We believe that there is more to education than preparation for a job.Children must be prepared for all aspects of their adult life work,leisure,personal relationships,creative activities,dealing with money matters,independence,and parenthood. However,it would be unrealistic to provide an education which gave no consideration to the needs of employers. What type of training does the business world regard as important? Many young people applying for jobs were , in the employers' opinions,very weak in the basic skills of handwriting,grammar and spelling.Though further education at university level improved the student's general ability,a report states, "In basic skills the standards remained very low." It is doubtful whether standards have lowered in recent years.What is certain is that employers do not believe the standard is now high enough.Do technological changes make greater demands upon the students'abilities? We should also remember that the job expectations of young people have increased.The girls who would have once become shop assistants or hairdressers now want to be secretaries.Boys who sought an apprenticeship 20 years ago now desire to an engineering degree.But it is still _ with the same degree of ability.NO wonder there are problems in reaching the "necessary standards" of the business world. Many employers believed that it was important for teachers to have experience outside the world of college and school.They should work for a while at some other kind of job to see how the world of business and commerce is different from their own.The teaching profession and society in general needed a greater understanding of manpower needs and therefore of "the desired" direction of the education system. It's suggested that teachers should _ . A) never change their jobs B) improve their teaching methods C) get some working experience outside school D) spend more time on their school work
C
No one wants to be tested. We would all like to get a driver's license without answering questionsabout rights of way or showing that we can parallel park a car. Many future lawyers and doctors probablywish they could join their profession without taking an exam. But tests and standards are a necessary fact of life. They protect us from unskilled drivers, harmful products and dishonest professionals. In schools too exams play a. constructive role. They tell public officials whether new school programs are making a difference and where new investments are likely to pay off. They tell teachers what their students have learned--and have not. They tell parents how their children are doing compared with others their age. They encourage students to make more effort. It is important to recall that for most of century, educators used intelligence tests to decide whichchildren should get a high-quality education. The point of IQ testing was to find out how much children were capable of learning rather than to test what they had actually learned. Based on IQ scores, millions of children were assigned to _ instead of solid courses in science, math, history, literature andforeign language. This history reminds us that tests should be used to improve education. Every child should have access to a high-quality education. Students should have full opportunity to learn what will be tested; otherwise theirscores will merely reflect whether they come from an educated family. In the past few years, we have seen the enormous benefits that flow to disadvantaged students because of the information provided by state tests. Those who fall behind are now getting extra instruction inafter-school classes and summer programs. In their efforts to improve student performance, states are increasing teachers salaries, testing new teachers and insisting on better teacher education. Performance in education means the mastery of both knowledge and skills. This is why it is reasonable totest teachers to make sure they know their subject matter,... What is the purpose of the passage? A) To re-assess the value of IQ testing. B) To defend the role of testing in education. C) To explain what high-quality education means. D) To call for thorough and complete reform in education.
B
Q: I still remember--my hands and my fingers still remember--what used to lie in store for us on our return to school from the holidays. The trees in the school yard would be in full leaf again and the old leaves would be lying around like a muddy sea of leaves. "Get that all swept up!" the headmaster would tell us. "I want the whole place cleaned up, at once!" There was enough work there, to last over a week. Especially since the only tools with which we were provided were our hands, our fingers, and our nails. "Now see that it's done properly, and be quick about it," the headmaster would say to the older pupils, "or you'll have to answer for it!" So at an order from the older boys we would all line up like peanuts about to cut and gather in crops. If the work was not going as quickly as the headmaster expected, the big boys, instead of giving us a helping hand, used to find it simpler to beat us with branches pulled from the trees. In order to avoid these blows , we used to bribe the older boys with the juicy cakes we used to bring for our midday meals. And if we happened to have any money on us, the coins changed hands at once. If we did not do this, if we were afraid of going home with an empty stomach or an empty purse, the blows were redoubled. They hit us so violently and with such evil enjoyment that even a deaf and dumb person would have realized that we were being whipped not so much to make us work harder, but rather to beat us into a state of obedience in which we would be only too glad to give up our food and money. Occasionally one of us, worn out by such calculated cruelty, would have the courage to complain to the headmaster. He would of course be very angry, but the punishment he gave the older boys was always very small--nothing compared to what they had done to us. And the fact is that however much we complained, our situation did not improve in the slightest. Perhaps we should have let our parents know what was going on, but somehow we never dreamed of doing so; I don't know whether it was... The statement "my hands and my fingers still remember" (Para.1) means that _ . A) the author's hands were severely injured in the cleaning up B) the author seldom did such hard work as the cleaning up C) the author was bullied by the big boys in the cleaning up D) the author's hands were his only tool for the cleaning up
A: D
(Q).
Some people do not like anything to be out of place; they are never late for work; they return their books to the library on time; they remember people's birthdays; and they pay their bills as soon as they arrive. Mr. Dodds is such a person . Mr. Dodds works in a bank, and lives on his own. The only family he has is in the next town :his sister lives there with her husband, and her son, Mark, Mr. Dodds does not see his sister, or her family, from one year to the next, but he sends them Christmas cards, and he has not forgotten one of Mark's seventeen birthdays. Last week Mr. Dodds had quite a surprise. He drove home from the bank at the usual time, driving neither too slowly nor too fast. He parked his car where he always parked it, out of the way of other cars, and he went inside to make his evening meal. Straight away, there was a knock at the door. Mr Dodds opened the door to find a policeman standing on the door-step . "What have I done wrong ?" Mr. Dodds asked himself . "Have I driven on the wrong side of the road? Has there been some trouble at the bank? Have I forgotten to pay an important bill?" "Hello, Uncle ," said the policeman," My name is Mark." From the passage we know that his sister _ . A) lives in the next town with her husband and son B) is the only member of the family that he knows C) never writes back to him D) has a small family: a son and Mark, her husband
(A).
A