For high school leavers starting out in the working world, it is very important to learn particular skills and practice how to behave in an interview or how to find an internship (实习). In some countries, schools have programs to help students onto the path to work. In the United States, however, such programs are still few and far behind.
Research shows that if high schools provide career-related courses, students are likely to get higher earnings in later years. The students are more likely to stay in school, graduate and go on to higher education.
In Germany, students as young as 13 and 14 are expected to do internships. German companies work with schools to make sure that young people get the education they need for future employment.
But in America, education reform programs focus on how well students do in exams instead of bringing them into contact with the working world. Harvard Education school professor Robert Schwartz has criticized education reformers for trying to place all graduates directly on the four-year college track. Schwartz argued that this approach leaves the country’s most vulnerable(易受影响的)kids with no jobs and no skills.
Schwartz believed that the best career programs encourage kids to go for higher education while also teach them valuable practical skills at high school. James Madison High School in New York, for example ,encourages students to choose classes on career-based courses. The school then helps them gain on-the-job
experience in those fields while they’re still at high school.
However, even for teens whose schools encourage them to connect with work, the job market is daunting. In the US, unemployment rates for 16-to-19-year-olds are above 20 percent for the third summer in a row.
“The risk is that if teenagers miss out on the summer job experience, they will become part of this generation of teens who had trouble in landing a job,” said Michael, a researcher in the US.
1.In the author’s opinion, German high school leavers ______.
A. enjoy more career-related courses than that of US
B. need more career advice from their schools
C. perform better in exams than American students
D. are less brought into contact with the working world
2.According to Robert Schwartz, high school students should _________.
A. directly carry on higher education
B. get contact with the working world
C. focus on their performance in exams
D. not miss out on the summer job experience
3.The underlined word “daunting” in Paragraph 6 most probably mean “______”.
A. incredible B. motivating
C. impressive D. discouraging
4.What’s the main idea of the text?
A. Remarks on recent US high school education reform
B. Tips on finding jobs for high school leavers in US.
C. The lack of career-based education in US high schools.
D. The severe situation of unemployment in US.
Dyslexia is a learning disorder, it interferes with the ability to recognize words, and for some readers to understand what they have read. Experts say dyslexia affects about five to ten percent of the population of the United States. Researchers have long known that people with dyslexia write or read words and letters backwards in the wrong order.
But a new study shows that people with dyslexia may have trouble redirecting their attention between senses, from seeing something to hearing something. The study suggests something that might help dyslexic people learn more quickly - play video games.
Vanessa Harrar of Britain’s University of Oxford led the study. She reported the findings in the journalCurrent Biology. The study suggests that dyslexic people may have trouble moving quickly from what they read to what they hear.
In the study, Doctor Harrar tested 17 people with dyslexia, and 19 others without reading problems. The volunteers were asked to push a button as quickly as possible when they heard a sound, saw a light or experienced both together. Doctor Harrar compared the speed of their reactions. She found that people with dyslexia were just as fast as the others when they saw only a picture or heard only a sound. But the Dyslexicshad a slower reaction time when they heard a sound and saw a picture at the same time, this may have an effect on how dyslexic children are taught how to read.
Doctor Harrar feels like playing video games could help dyslexic people shift from seeing to hearing more quickly. She adds that images in video games force the eyes to move and focus quickly. “Video game types of things pop out of here and there, they move your eyes around the screen quite quickly in response to things quite quickly, and the more you play a video game the faster you get that kind of thing. So, the video game is really training the attention system to move quickly,” said Harrar. When children learn the alphabet, they usually see the letter first and then hear the sound, or they see and hear the letter at the same time. The study shows that Dyslexics might learn more quickly if they hear the sound of a letter or word first before seeing it.
1.According to Doctor Harrar’s study, the dyslexic people have difficulty in______.
A. recognizing words
B. reading words backwards
C. writing letters in order
D. shifting from seeing to hearing
2.Which factor affects the way dyslexic children are taught to read?
A. They react more slowly to a single picture or sound
B. They react as fast as others to a single picture or sound
C. It takes them longer to react to sounds and pictures together
D. It is difficult for them to understand before seeing the word
3.How does the author suggest Dyslexics are taught based on the research finding?
A. by putting hearing previous to seeing
B. by training the attention on games
C. by seeing first and then hearing later
D. by moving the eyes around the screen
4.What can be the best title of the passage?
A. Video Games Might Help Dyslexics
B. Dyslexia Affects Attention between Senses
C. Video Games Can Train the Attention System
D. Dyslexics Might Learn Better through Sound
One of those big social networking sites, Facebook, has attracted over 58 million members. Commentator Melody Cramer is no longer one of them. Here is what she shares with us about her story.
I deleted all 1,281 of my coworkers, secondgrade classmates and people who I don’t know at all. I shut down my account, completely. I’m 30, and I’ve been on Facebook since March of 2004, which makes me one of the website’s earliest users.
At first, I used it obsessively. If I had a free moment, I’d log on to see whether my friends had updated their profiles. I’d sit alone scrolling through these updates and then run into someone at a coffee shop and have nothing to say because I already knew everything about them, and they knew everything about me.
In November, I went to my tenyear high school reunion and was not pleasantly surprised. Lauren became a model, Josh went to law school, Dina was a teacher. I hadn’t talked to any of them since graduation, but I knew exactly what they were doing, both now and last week. But lately, I’m overwhelmed(应接不暇). Facebook opened up to everyone, not just college students, and my coworkers started to join, which meant they now knew what I was doing when I wasn’t at work.
And as a rule: you can NOT make friends with your coworkers because then they’ll ask you the next day. But I thought we were friends. And you are friends but not the kind of friends who tell each other what they do outside of work. So now the people you work with can see what you did last night, and you’re constantly worrying what people might say about what you did last night instead of actually doing anything tonight. So Iquit. I became a 30yearold Luddite, a person who is strongly against technology development. I’ve retuned to how the world worked when I was 20, before I knew when my friends and coworkers were counting down the seconds to vacation or entering a complicated relationship. I’m hoping life will be a lot simpler now. People will be more mysterious now that I actually have to talk to them to find out their favorite books or hobbies or neurosis(神经症). I don’t know when my college roommate goes to the supermarket, and I think I’m a better person for not knowing. In fact, you could say getting off a social network was the best thing I’ve done this week.
1.Melody Cramer decided to quit Facebook mainly because ______.
A. she thought it wasted too much time
B. she was afraid of the strangers on her account
C. she was tired of exposing her life to coworkers
D. she thought it made realworld life less interesting
2.We can learn from the passage that Melody Cramer ______.
A. had a 10year membership of Facebook
B. used to be very objected to Facebook
C. was unpleasant to attend high school reunion
D. was one of the co-founders of Facebook
3.Which of the following about Melody Cramer is TRUE?
A. She owes her communication skills to Facebook.
B. She wishes she could be several years younger.
C. She prefers to face her friends and co-workers in reality.
D. She is no longer curious about anything around her.
4.The best title for this passage can be _____.
A. Addiction to Facebook
B. Farewell to Facebook
C. Friends Online
D. A Simpler Life
In my class, there was a really weak-looking guy. I don’t know if his name was Vit or Wit. I will him as Wit in this story of mine. He was a pale, thin guy. Not only his build looked weak, the way he was also weak. He walked slowly but he tried to stay off of everyone’s way. The friends in my class, Jean and Ingrid, would him. Truth to be told,
I them as well. We did things like taking his stuff, like his pens and pencils, and them somewhere in the school.
Wit was also really of insects, even butterfly. Jean, Ingrid, and I often put beetle on his clothes and he would run around, trying to it off. There were many beetles in the school so that was the insect we used to scare him with. Other insects such as butterfly were hard to so we pretty much gave up on it. We would often take the when Wit was off-guard and put the insects on him. it was on him, he would run around or jump about. He was too scared to it and pull it off.
Suddenly one day, we were by the school. When I walked into the room, Wit’s mother, as well as Ingrid’s mother, Jean’s father, and mine were in the room silently. Wit’s mother said that Wit went home and the sandbag shouting “Jean!!! Ingrid!!! Archer!!!” every day. I wanted to laugh but didn’t with all the she was putting on us .She asked many things, including things I had no idea about such as “Who put Wit’s bag in the girl toilet?” Apparently, it was Jean who did it. Jean seemed to have bullied Wit quite a lot and got quite a(n) from Wit’s and her own mother.
I think it should have been quite guilty for to see us scolded by the parents. However , we decided to stop bullying Wit and be friendly to him.
1.A. briefly B. abruptly C. actually D. constantly
2.A. think of B. focus on C. laugh at D. refer to
3.A. acted B. operated C. attacked D. responded
4.A. get close to B. look up to C. get tired of D. make fun of
5.A. betrayed B. joined C. teased D. rejected
6.A. hid B. distributed C. threw D. preserved
7.A. fond B. scared C. cautious D. ashamed
8.A. see B. set C. shake D. take
9.A. only B. acute C. main D. rare
10.A. find B. recognize C. raise D. capture
11.A. chance B. risk C. trouble D. order
12.A. While B. Though C. Once D. Unless
13.A. attach B. touch C. sniff D. defend
14.A. picked out B. called in C. spied on D. kicked off
15.A. staring B. sighing C. sitting D. weeping
16.A. carried B. threw C. filled D. hit
17.A. nearly B. hardly C. merely D. approximately
18.A. burden B. pressure C. duty D. doubt
19.A. forgiving B. understanding C. praising D. scolding
20.A. Ingrid B. Jean C. Wit D. Mother
The writer conveyed a positive attitude through his works.______, his readers are motivated and are themselves becoming a source of motivation for others.
A. On the whole B. In the meanwhile
C. In the way D. On the contrary
You are to meet with frustration in the pursuit of success and through greater effort and hard work your dream will definitely come true. Put it ______ , “No pains, no gains.”
A. frequently B. firmly
C. openly D. simply
