Passage Two
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fights. We are pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. I’ve twice been to the wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. We see our kids’ college background as e prize demonstrating how well we’ve raised them. But we can’t acknowledge that our obsession(痴迷) is more about us than them. So we’ve contrived various justifications that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn’t matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.
We have a full-blown prestige panic; we worry that there won’t be enough prizes to go around. Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever. Underlying the hysteria(歇斯底里) is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts. All that is plausible——and mostly wrong. We haven’t found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters. Selective schools don’t systematically employ better instructional approaches than less selective schools. On two measures——professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams——selective schools do slightly worse.
By some studies, selective schools do enhance their graduates’ lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2-4% for every 100-poinnt increase in a school’s average SAT scores. But even this advantage is probably a statistical fluke(偶然). A well-known study examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere. They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.
Kids count more than their colleges.Getting into yale may signify intellgence,talent and
Ambition. But it’s not the only indicator and,paradoxically,its significance is declining.The reason:so many similar people go elsewhere.Getting into college is not life only competiton.Old-boy networks are breaking down.princeton economist Alan Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph.D.program.High scores on the GRE helpd explain who got in;degrees of prestigious universities didn’t.
So,parents,lighten up.the stakes have been vastly exaggerated.up to a point,we can rationalize our pushiness.America is a competitive society;our kids need to adjust to that.but too much pushiness can be destructive.the very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment.one study found that,other things being equal,graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction.They may have been so conditioned to deing on top that anything less disappoints.
注意此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
57.Why dose the author say that parengs are the true fighters in the college-admissions wars?
A.They have the final say in which university their children are to attend.
B.They know best which universities are most suitable for their children.
C.they have to carry out intensive surveys of colleges before children make an application.
D.they care more about which college their children go to than the children themselves.
58.Why do parents urge their children to apply to more school than ever?
A.they want to increase their children chances of entering a prestigious college.
B.they hope their children can enter a university that offers attractive scholarships.
C.Their children eill have have a wider choice of which college to go to.
D.Elite universities now enroll fewer syudent than they used to.
59.What does the author mean by kids count more than their college(Line1,para.4?
A.Continuing education is more important to a person success.
B.A person happiness should be valued more than their education.
C.Kids actual abilities are more importang than their college background.
D.What kids learn at college cannot keep up with job market requirements.
60.What does Krueger study tell us?
A.GETting into Ph.d.programs may be more competitive than getting into college.
B.Degrees of prestigious universities do not guarantee entry to graduate programs.
C.Graduates from prestigious universities do not care much about their GRE scores.
D.Connections built in prestigious universities may be sustained long after graduation.
61.One possible result of pushing children into elite universities is that______
A.they earb less than their peers from other institutions
B.they turn out to be less competitive in the job market
C.they experience more job dissatisfaction after graduation
D.they overemphasize their qualifications in job application
Part V Cloze
Directions: there are 20 blanks in the following passage. For each blank there are four choices marked A),B),C), and D) on the right side of the paper. You should choose the ONE that best fits into the passage. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Seven years ago, when I was visiting Germany, I Met with an official who explained to me that the country had a perfect solution to its economic problems. Watching the U.S.economy ___62___ during the ‘90s, the Germans had decided that they, too, needed to go the high-technology ___63___. But how? In the late ‘90s, the answer schemed obvious. Indians. ___64___ all, Indian entrepreneurs accounted for one of every three Silicon Valleystart-ups. So the German government decided that it would ___65___ Indians to Term any just as Americadoes by ___66___ green cards. Officials created something called the German Green Card and ___67___ that they would issue 20,000 inthe first year. ___68___, the Germans expected that tens of thousands more Indians would soon be begging to come, and perhaps the ___69___ would have to be increased. But the program was a failure. A year later ___70___ half of the 20,000 cards had been issued. After a few extensions, the program was ___71___.
I told the German official at the time that I was sure the ___72___ would fail. It’s not that I had any particular expertise in immigration policy, ___73___ I understood something about green cards, because I had one (the American ___74___). The German Green
62. A) soar C) amplify
B) hover D) intensify
63. A) circuit C) trait
B) strategy D) route
64. A) Of C) In
B) After D) At
65. A) import C) convey
B) kidnap D) lure
66. A) offering C) evacuating
B) installing D) formulating
67. A) conferred C) announced
B) inferred D) verified
68. A) Specially C) Particularly
B) Naturally D) Consistently
69. A) quotas C) measures
B) digits D) scales
70. A) invariably C) barely
B) literally D) solely
71. A) repelled C) combated
B) deleted D) abolished
72. A) adventure C) initiative
B) response D) impulse
73. A) and C) so
B) but D) or
74. A) heritage C) notion
B) revision D) version
Card was mismand,I argued,__75__it never,under 75A)because C)if
any circumtances,translated into German B)unless D)while
citizenship.The U.S.green card,by contrast,is an
almost__76__path to becoming American (after 76A)aggressive C)vulnerable
B)automatic D)voluntary
five years and a clean record).The official__77__my 77A)overtook C)submitted
objection,saying that there was no way Germany B)fascinated D)dismissed
was going to offer these peoplecitizenship.”we need
young tach workers,”he said.”that’s what this pro-
gram is all __78__.”so Germanywas asking bright 78A)towards C)about
B)round D)over
young__79__to leavetheir country,culture and 79A)dwellers C)professionals
families,move thousands of miles away,learn a new B)citizens D)amateurs
language and work in a strange land—but without
any__80__of ever being part of their new 80A)prospect C)outcome
home.Germany was senging a signal, one that B)suspicion D)destination
was ___81___ received in Indiaand other countries, 81A)partially C)brightly
and also by Germany’s own immigrant community. B)clearly D)vividly