1、大学英语六级（阅读）模拟试卷 15及答案与解析 Section B Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice. 0 When it comes to schooling, Herrera boys are
2、no match for Herrera girls. Last week, four years after she arrived from Honduras, Martha, 20, graduated from Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. She managed decent grades while working 36 hours a week at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Her sister, Marlin, 22, attends a local community college and will so
3、on be a certified nurse assistant. The brothers are a different story. Oscar, 17, was expelled two years ago from Fairfax for carrying a knife and later dropped out of a different school. The youngest, Jonathan, 15, is now in a juvenile boot camp after running into trouble with the law. “The boys go
4、 astray more, “ says the kids mother, “The girls are more confident. “ This is normal. Immigrant girls consistently outperform boys, according to the preliminary findings of a just-completed, five-year study of immigrant children the largest of its kind, including Latino, Chinese and Haitian kids by
5、 Marcelo and Caro-la Orozco of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Though that trend holds for U. S. -born kids as well, the reasons for the discrepancy among immigrants are different. The study found that immigrant girls are more adept at straddling cultures than boys. “The girls are able to
6、retain some of the protective features of their native culture“ because theyre kept closer to the hearth, says Marcelo, “while they maximize their acquisition of skills in the new culture“ by helping their parents navigate(操纵 ). Consider the kids experiences in school. The study found that boys face
7、 more peer pressure to adopt American youth culture. Theyre disciplined more often and, as a result, develop more adversarial relationships with teachers and the wider society. They may also face more debilitating(使人气馁的 )prejudices. One teacher interviewed for the study said that the “cultural aware
8、ness training“ she received as part of her continuing education included depictions of Latino boys as “aggressive“ and “really macho(大男子气概的 )“ and of the girls as “pure sweetness“. Gender shapes immigrant kids experiences outside school as well. Often hailing from traditional cultures, the girls fac
9、e greater domestic obligations. They also frequently act as “cultural ambassadors“, translating for parents and mediating between mem and the outside world, says Carola Orozco. An unintended consequence: “The girls get foisted into a responsible role more than the boys do. “ The Harvard study bears
10、a warning note: If large numbers of immigrant boys continue to be alienated academically, they risk sinking irretrievably into an economic underclass. Oscar Herrera, Marthas dropout brother, may be realizing that. “Im thinking of returning to school,“ he recently told his mother. He ought to look to
11、 his sisters for guidance. 1 What is the probable purpose of the study by Marcelo and Carola? （ A） To present a shocking fact that girls are academically better than boys. （ B） To explore the performance of immigrant children and analyze the causes behind it. （ C） To warn the Americans that US-born
12、kids may have the same problem as immigrants. （ D） To warn the school about the discrepancy among immigrant kids. 2 What can we know about immigrant girls? （ A） They have no difficulty in adopting American youth culture. （ B） Parents impose more duties on them than on the boys. （ C） It is not easy f
13、or them to shake off the influence of traditional culture and adopt the new one. （ D） They can cope very well with two different cultures in which they are involved. 3 It can be inferred from the cultural awareness training that_. （ A） Latino boys annoying behavior brings them an unfavorable image （
14、 B） boys have really bad relationship with the wider society （ C） boys are superior to girls in Latino culture （ D） people have prejudice against boys 4 The phrase “cultural ambassador“(Line 3, Para. 4)probably means that the girls_ （ A） are more outgoing and eloquent than boys （ B） work as a transl
15、ator for their parents （ C） dream of becoming an ambassador one day （ D） play an important role in helping their parents adapt to other cultures 5 We can infer from the last paragraph that_. （ A） drop-out boys should be ashamed of themselves （ B） parents are responsible for the drop-out boys （ C） ma
16、ny immigrant boys may be at an economic disadvantage in future （ D） more attention should be paid to immigrant children 5 As 56 million children return to the nations 133, 000 elementary and secondary schools, the promise of “reform“ is again in the air. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has announced
17、 $ 4 billion in Race to the Top grants to states whose proposals demonstrated, according to Duncan, “a bold commitment to education reform“ and “creativity and innovation that is breathtaking“. What they really show is that few subjects inspire more intellectual dishonesty and political puffery(极力吹捧
18、 )than “school reform“. To be sure, some improvements have occurred in elementary schools. But what good are they if theyre erased by high school? Theres also been a modest narrowing in the high-school achievement gaps between whites and blacks, although the narrowing generally stopped in the late 1
19、980s.(Average scores have remained stable because, although blacks scores have risen slightly, the size of these minority groups has also expanded. This means that their still-low scores exert a bigger drag on the average. The two effects offset each other.) Standard explanations of this meager prog
20、ress fail. Too few teachers? Not really. From 1970 to 2008, the student population increased 8 percent while the number of teachers rose 61 percent. Are teachers ill paid? Perhaps, but thats not obvious. In 2008 the average teacher earned $53, 230; two full-time teachers married to each other and ma
21、king average pay would rank among the richest 20 percent of households. Maybe more preschools would help. Yet the share of 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool has rocketed from 11 percent in 1965 to 53 percent in 2008. “Reforms“ have disappointed for two reasons. First, no one has yet discovered transfo
22、rmative changes in curriculum or pedagogy(教学法 ), especially for inner-city schools, that are(in business lingo)“scalable“ that is, easily transferable to other schools, where they would predictably produce achievement gains. Efforts in New York City and Washington, D. C., to raise educational standa
23、rds involve contentious and precarious school-by-school campaigns to purge “ineffective“ -teachers and principals. The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. Students, after all, have to do the work. If the students arent motivated, even capable teachers may fa
24、il. Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a “good“ college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school “reform“ is that if students arent motivated, its mainly the fault of schools and
25、teachers. The reality is that, as high schools have become more inclusive and adolescent culture has strength-ened, the authority of teachers and schools has eroded. Motivation has weakened because more students dont like school, dont work hard, and dont do well. The conflict between expanding “acce
26、ss“ and raising standards goes against standards. Against these realities, school-“reform“ rhetoric is blissfully evasive. Duncan urges “a great teacher“ in every classroom akin to having every football team composed of Ail-Americans. With that sort of intellectual rigor, what school “reform“ promis
27、es is more disillusion. 6 What does the author think of the announcement of funding for schools? （ A） It is a commitment to education reform. （ B） It will do great help to education reform. （ C） It is nothing but a political show-off. （ D） It inspires students dishonesty in study. 7 From Para. 2 we
28、can learn that_. （ A） elementary schools have made more progress than high schools （ B） little improvement has occurred in high schools （ C） blacks scores in high-school have remained stable （ D） more blacks have immigrated to America since 1980s 8 Which of the following is a reason that caused the
29、reforms to fail? （ A） High schools havent enough teachers. （ B） Teachers dont get rewarded adequately. （ C） Preschools arent sufficient for children. （ D） Theres no radical change on curriculum. 9 What actually weakens students motivation? （ A） The low capability of teachers. （ B） The pressure to ge
30、t into a good college. （ C） The unreasonable curriculum of schools. （ D） The unwillingness of students to study. 10 Which of the following is the best title of the passage? （ A） Why School Reform Fails? （ B） How Should Schools Reform? （ C） School Reform has failed （ D） The Prospect of School Reform
31、10 Of all the lessons taught by the financial crisis, the most personal has been that Americans arent too slick with money. We take out home loans we cant afford. We run up sky-high credit-card debt. We dont save nearly enough for retirement. In response, proponents(支持者 )of financial-literacy educat
32、ion are stumping with renewed zeal. School districts in states such as New Jersey and Illinois are adding money-management courses to their curriculums. The Treasury and Education departments are sending lesson plans to high schools and encouraging students to compete in the National Financial Capab
33、ility Challenge that begins in March. Students with top scores on that exam will receive certificates but chances for long-term benefits are slim. As it turns out, there is little evidence that traditional efforts to boost financial know-how help students make better decisions outside the classroom.
34、 Even as the financial-literacy movement has gained steam over the past decade, scores have been falling on tests that measure how savvy(有常识的 )students are about things such as budgeting, credit cards, insurance and investments. “We need to figure out how to do this the right way, “ says Lewis Mande
35、ll, a professor at the University of Washington who after 15 years of studying financial-literacy programs has come to the conclusion that current methods dont work. A growing number of researchers and educators agree that a more radical approach is needed. They advocate starting financial education
36、 a lot earlier than high school, putting real money and spending decisions into kids hands and talking openly about the emotions and social influences tied to how we spend. Other initiatives are tackling such real-world issues as the commercial and social pressures that affect purchasing decisions.
37、Why exactly do you want those expensive name-brand sneakers so badly? “It takes confidence to take a stand and to think differently, “ says Jeroo Billimoria, founder of Aflatoun, a nonprofit whose curriculum, used in more than 30 countries, aims to help kids get a leg up in their financial lives. “T
38、his goes beyond money and savings. “ Amid such a complicated landscape, some experts question whether there could ever be enough education to adequately prepare Americans for financial life. A better solution, these critics contend, is to reform the system. “What works is creating institutions that
39、make it easy to do the right thing, “ says David Laibson, a Harvard economics professor who, like Mandell, has decided after years of research that education isnt a silver bullet. One idea being discussed in Washington is the automatic IRA. Employers would have to enroll each worker in a personal re
40、tirement-savings account unless that worker decided to opt out. Yet even the skeptics are slow to write off financial education completely. More than anything, they say, we need to rigorously study the financial decisions of alumni of programs like Ariel and Aflatoun and compare them with those of p
41、eers who didnt get the same sort of education. “Until you have experimental evidence, its all a little speculative,“ says Michael Sherraden, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who is conducting a seven-year, randomized, controlled study on whether giving children bank accounts inculca
42、tes the habit of saving. Yes, good, solid research like this takes a lot of time and resources. But if what were doing right now isnt working, its in our own best interest to figure out what does. 11 What is said about traditional financial-literacy education? （ A） School districts in states add fin
43、ancial courses to their curriculums. （ B） The benefits from learning financial courses last a lifelong time. （ C） Financial know-how in class is also helpful in real life. （ D） Financial-literacy movement helped students to invest. 12 What a radical approach do a growing number of researchers and ed
44、ucators advocate? （ A） Tackle real-world issues that affect purchasing decisions. （ B） Start financial education from high school instead of adults. （ C） Put kids in financial environment to learn from life experiences. （ D） Avoid discussing the emotions and social influences about spending. 13 What
45、 does Michael Sherraden think of the financial education of programs like Ariel and Aflatoun? （ A） Its fruitful without any doubt. （ B） Its still under experiment. （ C） It turns out to be a failure. （ D） It needs evidence to prove its success. 14 Whats the authors attitude towards financial educatio
46、n? （ A） Suspicious. （ B） Objective. （ C） Supportive. （ D） Critical. 15 What is the passage mainly about? （ A） Ways to teach kids about money. （ B） Americans way of dealing with money. （ C） Reform on financial education. （ D） New approaches of financial education. 15 American culture is rich, complex
47、, and unique. It emerged from the short and rapid European conquest of an enormous landmass sparsely settled by diverse indigenous peoples. Although European cultural patterns predominated, especially in language, the arts, and political institutions, peoples from Africa, Asia, and North America als
48、o contributed to American culture. All of these groups influenced popular tastes in music, dress, entertainment, and cuisine. As a result, American culture possesses an unusual mixture of patterns and forms forged from among its diverse peoples. The many melodies of American culture have not always
49、been harmonious, but its complexity has created a society that struggles to achieve tolerance and produces a uniquely casual personal style that identifies Americans everywhere. The country is strongly committed to democracy, in which views of the majority prevail, and strives for equality in law and institutions. Characteristics such as democracy and equality flourished in the American environment long before taking firm root in European societies, where the ideals originated. As early as the 1780s, a French writer
