUTION：Always have a pencil and paper when you use the card catal09.G) Once you jot down the numbers of the books you are interested in，you are ready to find them on the shelves.Libraries call the shelves “the stacks”.In many smaller libraries，which you’ll be using，the stacks will be open for you to browse.To me there is a special thrill in tracking down the books I want in the stacks !For invariably,I find books about which I knew nothin9，and these often turn out to be the very ones l need.You will find the same thing happening to you when you start to browse in the stacks.“A learned mind is the end product of browsing.”CAUTION：If you take a book from the stack s to your work desk，do not try to return it to its proper place.That’s work for the experts.If you replace it incorrectly, the next seeker w on’t be able to find it.H)Some of the brightest and rmed men and women in America are the librarians who specialize in providing reference help.Introduce yourself State your problem.And be amazed at how much he p you will receive.CAUTION：Don’t waste the time of this expert by asking silly questions you ought to solve yourself.Save the reference librarian for the really big ones.I) You shot：ld also learn to use the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature.This green—bound index is me of the most useful items in any library.It indexes all the articles in the major magazines，including newspaper magazine supplements.Thus it provides a guide to the very latest expert information of any subject that interests you.So if you want to do a really first—class job，find out which magazines your library subscribes to，thenconsult the Reader's Guide and track down recent articles on your subject.When you use this wonderful tool effectively, you show the mark of a real scholar.J) Since you can take most books home，but not magazines，take full notes when using the latter. Many libraries today provide a reprographic machine that can quickly copy pages you need from magazines and books.Ask about it：If you are working on a project of some size which will require repeated library visits，keep a small notebook in which you record the identification numbers of the books you will be using frequently.This will save you valuable time，because you won’t have to consult the card catalog or search aimlessly through the stacks each time you visit for material you seek.Sol fie of the very best books in any library are the reference books，which may not be taken home.Learn what topics they cover and how best to use them，for these books are wonderful repositories (储藏室、资料库)of human knowledge.K) Your library can give you help on any subject.It can even be your business and legal advisor.How many times have you scratched your head over how to get a tax rebate(折扣)on your summer job? You，11 find guides to that.Want to defend yourself in traffic coup? Find out how in legal books at the library.L) Library Projects Can Be Fun and Rewardin9.Here are a few ideas：1.What are your roots? Trace your ancestors.Many libraries specialize in genealogy.。
大学英语四、六级考试信息匹配题阅读训练Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraph. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.Passage 1Surviving the RecessionA)America’s recession began quietly at the end of 2007. Since then ithas evolved into a global crisis. Reasonable people may disagree about whom to blame. Financiers who were not as clever as they thought they were? Regulators falling asleep at work? Consumers who borrowed too much? Politicians who thoughtlessly promoted home-ownership for those who could not afford it? All are guilt; and what a mess they have created.B)Since 2007 America has shed 5 million jobs. More than 15% of theworkforce are jobless or underemployed—roughly 25 million workers.The only industries swelling their payrolls are health care, utilities and the federal government. The value of listed shares in American firms collapsed by 57% from its peak in October 2007 to a low in March this year, though it has since bounded back somewhat. Industrial production fell by 12.8% in the year to March, the worst slide since the Second World War. Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody’s , predicts that the recession will shrink America’s economy by 3.5% in total. “For most executives, this is the worst business environment they’ve ever seen.”C)Times are so tough that even bosses are taking pay cuts. Median （中位数的）pay for chief executives of S&P 500 companies fell 6.8% in 2008.The overthrown business giants of Wall Street took the biggest knock, with average pay cuts of 38% and median bonuses of zero. But there was some pain for everyone: median pay for chief executives of non-financial firms in the S&P 500 fell by 2.7%.D)Nearly every business has a sad tale to tell. For example, Arne Sorenson,the president of Marriott hotel, likens the crisis to the downturn that hit his business after September 11th, 2001. When the twin towers fell, Americans stopped travelling. Marriott had its worst quarter ever, with revenues per room falling by 25%. This year, without a terrorist attack, the hotel industry is “putting the same numbers on the board”, says Mr. Sorenson.E)Other industries have suffered even more. Large numbers of builders,property firms and retailershave gone bankrupt. And a disaster has hit Detroit. Last year the American car industry had the capacity to make 17 million vehicles.Sales in 2009 could be barely half of that. The Big Three American carmakers—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—accumulated ruinous costs over the post-war years, such as gold-plated health plans and pensions for workers who retired as young as 48. All three are desperately restructuring. Only Ford may survive in its current form.F)Hard times breed hard feeling. Few Americans understand what causedthe recession. Some are seeking scapegoats （替罪羊）. Politicians are happy to take advantage. Bosses have been summoned to Washington to be scolded on live television. The president condemns their greed. G)Business folks are bending over backwards to avoid seeming extravagant.Meetings at resorts are suddenly unacceptable. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, cancelled a conference in Las Vegas at the last minute and rebooked it in San Francisco, which cost more but sounded less fun. H)Anyway, the pain will eventually end. American business will regainits shine. Many firms will die, but the survivors will emerge leaner and stronger than before. The financial sector’s share of the economy will shrink, and stay shrunk for years to come. The importance of non-financial firms will accordingly rise, along with their ability to attract the best talent. America will remain the best place on earth to do business, so long as Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress resist the temptation to interfere too much, and so long as organized labors does not overplay its hand.I)Mr. Obama’s plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions （排放）, thoughnecessary, will be far from cost-free, whatever his sunny speeches on the subject might suggest. The shift to a low-carbon economy will help some firms, hurt others and require every organization that uses much energy to rethink how it operates. It is harder to predict how Mr.Obama’s proposed reforms to the failing health-care system will turn out. If he succeeds in curbing costs—a big if—it would be a huge gain for America. Some business will benefit but the vast bulk of the savings will be captured by workers, not their employers.J)In the next couple of years the businesses that thrive will be those that are tight with costs, careful of debt, cautious with cash flow and extremely attentive to what customers want. They will include plenty of names no one has yet heard of.K)Times change, and corporations change with them. In 1955 Time’s Man of the Year was Harlow Curtice, the boss of GM. His firm was leading America towards “a new economic order”, the magazine wrote. Thanks to men like Curtice, “the bonds of scarcity” had been broken and America was rolling “to an all-time high of prosperity”. Soon, Americans would need to spend“comparatively little time earning a living”.L)Half a century later GM is a typical example for poor management. In March its chief executive was fired by Time’s current Man of the Year, Mr. Obama. The government now backs up the domestic car industry, lending it money and overseeing its turnaround plans. With luck, this will be short-lived. But there is a danger that Washington will end up micromanaging not only Detroit but also other parts of the economy.And clever as Mr. Obama’s advisers are, history suggests they will be bad at this.1.The America’s recession affected the hotel industry as badly as the9/11 terrorist attack.2.Businessmen are trying to avoid seeming wasteful in response to therecession.3.In the near future, a thriving business will go with cautiousmanagement tactics.4.Much doubt remains whether the Obama administration will do well inmicromanaging the America’s economy.5. A combination of causes is responsible for the current Americanrecession, which began in 2007.6.The government is not supposed to interfere too much in Americanbusinesses.7.The big Three American carmakers need restructuring to survive due totheir accumulation of the ruinous costs over the post-war years.8.In March, GM”s chief executive was fired by Obama for poor management.9.According to the author, Obama’s plan to limit carbon dioxideemissions will by no means be inexpensive.10.At the worst time, the total value of listed shares in American firmsshrank by fifty-seven percent.(D G J L A H E L I B)Passage twoSmall schools RisingA)This year’s list of the top 100 high schools shows that today, thosewith fewer students are flourishing.B)Fifty years ago, they were the latest thing in educational reform: big,modern, 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 promised economic efficiency. A greater choice of courses, and, of course, 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 droppingin 1963; today, on average, 30% of students do not complete high school in four years, a figure that rises to 50% in poor urban neighborhoods.While the emphasis on teaching to higher, test-driven standards as set in No Child Left Behind resulted in significantly better performance in elementary (and some middle) schools, high schools for a variety of reason seemed to have made little progress.C)Size isn’t everything, but it does matter, and the past decade hasseen 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 1000 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 county 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-schools 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 seminars for students. And it includes alternative schools with students selected 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 housed in the same grounds that once boasted thousands of students all marching to the same band.D)Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., is one of those, rankingNo. 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 based on college-level test participation was published, only three of the top 100 schools had graduating classes 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.E)Although many of Hillsdale’s students came from wealthy households,by the late 1990 average test scores were sliding and it had earned the unaffectionate nickname “Hillsjail”. Jeff Gibert, 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 graduated?”F)So in 2003 Hillsdale remade itself into three “houses”, romanticallynamed Florence, Marrakech and Kyoto. Each of the 300 arriving ninth graders are randomly assigned to one of the houses, where they will keep the same four core subject teachers for two years, before moving on to another for 11th and 12th grades. The closeness this system cultivates is reinforced by the institution of “advisory”classes. 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 advisers 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 advisers,” says English teacher Chris Crockett. “If you hear that yours isn’t doing well in math, or see 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 senior year, two-thirds have moved up to physics,” says Gilbert. “Our kids are coming to school in part because 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 seen whether smaller schools will bea cure-all solution.G)The Newsweek list of top U.S. high schools was made this year, as inyears past, according to a single metric, the proportion of students taking college-level exams. Over the years the system has come in for its share of criticism for its simplicity. But that is also its strength: it’s easy for readers to understand, and to do the arithmetic for their own schools if they’d like.H)Ranking schools is always controversial, and this year a group of 38superintendents（地区教育主管）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 offera high quality of education requires a look at many different measures,including students’overall academic accomplishments and their subsequent performance in college. And taking into consideration the unique needs of their communities.”I)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 seeking the same thing, which is schools that better serve our children and our nation by encouraging students to make tough subjects under the guidance of gifted teachers. And if we keep working toward that goal, someday, perhaps a list won’t be necessary.1.In practical use, simplicity is still considered a strength ofNewsweek’s school ranking system in spite of the criticism it receives.2.As a result setting up big schools, students’ performance declined.3.Newsweek ranked high schools according to their college-level testparticipation.4.Half a century ago, big, modern, suburban high schools were establishedto ensure efficient education for baby boomers.5.It is agreed that qualified teachers, better services andencouragement are keys to reaching the ultimate goal of school education.6.The most noticeable trend in high school education is the splittingof large schools into smaller ones.7.It is still unknown whether smaller schools will be a solution to alleducational problems.8.High schools funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are smallin size.9.Different measures should be used in assessing the quality of schooleducation.10.The “advisory” classes at Hillsdale were set up so that studentscould maintain closer relationship with their teachers.(G B D B I C F C H F)Passage 3.HighwaysA)Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U.S.were made of dirt, brick, and cedar wood blocks. Built for horse, carriage, and foot traffic, they were usually poorly cared for and too narrow to accommodate（容纳）automobiles.B)With the increase in auto production, private turnpike（收费公路）companies under local authorities began to spring up, and by 1921 there were 387000 miles of paved roads. Many were built using specifications of 19th century Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (for whom the macadam surface is named), whose specifications stressed the importance of adequate drainage. Beyond that, there were no national standards for size, weight restrictions, or commercial signs. During World War I. roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weight of trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in the U.S. army’s first transcontinental motor convoy （车队）, he noted: “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany’s Autobahn or motorway had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land.”C)It would take another war before the federal government would act ona national highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increasein trucks and new roads were required. The war demonstrated how critical highways were to the defense effort. Thirteen percent of defense plants received all their supplies by truck, and almost allother plants shipped more than half oftheir products by vehicle. The war also revealed that local control of highways had led to a confusing variety of design standards. Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards. Some states allowed trucks up to 36000 pounds, while others restricted anything over 7000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of 33920 miles, and congress soon passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.D)The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and has beenhailed as one of the greatest public works projects of the century.To build its 44000-mile web of highways, bridges, and tunnels, hundreds of unique engineering designs and solutions had to be worked out.Consider the many geographic features of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts and plains. Variables included the slope of the land, the ability of the pavement to support the load, the intensity of road use, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, and interchanges that could run through or bypass urban areas soon began to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face of America.E)Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as HaleBoggs in Louisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkable tunnels like Fort McHeny in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, met many of the nation’s physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed under the interstate program soon influenced highway construction around the world, and were invaluable in improving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.F)Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U.S. withCanada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have wide lanes and shoulders, dividing medians, or barriers, long entry and exit lanes, curves engineered for safe turns, and limited access. The death rate on highways is half of all other U.S. roads (.86 deaths per 100 million passenger miles compared to 1.99 per 100 million on all other roads).G)By opening the North American continent, highways have enabledconsumer goods and services to reach people in remote and rural areas of the country, spurred the growth of suburbs, and provided people with greater options in term of jobs, access to cultural programs, health care, and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system provides individuals with what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.H)The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation’seconomic growth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75 percent the nation’s freight deliveries arrive by truck; and most productsthat arrive by rail or air use interstates for the last leg of the journey by vehicle. Not only has the highway system affected the America economy by providing shipping routes, it has led to the growth of spin-off industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. It has allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and other industries from urban areas to rural.I)By the end of the century there was an immense network of paved roads,residential streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions of vehicles. The highway system was officially renamed for Eisenhower to honor his vision and leadership. The year construction began he said: “Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear —United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”1.Many of the problems presented by the country’s geographical featuresfound solutions in innovative engineering projects.2. A century ago, there were almost no national standards for paved roadsin the U.S.3.The interstate system was renamed after Eisenhower in recognition ofhis vision and leadership.4.General Eisenhower felt that the broad motorways made more sense thanthe two-lane highways of America.5.It was in the 1950s that the American government finally took actionto build a national highway system.6.Under safety considerations, the death rate on interstate highways ismuch lower than that of other American roads.7.Trucks using the interstate highways deliver more than seventy-fivepercent of the freight in U.S.8.Thanks to the highways, American people can go anywhere they likearound the country.9.To a certain extent, the development of interstate highway system inAmerica has promoted the nation’s economic growth.10.In terms of highway construction, the whole world was influenced bythe U.S.(D B I B D F H G H E)Passage 4The MagicianThe revolution that Steve Jobs led is only just beginningA)When it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computer industry,or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage andproduce as if by magic an“incredible”new electronic gadget （小器具）in front of an amazed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and work with numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. Mr. Jobs, who died recently aged 56, spent his life packaging the magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.B)The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowersoutside Apple stores and politicians singing praises on the internet, is proof that Mr. Jobs had become something much more significant than just a clever money-maker. He stood out in three ways—as a technologist, as a corporate leader and as somebody who was able to make people love what had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets. Strangely, it is this last quality that may have the deepest effect on the way people live. The era of personal technology is in many ways just beginning.C)As a technologist, Mr. Jobs was different because he was not an engineer—and that was his great strength. Instead he was keenly interested in product design and aesthetics（美学）, and in making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea—the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer（平板电脑）—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms competed with each other to follow where he led. In the process he brought about great changes in computing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful for existing firms but welcomed by millions of consumers. D)Within the wider business world, a man who liked to see himself as ahippy, permanently in revolt against big companies, ended up being hailed by many of those corporate giants as one of the greatest chief executives of his time. That was partly due to his talents: showmanship, strategic vision, an astonishing attention to detail and a dictatorial management style which many bosses must have envied. But most of all it was the extraordinary trajectory（轨迹）of his life. His fall from grace in the 1980s, followed by his return to Apple in 1996 after a period in the wilderness, is an inspiration to any businessperson whose career has taken a turn for the worse. The way in which Mr. Jobs revived the failing company he had co-founded and turned it into the world’s biggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gate’s Microsoft, the company that had outsmarted Apple so dramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywood movie.E)But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr. Jobs was the absoluteloyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Many Apple users feel themselves to be part of a community, with Mr. Jobs as its leader. And there was indeed a personal link. Apple’s products were designed to accord with the boss’s taste and to meet his extremely high standards. Every iPhone or MacBook has his fingerprints all over it. His great achievement was to combine an emotional spark with computer technology, and make the resulting product feel personal. And that is what put Mr. Jobs on the right side of history, as technological innovation has moved into consumer electronics over the past decade.F)As our special report in this issue (printed before Mr. Job s’s death)explains, innovation used to spill over from military and corporate laboratories to the consumer market, but lately this process has gone into reverse. Many people’s homes now have more powerful, and more flexible, devices than their offices do; consumer gadgets and online services are smarter and easier to use than most companies’systems.Familiar consumer products are being adopted by businesses, government and the armed forces. Companies are employing in-house versions of Facebook and creating their own “app stores”to deliver software to employees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals.Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continues to swell. Apple’s products are now being snapped up in Delhi and Dalian just as in Dublin and Dallas.G)Mr. Jobs had a reputation as a control freak（怪人）, and his criticscomplained that the products and systems he designed were closed and inflexible, in the name of greater ease of use. Yet he also empowered millions of people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology.His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deep-rooted in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: “What would Steve Jobs do?”H)The gap between Apple and other tech firms is only likely to narrow.This week’s announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr. Jobs to shower his star dust on the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technology firm. At the recent unveiling ofa tablet computer by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, whose company is doing thebest job of following Apple’s lead in combining hardware, software, content and services in an easy-to-use bundle, there were several attacks at Apple. But by doing his best to imitate Mr. Jobs, Mr. Bezos also flattered him. With Mr. Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technology firms trying to arouse his uncontrollable spirit in new products.I)Mr. Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emita “reality distortion（扭曲）field”, such were his powers ofpersuasion. But in the end he created a reality of his own, channeling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries.The man who said in his youth that he wanted to“put a ding in the universe” did just that.1.Steve Jobs was obsessed with elegant and user-friendly gadgets, whichwas his great strength.2.In spite of the user-friendliness of Apple products, criticscomplained that they were closed and inflexible.3.Steve Jobs fulfilled his promise and had succeeded in redefining theproducts in computer industries.4.Steve Jobs started the era of personal technology, which has a profoundimpact on people’s way of life.5.Steve Jobs was thought highly of by leaders of many large companiesfor his achievements and personal charm.6.Integrating the easy-to-use elements to the utmost, Amazon has becomethe best Apple follower many technology firms.7.Apple’s products are very popular in many industries and places,bringing much comfort and convenience to people’s life and work. 8.No one can be compared with Steve Jobs in showmanship in the computerindustry or any other related industries.9.Having so many faithful users was the most amazing part of Steve Job s’success.10.For those who have suffered failures in business, Steve Jobs’ lifeexperience serves as an inspiration.(C G I B D H F A E D)Passage 5Should Sugar Be Regulated like Alcohol and Tobacco?A)Sugar poses enough health risks that it should be considered acontrolled substance just like alcohol and tobacco, argue a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).In an opinion piece called “The Toxic Truth About Sugar” published Feb. 1 in Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis argue that it’s wrong to consider sugar just “empty calories.”They write: “There is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose（果糖）can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills—slowly.”B)Almost everyone’s heard of—or personally experienced—thewell-known sugar high, so perhaps the comparison between sugar and alcohol or tobacco shouldn’t come as a surprise. But it’s doubtful that Americans will look favorably upon regulating their favorite vice.We’re a nation that’s sweet on sugar: the average U.S. adult downs22 teaspoons of sugar a day, according to the American HeartAssociation, and surveys have found that teens swallow 34 teaspoons.。
大学英语四、六级考试信息匹配题阅读训练Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraph. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.Passage 1Surviving the RecessionA)America’s recession began quietly at the end of 2007. Since then ithas evolved into a global crisis. Reasonable people may disagree about whom to blame. Financiers who were not as clever as they thought they were? Regulators falling asleep at work? Consumers who borrowed too much? Politicians who thoughtlessly promoted home-ownership for those who could not afford it? All are guilt; and what a mess they have created.B)Since 2007 America has shed 5 million jobs. More than 15% of theworkforce are jobless or underemployed—roughly 25 million workers.The only industries swelling their payrolls are health care, utilities andthe federal government. The value of listed shares in American firms collapsed by 57% from its peak in October 2007 to a low in March this year, though it has since bounded back somewhat. Industrial production fell by 12.8% in the year to March, the worst slide since the Second World War. Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody’s Economy., predicts that the recession will shrink America’s economy by 3.5% in total. “For most executives, this is the worst business environment they’ve ever seen.”C)Times are so tough that even bosses are taking pay cuts. Median （中位数的）pay for chief executives of S&P 500 companies fell 6.8% in 2008. The overthrown business giants of Wall Street took the biggest knock, with average pay cuts of 38% and median bonuses of zero. But there was some pain for everyone: median pay for chief executives of non-financial firms in the S&P 500 fell by 2.7%.D)Nearly every business has a sad tale to tell. For example, ArneSorenson, the president of Marriott hotel, likens the crisis to the downturn that hit his business after September 11th, 2001. When the twin towers fell, Americans stopped travelling. Marriott had its worst quarter ever, with revenues per room falling by 25%. This year, without a terrorist attack, the hotel industry is “putting the same numbers on the board”, says Mr. Sorenson.E)Other industries have suffered even more. Large numbers of builders,property firms and retailers have gone bankrupt. And a disaster has hit Detroit. Last year the American car industry had the capacity to make 17 million vehicles. Sales in 2009 could be barely half of that.The Big Three American carmakers—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—accumulated ruinous costs over the post-war years, such as gold-plated health plans and pensions for workers who retired as young as 48. All three are desperately restructuring. Only Ford may survive in its current form.F)Hard times breed hard feeling. Few Americans understand whatcaused the recession. Some are seeking scapegoats （替罪羊）.Politicians are happy to take advantage. Bosses have been summoned to Washington to be scolded on live television. The president condemns their greed.G)Business folks are bending over backwards to avoid seemingextravagant. Meetings at resorts are suddenly unacceptable.Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, cancelled a conference in Las Vegas at the last minute and rebooked it in San Francisco, which cost more but sounded less fun.H)Anyway, the pain will eventually end. American business will regain itsshine. Many firms will die, but the survivors will emerge leaner and stronger than before. The financial sector’s share of the economy will shrink, and stay shrunk for years to come. The importance ofnon-financial firms will accordingly rise, along with their ability to attract the best talent. America will remain the best place on earth to do business, so long as Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress resist the temptation to interfere too much, and so long as organized labors does not overplay its hand.I)Mr. Obama’s plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions （排放）, thoughnecessary, will be far from cost-free, whatever his sunny speeches on the subject might suggest. The shift to a low-carbon economy will help some firms, hurt others and require every organization that uses much energy to rethink how it operates. It is harder to predict how Mr.Obama’s proposed reforms to the failing health-care system will turn out. If he succeeds in curbing costs—a big if—it would be a huge gain for America. Some business will benefit but the vast bulk of the savings will be captured by workers, not their employers.J)In the next couple of years the businesses that thrive will be those that are tight with costs, careful of debt, cautious with cash flow and extremely attentive to what customers want. They will include plenty of names no one has yet heard of.K)Times change, and corporations change with them. In 1955 Time’s Man of the Year was Harlow Curtice, the boss of GM. His firm was leading America towards “a new economic order”, the magazine wrote. Thanks to men like Curtice, “the bonds of scarcity”had beenbroken and America was rolling “to an all-time high of prosperity”.Soon, Americans would need to spend “comparatively little time earning a living”.L)Half a century later GM is a typical example for poor management. In March its chief executive was fired by Time’s current Man of the Year, Mr. Obama. The government now backs up the domestic car industry, lending it money and overseeing its turnaround plans. With luck, this will be short-lived. But there is a danger that Washington will end up micromanaging not only Detroit but also other parts of the economy.And clever as Mr. Obama’s advisers are, history suggests they will be bad at this.1.The America’s recession affected the hotel industry as badly as the9/11 terrorist attack.2.Businessmen are trying to avoid seeming wasteful in response to therecession.3.In the near future, a thriving business will go with cautiousmanagement tactics.4.Much doubt remains whether the Obama administration will do wellin micromanaging the America’s economy.5. A combination of causes is responsible for the current Americanrecession, which began in 2007.6.The government is not supposed to interfere too much in Americanbusinesses.7.The big Three American carmakers need restructuring to survive dueto their accumulation of the ruinous costs over the post-war years. 8.In March, GM”s chief executive was fired by Obama for poormanagement.9.According to the author, Obama’s plan to limit carbon dioxideemissions will by no means be inexpensive.10.A t the worst time, the total value of listed shares in American firmsshrank by fifty-seven percent.(D G J L A H E L I B)Passage twoSmall schools RisingA)This year’s list of the top 100 high schools shows that today, thosewith fewer students are flourishing.B)Fifty years ago, they were the latest thing in educational reform: big,modern, 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 promised economic efficiency. A greater choice of courses, and, of course, better football teams. Only yearslater 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 not complete high school in four years, a figure that rises to 50% in poor urban neighborhoods. While the emphasis on teaching to higher, test-driven standards as set in No Child Left Behind resulted in significantly better performance in elementary (and some middle) schools, high schools for a variety of reason seemed to have made little progress.C)Size isn’t everything, but it does matter, and the past decade has seena 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 1000 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 county 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-schools and 18 graduates this year. It embraces district-sanctioned magnet schools, such as the Talented and Gifted School, with 198 students, and the Science andEngineering 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 seminars for students. And it includes alternative schools with students selected 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 housed in the same grounds that once boasted thousands of students all marching to the same band.D)Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., is one of those, 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 based on college-level test participation was published, only three of the top 100 schools had graduating classes 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.E)Although many of Hillsdale’s students came from wealthyhouseholds, by the late 1990 average test scores were sliding and it had earned the unaffectionate nickname “Hillsjail”. Jeff Gibert, a Hillsdale teacher who became principal last year, remembers sittingwith other teachers watching students file out of a graduation ceremony and asking one another in astonishment, “How did that student graduated?”F)So in 2003 Hillsdale remade itself into three “houses”, romanticallynamed Florence, Marrakech and Kyoto. Each of the 300 arriving ninth graders are randomly assigned to one of the houses, where they will keep the same four core subject teachers for two years, before moving on to another for 11th and 12th grades. The closeness this system cultivates is reinforced by the institution of “advisory”classes.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 advisers 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 advisers,”says English teacher Chris Crockett. “If you hear that yours isn’t doing well in math, or see 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 senior year, two-thirds have moved up to physics,”says Gilbert. “Our kids are coming to school in part because they know there are adults here who know them and care for them.”But not allschools show advances after downsizing, and it remains to be seen whether smaller schools will be a cure-all solution.G)The Newsweek list of top U.S. high schools was made this year, as inyears past, according to a single metric, the proportion of students taking college-level exams. Over the years the system has come in for its share of criticism for its simplicity. But that is also its strength: it’s easy for readers to understand, and to do the arithmetic for their own schools if they’d like.H)Ranking schools is always controversial, and this year a group of 38superintendents（地区教育主管）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 subsequent performance in college. And taking into consideration the unique needs of their communities.”I)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 seeking the same thing, which is schools that better serve our children and our nation by encouraging students to make tough subjects under the guidance of gifted teachers. And if wekeep working toward that goal, someday, perhaps a list won’t be necessary.1.In practical use, simplicity is still considered a strength of Newsweek’s school ranking system in spite of the criticism it receives.2.As a result setting up big schools, students’performance declined.3.Newsweek ranked high schools according to their college-level testparticipation.4.Half a century ago, big, modern, suburban high schools wereestablished to ensure efficient education for baby boomers.5.It is agreed that qualified teachers, better services andencouragement are keys to reaching the ultimate goal of school education.6.The most noticeable trend in high school education is the splitting oflarge schools into smaller ones.7.It is still unknown whether smaller schools will be a solution to alleducational problems.8.High schools funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aresmall in size.9.Different measures should be used in assessing the quality of schooleducation.10.T he “advisory”classes at Hillsdale were set up so that students couldmaintain closer relationship with their teachers.(G B D B I C F C H F)Passage 3.HighwaysA)Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U.S. weremade of dirt, brick, and cedar wood blocks. Built for horse, carriage, and foot traffic, they were usually poorly cared for and too narrow to accommodate（容纳）automobiles.B)With the increase in auto production, private turnpike（收费公路）companies under local authorities began to spring up, and by 1921 there were 387000 miles of paved roads. Many were built using specifications of 19th century Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (for whom the macadam surface is named), whose specifications stressed the importance of adequate drainage. Beyond that, there were no national standards for size, weight restrictions, or commercial signs. During World War I. roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weight of trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in the U.S.army’s first transcontinental motor convoy（车队）, he noted: “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany’s Autobahn or motorway had made me see the wisdomof broader ribbons across the land.”C)It would take another war before the federal government would acton a national highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increase in trucks and new roads were required. The war demonstrated how critical highways were to the defense effort.Thirteen percent of defense plants received all their supplies by truck, and almost all other plants shipped more than half of their products by vehicle. The war also revealed that local control of highways had led to a confusing variety of design standards. Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards. Some states allowed trucks up to 36000 pounds, while others restricted anything over 7000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of 33920 miles, and congress soon passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.D)The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and hasbeen hailed as one of the greatest public works projects of the century. To build its 44000-mile web of highways, bridges, and tunnels, hundreds of unique engineering designs and solutions had to be worked out. Consider the many geographic features of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts and plains.Variables included the slope of the land, the ability of the pavement tosupport the load, the intensity of road use, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, and interchanges that could run through or bypass urban areas soon began to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face of America. E)Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as HaleBoggs in Louisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkable tunnels like Fort McHeny in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, met many of the nation’s physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed under the interstate program soon influenced highway construction around the world, and were invaluable in improving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.F)Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U.S. withCanada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have wide lanes and shoulders, dividing medians, or barriers, long entry and exit lanes, curves engineered for safe turns, and limited access. The death rate on highways is half of all other U.S. roads (.86 deaths per 100 million passenger miles compared to 1.99 per 100 million on all other roads).G)By opening the North American continent, highways have enabledconsumer goods and services to reach people in remote and ruralareas of the country, spurred the growth of suburbs, and provided people with greater options in term of jobs, access to cultural programs, health care, and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system provides individuals with what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.H)The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation’seconomic growth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75 percent the nation’s freight deliveries arrive by truck; and most products that arrive by rail or air use interstates for the last leg of the journey by vehicle. Not only has the highway system affected the America economy by providing shipping routes, it has led to the growth of spin-off industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. It has allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and other industries from urban areas to rural.I)By the end of the century there was an immense network of pavedroads, residential streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions of vehicles. The highway system was officially renamed for Eisenhower to honor his vision and leadership. The year construction began he said: “Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear—United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”1.Many of the problems presented by the country’s geographicalfeatures found solutions in innovative engineering projects.2. A century ago, there were almost no national standards for pavedroads in the U.S.3.The interstate system was renamed after Eisenhower in recognition ofhis vision and leadership.4.General Eisenhower felt that the broad motorways made more sensethan the two-lane highways of America.5.It was in the 1950s that the American government finally took actionto build a national highway system.6.Under safety considerations, the death rate on interstate highways ismuch lower than that of other American roads.7.Trucks using the interstate highways deliver more than seventy-fivepercent of the freight in U.S.8.Thanks to the highways, American people can go anywhere they likearound the country.9.To a certain extent, the development of interstate highway system inAmerica has promoted the nation’s economic growth.10.I n terms of highway construction, the whole world was influenced bythe U.S.(D B I B D F H G H E)Passage 4The MagicianThe revolution that Steve Jobs led is only just beginningA)When it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computerindustry, or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs.His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and produce as if by magic an “incredible”new electronic gadget （小器具）in front of an amazed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and work with numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. Mr. Jobs, who died recently aged 56, spent his life packaging the magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.B)The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowersoutside Apple stores and politicians singing praises on the internet, is proof that Mr. Jobs had become something much more significant than just a clever money-maker. He stood out in three ways—as a technologist, as a corporate leader and as somebody who was able to make people love what had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets. Strangely, it is this last quality that may have the deepest effect on the way people live. The era of personal technology is inmany ways just beginning.C)As a technologist, Mr. Jobs was different because he was not anengineer—and that was his great strength. Instead he was keenly interested in product design and aesthetics（美学）, and in making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea—the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer（平板电脑）—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms competed with each other to follow where he led. In the process he brought about great changes in computing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful for existing firms but welcomed by millions of consumers.D)Within the wider business world, a man who liked to see himself as ahippy, permanently in revolt against big companies, ended up being hailed by many of those corporate giants as one of the greatest chief executives of his time. That was partly due to his talents: showmanship, strategic vision, an astonishing attention to detail anda dictatorial management style which many bosses must have envied.But most of all it was the extraordinary trajectory（轨迹）of his life. His fall from grace in the 1980s, followed by his return to Apple in 1996 after a period in the wilderness, is an inspiration to any businessperson whose career has taken a turn for the worse. The wayin which Mr. Jobs revived the failing company he had co-founded and turned it into the world’s biggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gate’s Microsoft, the company that had outsmarted Apple so dramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywood movie.E)But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr. Jobs was theabsolute loyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Many Apple users feel themselves to be part of a community, with Mr. Jobs as its leader. And there was indeed a personal link. Apple’s products were designed to accord with the boss’s taste and to meet his extremely high standards. Every iPhone or MacBook has his fingerprints all over it. His great achievement was to combine an emotional spark with computer technology, and make the resulting product feel personal.And that is what put Mr. Jobs on the right side of history, as technological innovation has moved into consumer electronics over the past decade.F)As our special report in this issue (printed before Mr. Jobs’s death)explains, innovation used to spill over from military and corporate laboratories to the consumer market, but lately this process has gone into reverse. Many people’s homes now have more powerful, and more flexible, devices than their offices do; consumer gadgets and online services are smarter and easier to use than most companies’systems. Familiar consumer products are being adopted by businesses, government and the armed forces. Companies are employing in-house versions of Facebook and creating their own “app stores”to deliver software to employees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals. Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continues to swell. Apple’s products are now being snapped up in Delhi and Dalian just as in Dublin and Dallas.G)Mr. Jobs had a reputation as a control freak（怪人）, and his criticscomplained that the products and systems he designed were closed and inflexible, in the name of greater ease of use. Yet he also empowered millions of people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology. His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deep-rooted in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: “What would Steve Jobs do?”H)The gap between Apple and other tech firms is only likely to narrow.This week’s announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr.Jobs to shower his star dust on the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technology firm. At the recentunveiling of a tablet computer by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, whose company is doing the best job of following Apple’s lead in combining hardware, software, content and services in an easy-to-use bundle, there were several attacks at Apple. But by doing his best to imitate Mr. Jobs, Mr. Bezos also flattered him. With Mr. Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technology firms trying to arouse his uncontrollable spirit in new products.I)Mr. Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a“reality distortion（扭曲）field”, such were his powers of persuasion.But in the end he created a reality of his own, channeling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe”did just that.1.Steve Jobs was obsessed with elegant and user-friendly gadgets,which was his great strength.2.In spite of the user-friendliness of Apple products, critics complainedthat they were closed and inflexible.3.Steve Jobs fulfilled his promise and had succeeded in redefining theproducts in computer industries.4.Steve Jobs started the era of personal technology, which has aprofound impact on people’s way of life.5.Steve Jobs was thought highly of by leaders of many large companiesfor his achievements and personal charm.6.Integrating the easy-to-use elements to the utmost, Amazon hasbecome the best Apple follower many technology firms.7.Apple’s products are very popular in many industries and places,bringing much comfort and convenience to people’s life and work.8.No one can be compared with Steve Jobs in showmanship in thecomputer industry or any other related industries.9.Having so many faithful users was the most amazing part of SteveJobs’success.10.F or those who have suffered failures in business, Steve Jobs’lifeexperience serves as an inspiration.(C G I B D H F A E D)Passage 5Should Sugar Be Regulated like Alcohol and Tobacco?A)Sugar poses enough health risks that it should be considered acontrolled substance just like alcohol and tobacco, argue a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In an opinion piece called “The Toxic Truth About Sugar”published Feb.1 in Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis argue that。
英语四级段落信息匹配练习题（13）英语四级段落信息匹配练习题2.Did George Washington sleep nearby? Or Billy the Kid? Your library’s collection of local history books can put you on the trail.3.Cook a Polynesian feast.Or an ancient Roman banquet.Read how in the library’s cook books.4.Take up photography.Check the library for consumer reviews of cameras before you buy.T ake out books on lightin9，composition，or darkroom techniques or—you name it!M)If you haven，t detected by now my enthusiasm for libraries，let me offer two personal notes.I'm particularly pleased that in recent years two beautiful libraries have been named after me：a small community library in Quakertown，Pennsylvania，and the huge research library located at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.And I like libraries so much that I married a librarian.46.The nucleus of any public library is the car，d catalog.47.Yesterday’s best sellers are still good for readin9，which shouldn’t be overlooked.48.The author suggests that people should go to the library for answers when things go wrong49.The Reader，s Guide is a green—bound index which provides a guide to very latest expert information of any subject that interests readers.50.The sure remedy to kick the TV habit is to take home from the library interesting books to read.51.There are various kinds of fun and rewarding projects available in different libraries.52.A notebook will help readers to record the identification numbers of the frequently used books which can’t be taken home.53.Readers should not try to return the book taken from the stacks to their desk to its proper place.54.When asking for help，readers are suggested not asking the reference librarians silly questions they ought to solve themselves.55.When asking for help，readers are suggested not asking the reference librarians silly questions they ought to solve themselves.46.The nucleus of any public library is the card catalog.任何公共图书馆的核心都是卡片目录。
.专业整理 .大学英语四、六级考试信息匹配题阅读训练Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in oneof the paragraph. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph ismarked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the correspondingletter on Answer Sheet 2.Passage 1Surviving the RecessionA)America ’srecession began quietly at the end of 2007. Since then it hasevolved into a global crisis. Reasonable people may disagree aboutwhom to blame. Financiers who were not as clever as they thought theywere? Regulators falling asleep at work? Consumers who borrowed toomuch? Politicians who thoughtlessly promoted home-ownership for thosewho could not afford it? All are guilt; and what a mess they have created.B)Since 2007 America has shed 5 million jobs. More than 15% of theworkforce are jobless or underemployed—roughly 25 million workers. Theonly industries swelling their payrolls are health care, utilities and thefederal government. The value of listed shares in American firms collapsedby 57% from its peak in October 2007 to a low in March this year, thoughit has since bounded back somewhat. Industrial production fell by 12.8%in the year to March, the worst slide since the Second World War. MarkZandi, an economist at Moody’, predicts that the recession will shrink America’seconomy by 3.5% in total.“For most executives, this is the worst business environment they’ve ever seen.”C) Times are so tough that even bosses are taking pay cuts. Median（中位数的）pay for chief executives of S&P 500 companies fell 6.8% in 2008.The overthrown business giants of Wall Street took the biggest knock,with average pay cuts of 38% and median bonuses of zero. But there wassome pain for everyone: median pay for chief executives of non-financialfirms in the S&P 500 fell by 2.7%.D)Nearly every business has a sad tale to tell. For example, Arne Sorenson,the president of Marriott hotel, likens the crisis to the downturn that hithis business after September 11 th , 2001. When the twin towers fell, Americans stopped travelling. Marriott had its worst quarter ever, with revenues per room falling by 25%. This year, without a terrorist attack, the hotel industry is“putting the same numbers on the board ”, says Mr. Sorenson.E)Other industries have suffered even more. Large numbers of builders, propertyfirms and retailers have gone bankrupt. And a disaster has hit Detroit. Last year the American car industry had the capacity to make 17million vehicles. Sales in 2009 could be barely half of that. The Big ThreeAmerican carmakers — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—accumulated ruinous costs over the post-war years, such as gold-plated health plansand pensions for workers who retired as young as 48. All three are desperately restructuring. Only Ford may survive in its current form.F) Hard times breed hard feeling. Few Americans understand what causedthe recession. Some are seeking scapegoats（替罪羊）. Politicians are happy to take advantage. Bosses have been summoned to Washington tobe scolded on live television. The president condemns their greed.G)Business folks are bending over backwards to avoid seeming extravagant.Meetings at resorts are suddenly unacceptable. Goldman Sachs, aninvestment bank, cancelled a conference in Las Vegas at the last minuteand rebooked it in San Francisco, which cost more but sounded less fun.H) Anyway, the pain will eventually end.American business will regain itsshine. Many firms will die, but the survivors will emerge leaner and stronger than before. The financial sector ’s share of the economy will shrink, and stay shrunk for years to come. The importance of non-financialfirms will accordingly rise, along with their ability to attract the best talent.America will remain the best place on earth to do business, so long asBarack Obama and the Democrats in Congress resist the temptation tointerfere too much, and so long as organized labors does not overplay itshand.I)Mr. Obama ’s plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions （排放）, thoughnecessary, will be far from cost-free, whatever his sunny speeches on thesubject might suggest. The shift to a low-carbon economy will help some firms,hurt others and require every organization that uses much energyto rethink how it operates. It is harder to predict how Mr. Obama ’sproposed reforms to the failing health-care system will turn out.If hesucceeds in curbing costs—a big if—it would be a huge gain for America.Some business will benefit but the vast bulk of the savings will becaptured by workers, not their employers.J)In the next couple of years the businesses that thrive will be those that are tight with costs, careful of debt, cautious with cash flow and extremelyattentive to what customers want. They will include plenty of names noone has yet heard of.K) Times change, and corporations change with them. In 1955 Time’sMan of the Year was Harlow Curtice, the boss of GM. His firm was leading America towards a new“ economic order”,the magazine wrote. Thanks to men likeCurtice, “the bonds of scarcity ”had been broken and America was rolling“to an all-time high of prosperity”.Soon, Americans would need to spend“ comparativelylittle time earning a living”.L) Half a century later GM is a typical example for poor management. InMarch its chief executive was fired by Time’scurrent Man of the Year, Mr.Obama. The government now backs up the domestic car industry, lendingit money and overseeing its turnaround plans. With luck, this will be short-lived. But there is a danger that Washington will end up micromanaging not only Detroit but also other parts of the economy. Andclever as Mr. Obama’sadvisers are, history suggests they will be bad atthis.1.The America ’srecession affected the hotel industry as badly as the 9/11terrorist attack.2.Businessmen are trying to avoid seeming wasteful in response to the recession.3.In the near future, a thriving business will go with cautiousmanagement tactics.4.Much doubt remains whether the Obama administration will do well inmicromanaging the America’seconomy.5. A combination of causes is responsible for the current American recession,which began in 2007.6.The government is not supposed to interfere too much in American businesses.7.The big Three American carmakers need restructuring to survive dueto their accumulation of the ruinous costs over the post-war years.8.In March, GM ”s chief executive was fired by Obama for poor management.9.According to the author, Obama ’splan to limit carbon dioxide emissionswill by no means be inexpensive.10.At the worst time, the total value of listed shares in American firmsshrank by fifty-seven percent.(DGJLA HELIB)Passage twoSmall schools RisingA)This year ’slist of the top 100 high schools shows that today, thosewith fewer students are flourishing.B)Fifty years ago, they were the latest thing in educational reform: big,modern, 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 promised economic efficiency. A greater choice of courses,and, of course, better football teams. Only years later did we understandthe 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 not complete high school in four years, a figure that risesto 50% in poor urban neighborhoods. While the emphasis on teaching tohigher, test-driven standards as set in No Child Left Behind resulted insignificantly better performance in elementary (and some middle) schools,high schools for a variety of reason seemed to have made little progress.C) Size isn ’teverything, but it does matter, and the past decade has seen anoticeable countertrend toward smaller schools.This has been due, in part, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested $1.8billion in American high schools, helping to open about 1000small schools — most of them with about 400 kids each, with an average enrollment of only 150 per grade. About 500 more are on the drawingboard. Districts all over the county are taking notice, along with mayors incities like New York, Chicago and San Diego. The movement includes independent public charter schools, such as No.1 BASIS in Tucson, withonly 120 high-schools 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, with383, which share a building in Dallas, as well as the City Honors School inBuffalo, N.Y., which grew out of volunteer evening seminars for students.And it includes alternative schools with students selected 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 thathave split up into smaller units of a few hundred, generally housed in thesame grounds that once boasted thousands of students all marching tothe same band.D) Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., is one of those, ranking No. 423—among the top 2% in the country—on Newsweek’sannual ranking of America ’stop high schools. The success of small schools is apparent in the listings. Ten years ago, when the first Newsweek list based on college-level test participation was published, only three of the top 100schools had graduating classes smaller than 100 students. This year thereare 22. Nearly 250 schools on the full Newsweek list of the top 5% ofschools nationally had fewer than 200 graduates in 2007.E)Although many of Hillsdale ’sstudents came from wealthy households, by thelate 1990 average test scores were sliding and it had earned theunaffectionate nickname“Hillsjail”. Jeff Gibert, 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 graduated?”F) So in 2003 Hillsdale remade itself into three“houses”,romantically namedFlorence, Marrakech and Kyoto. Each of the 300 arriving ninth graders arerandomly assigned to one of the houses, where they will keep the samefour core subject teachers for two years, before moving on to another for11th and 12 th grades. The closeness this system cultivates is reinforced bythe institution of“advisory”classes. Teachers meet with students in groups of 25, five mornings a week, for open-ended discussions of everythingfrom homework problems to bad Saturday-night dates. The advisers alsomeet with students privately and stay in touch with parents, so they aredeeply invested in the students’success.“We’re constantly talking aboutone another’sadvisers,”says English teacher Chris Crockett.“If you hear that yours isn ’tdoing well in math, or see them sitting outside the dean’s office, it ’slike a personal failure.”Along with the new structure came amore demanding academic program, the percentage of freshmen takingbiology jumped from 17 to 95.“It was rough for some. But by senior year,two-thirds have moved up to physics,”says Gilbert.“Our kids are coming to school in part because they know there are adults here who know themand care for them.”But not all schools show advances after downsizing,and it remains to be seen whether smaller schools will be a cure-all solution.G)The Newsweek list of top U.S. high schools was made this year, as in yearspast, according to a single metric, the proportion of students taking college-level exams. Over the years the system has come in for its share ofcriticism for its simplicity. But that is also its strength: it’seasy for readers to understand, and to do the arithmetic for their own schools if they’d like.H)Ranking schools is always controversial, and this year a group of 38superintendents （地区教育主管）from five states wrote to ask that theirschools be excluded from the calculation.“It is impossible to know whichhigh schools are ‘the best ’in the nation, ”their letter read, in part.“Determining whether different schools do or don’toffer a high quality of education requires a look at many different measures, including students’overall academic accomplishments and their subsequent performance incollege. And taking into consideration the unique needs of theircommunities. ”I)In the end the superintendents agreed to provide the data we sought, whichis, after all, public information. There is, in our view, no real dispute here;we are all seeking the same thing, which is schools that better serveour children and our nation by encouraging students to make toughsubjects under the guidance of gifted teachers. And if we keep workingtoward that goal, someday, perhaps a list won’tbe necessary.1.In practical use, simplicity is still considered a strength of Newsweek ’sschool ranking system in spite of the criticism it receives.2.As a result setting up big schools, students’performance declined.3.Newsweek ranked high schools according to their college-level testparticipation.4.Half a century ago, big, modern, suburban high schools wereestablished to ensure efficient education for baby boomers.5.It is agreed that qualified teachers, better services and encouragement arekeys to reaching the ultimate goal of school education.6. The most noticeable trend in high school education is the splitting oflarge schools into smaller ones.7. It is still unknown whether smaller schools will be a solution to alleducational problems.8.High schools funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aresmall in size.9.Different measures should be used in assessing the quality of school education.10.The “advisory ”classes at Hillsdale were set up so that students couldmaintain closer relationship with their teachers.(GBDBI CFCHF)Passage 3.HighwaysA) Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U.S. weremade of dirt, brick, and cedar wood blocks. Built for horse, carriage, andfoot traffic, they were usually poorly cared for and too narrow toaccommodate （容纳）automobiles.B) With the increase in auto p roduction, private turnpike （收费公路）companies under local authorities began to spring up, and by 1921 therewere 387000 miles of paved roads. Many were built using specifications of19th century Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (forwhom the macadam surface is named), whose specifications stressed theimportance of adequate drainage. Beyond that, there were no nationalstandards for size, weight restrictions, or commercial signs. During World . 学习帮手 .War I. roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weightof trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in the U.S. army’sfirst transcontinental motor convoy（车队）, he noted:“The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lanehighways, but Germany’sAutobahn or motorway had made me see thewisdom of broader ribbons across the land.”C)It would take another war before the federal government would act on anational highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increase intrucks and new roads were required. The war demonstrated how criticalhighways were to the defense effort. Thirteen percent of defense plantsreceived all their supplies by truck, and almost all other plants shippedmore than half of their products by vehicle. The war also revealed thatlocal control of highways had led to a confusing variety of design standards.Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards. Some states allowed trucks up to 36000 pounds, while others restricted anything over 7000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of33920 miles, and congress soon passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.D)The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and has beenhailed as one of the greatest public works projects of the century. To buildits 44000-mile web of highways, bridges, and tunnels, hundreds of uniqueengineering designs and solutions had to be worked out. Consider themany geographic features of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts and plains. Variables included the slope of theland, the ability of the pavement to support the load, the intensity of roaduse, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges,overpasses, and interchanges that could run through or bypass urban areas soon began to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face ofAmerica.E)Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as Hale Boggs inLouisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkabletunnels like Fort McHeny in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, metmany of the nation ’s physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed under the interstate program sooninfluenced highway construction around the world, and were invaluable inimproving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.F)Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U.S. withCanada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have widelanes and shoulders, dividing medians, or barriers, long entry and exitlanes, curves engineered for safe turns, and limited access. The deathrate on highways is half of all other U.S. roads (.86 deaths per 100 millionpassenger miles compared to 1.99 per 100 million on all other roads).G)By opening the North American continent, highways have enabled consumergoods and services to reach people in remote and rural areas of the country, spurred the growth of suburbs, and provided people withgreater options in term of jobs, access to cultural programs, health care,and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system provides individualswith what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.H)The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation ’s economicgrowth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75percent the nation ’sfreight deliveries arrive by truck; and most productsthat arrive by rail or air use interstates for the last leg of the journey byvehicle. Not only has the highway system affected the America economyby providing shipping routes, it has led to the growth of spin-off industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers.It has allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and otherindustries from urban areas to rural.I)By the end of the century there was an immense network of paved roads,residential streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions ofvehicles. The highway system was officially renamed for Eisenhower tohonor his vision and leadership. The year construction began he said:“Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear—United States.Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”1. Many of the problems presented by the country’sgeographical featuresfound solutions in innovative engineering projects.2. A century ago, there were almost no national standards for paved roadsin the U.S.3.The interstate system was renamed after Eisenhower in recognition ofhis vision and leadership.4.General Eisenhower felt that the broad motorways made more sensethan the two-lane highways of America.5.It was in the 1950s that the American government finally took actionto build a national highway system.6.Under safety considerations, the death rate on interstate highways is muchlower than that of other American roads.7.Trucks using the interstate highways deliver more than seventy-five percent ofthe freight in U.S.8.Thanks to the highways, American people can go anywhere they like aroundthe country.9.To a certain extent, the development of interstate highway system inAmerica has promoted the nation’seconomic growth.10.In terms of highway construction, the whole world was influenced bythe U.S.(DBIBD FHGHE)Passage 4The MagicianThe revolution that Steve Jobs led is only just beginningA) When it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computer industry,or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs. His productlaunches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and produce asif by magic an“incredible”new electronic gadget（小器具）in front of an amazed crowd, were the performances of a master showman.All computers do is fetch and work with numbers, he once explained, but doit fast enough and“the results appear to be magic”.Mr. Jobs, who died recently aged 56, spent his life packaging the magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.B)The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowers outsideApple stores and politicians singing praises on the internet, is proof thatMr. Jobs had become something much more significant than just a clevermoney-maker. He stood out in three ways — as a technologist, as a corporate leader and as somebody who was able to make people lovewhat had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets. Strangely, it isthis last quality that may have the deepest effect on the way people live.The era of personal technology is in many ways just beginning.C) As a technologist, Mr. Jobs was different because he was not an engineer— and that was his great strength.Instead he was keenly interested inproduct design and aesthetics （美学） , and in making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formedidea — the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player,the smartphone, the tablet computer（平板电脑）—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms competed with each otherto follow where he led. In the process he brought about great changes incomputing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful forexisting firms but welcomed by millions of consumers.D)Within the wider business world, a man who liked to see himself as a hippy,permanently in revolt against big companies, ended up being hailed by many of those corporate giants as one of the greatest chief executives of his time.That was partly due to his talents: showmanship, strategic vision,an astonishing attention to detail and a dictatorial management style which many bosses must have envied. But most of all it was the extraordinarytrajectory （轨迹）of his life. His fall from grace in the 1980s, followed by his return to Apple in 1996 after a period in the wilderness, isan inspiration to any businessperson whose career has taken a turn for theworse. The way in which Mr. Jobs revived the failing company he hadco-founded and turned it into the world’sbiggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gate’sMicrosoft, the company that had outsmarted Apple sodramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywoodmovie.E)But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr. Jobs was the absoluteloyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Many Apple users feel themselvesto be part of a community, with Mr. Jobs as its leader. Andthere was indeed a personal link. Apple ’s products were designed to accordwith the boss ’staste and to meet his extremely high standards. Every iPhone orMacBook has his fingerprints all over it. His great achievement was to combinean emotional spark with computer technology, and make the resulting productfeel personal. And that is what put Mr. Jobs on the right side of history, astechnological innovationhas moved into consumer electronics over the past decade.F) As our special report in this issue (printed before Mr. Jobs ’s death)explains, innovation used to spill over from military and corporatelaboratories to the consumer market, but lately this process has gone intoreverse. Many people ’shomes now have more powerful, and more flexible,devices than their offices do; consumer gadgets and online services aresmarter and easier to use than most companies ’systems.Familiarconsumer products are being adopted by businesses, government andthe armed forces. Companies are employing in-house versions ofFacebook and creating their own“app stores ”to deliver software toemployees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals.Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continuesto swell. Apple ’sproducts are now being snapped up in Delhi and Dalianjust as in Dublin and Dallas.G) Mr. Jobs had a reputation as a control freak （怪人） , and his criticscomplained that the products and systems he designed were closed andinflexible, in the name of greater ease of use.Yet he also empoweredmillions of people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology. Hisinsistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity,has become deep-rooted in his own company, and is spreading to rivalfirms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask:“What wouldSteve Jobs do? ”H)The gap between Apple and other tech firms is only likely to narrow. Thisweek ’sannouncement of a new iPhone by a management team led by TimCook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive in August, was generallyregarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr. Jobs to shower his star duston the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technologyfirm. At the recent unveiling of a tablet computer by Jeff Bezos of Amazon,whose company is doing the best job of following Apple ’slead in combininghardware, software, content and services in an easy-to-use bundle, there wereseveral attacks at Apple. But by doing his best to imitate Mr. Jobs, Mr. Bezosalso flattered him. With Mr. Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technologyfirms trying to arouse hisuncontrollable spirit in new products.I)Mr. Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a“reality distortion （扭曲） field ”,such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he created a reality of his own, channeling the magic ofcomputing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man whosaid in his youth that he wanted to“put a ding in the universe did”just that.1.Steve Jobs was obsessed with elegant and user-friendly gadgets,which was his great strength.2.In spite of the user-friendliness of Apple products, critics complainedthat they were closed and inflexible.3.Steve Jobs fulfilled his promise and had succeeded in redefining the products incomputer industries.4.Steve Jobs started the era of personal technology, which has a profoundimpact on people’sway of life.5.Steve Jobs was thought highly of by leaders of many large companiesfor his achievements and personal charm.6.Integrating the easy-to-use elements to the utmost, Amazon hasbecome the best Apple follower many technology firms.7.Apple ’sproducts are very popular in many industries and places, bringingmuch comfort and convenience to people’slife and work.。
【编者简介】。
全国唯一一位曾经连续三年命为人低调，和蔼亲切，耐心细致．．．．．．．．．．．．．．中过高考试题中一些理科和文科试题的人，高考研究专家﹑高考辅导名师，擅长高考专业﹑个性辅导，英语四六级专业﹑个性辅导。
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对各省的高考一些事情比较了解。
2013年本人所有亲自教授﹑多次辅导的学生均顺利考上一二本大学！2013年12月最新四六级试卷组成Section BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten 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 choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.How to Make Attractive and Effective PowerPoint Presentations[A]Microsoft PowerPoint has dramatically changed the way in which academic and business presentations are made. This article outlines few tips on making more effective and attractive PowerPoint presentations.The Text[B]Keep the wording clear and simple. Use active, visual language. Cut unnecessary words—a good rule of thumb is to cut paragraphs down to sentences, sentences into phrases, and phrases into key words. Limit the number of words and lines per slide. Try the Rule of Five-five words per line, five lines per slide. If too much text appears on one slide, use the AutoFit feature to split it between two slides. Click within the placeholder to display the AutoFit Options button (its symbol is two horizontal lines with arrows above and below), then click on the button and choose Split Text between Two Slides from the submenu.[C] Font size for titles should be at least 36 to 40, while the text body should not be smaller than24. Use only two font styles per slide—one for the title and the other for the text. Choose two fonts that visually contrast with each other. Garamond Medium Condensed and Impact are good for titles, while Garamond or Tempus Sans can be used for the text body.[D] Embed the fonts in your presentation, if you are not sure whether the fonts used in the presentation are present in the computer that will be used for the presentation. To embed the fonts: (1) On the File menu, click Save As. (2) On the toolbar, click Tools, click Save Options, select the Embed True Type Fonts check box, and then select Embed characters in use only.[E] Use colors sparingly; two to three at most. You may use one color for all the titles and another for the text body. Be consistent from slide to slide. Choose a font color that contrasts well with the background.[F] Capitalizing the first letter of each word is good for the title of slides and suggests a more formal situation than having just the first letter of the first word capitalized. In bullet point lines, capitalize the first word and no other words unless they normally appear capped. Upper and lower case lettering is more readable than all capital letters. Moreover, current styles indicate that usingall capital letters means you are shouting. If you have text that is in the wrong case, select the text, and then click Shift+F3 until it changes to the case style that you like. Clicking Shift+F3 toggles the text case between ALL CAPS, lower case, and Initial Capital styles.[G] Use bold or italic typeface for emphasis. Avoid underlining, it clutters up the presentation.Don’t center bulleted lists or text. It is confusing to read. Left align unless you have a good reason not to. Run “spell check”on your show when finished.The Background[H] Keep the background consistent. Simple, light textured backgrounds work well. Complicated textures make the content hard to read. If you are planning to use many clips in your slides, select a white background. If the venue of your presentation is not adequately light-proof, select a dark-colored background and use any light color for text. Minimize the use of “bells and whistles”such as sound effects, “flying words” and multiple transitions. Don’t use red in any fonts or backgrounds. It is an emotionally overwhelming color that is difficult to see and read.The Clips[I] Animations are best used subtly; too much flash and motion can distract and annoy viewers. Do not rely too heavily on those images that were originally loaded on your computer with the rest of Office. You can easily find appropriate clips on any topic through Google Images. While searching for images, do not use long search phrases as is usually done while searching the web-use specific words.[J] When importing pictures, make sure that they are smaller than two megabytes and are in a jpg format. Larger files can slow down your show. Keep graphs, charts and diagrams simple, if possible. Use bar graphs and pie charts instead of tables of data. The audience can then immediately pick up the relationships.The Presentation[K] If you want your presentation to directly open in the slide show view, save it as a slide show file using the following steps. Open the presentation you want to save as a slide show. On the File menu, click Save As. In the Save as type list, click PowerPoint Show. Your slide show file will be saved with a ppt file extension. When you double-click on this file, it will automatically start your presentation in slide show view. When you’re done, PowerPoint automatically closes and you return to the desktop. If you want to edit the slide show file, you can always open it from PowerPoint by clicking Open on the File menu.[L] Look at the audience, not at the slides, whenever possible. If using a laser pointer, don’t move it too fast. For example, if circling a number on the slide, do it slowly. Never point the laser at the audience. Black out the screen (use “B”on the keyboard) after the point has been made, to put the focus on you. Press the key again to continue your presentation.[M] You can use the shortcut command [Ctrl]P to access the Pen tool during a slide show. Click with your mouse and drag to use the Pen tool to draw during your slide show. Toerase everything you’ve drawn, press the E key. To turn off the Pen tool, press [Esc] once.Miscellaneous[N] Master Slide Set-Up: The “master slide”will allow you to make changes that are reflected on every slide in your presentation. You can change fonts, colors, backgrounds, headers, and footers at the “master slide”level. First, go to the “View” menu. Pull down the “Master”menu. Select the “slide master”menu. You may now make changes at this level that meet your presentation needs.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。
