1、大学英语六级（阅读）模拟试卷 3及答案与解析 一、 Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes) Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions attached to the passage. For questions 1-4, mark： Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the infor
2、mation given in the passage; N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage; NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage. 0 Falling Through the Cracks(被忽视 ) Daniel Spangenburger, a high-school senior in Berkeley Springs, W. Va., dreams of attending
3、 a prestigious college like Carnegie Mellon or Cornell. “A degree from either could make a difference for the rest of my life. “ he says. And on the face of it, Spangenburger has what it takes: eight Advanced Placement courses and an impressive 3. 9 grade-point average. He scored 1330 on his SAT(Sch
4、olastic Assessment Tests), well within the range desired by many elite schools, and now hes borrowed an SAT prep book, and hopes to break 1400 on his second try. His teachers say hes smart, motivated and exceptionally mature. He holds two after-school jobs and also finds time to volunteer, setting u
5、p a computer cafe at the local Boys now about 13 percent of all undergraduates are black or Latino. But most come from middle-and upper-middle-class families. Poor kids of all ethnicities remain scarce. A recent study by the Century Foundation found that at the nations 146 most competitive schools,
6、74 percent of students came from upper-middle-class and wealthy families, while only about 5 percent came from families with an annual income of roughly $ 35,000 or less. Many schools say diversity racial, economic and geographic is key to maintaining intellectually vital campuses. But Richard Kahle
7、nberg of the Century Foundation says that even though colleges claim they want poor kids, “they dont try very hard to find them.“ As for rural students like Spangenburger, many colleges dont try at all. “Unfortunately, we go where we can generate a sizable number of potential applicants, “ says Tula
8、ne admissions chief Richard Whiteside, who recruits aggressively and in person from metropolitan areas. Kids in rural areas get a glossy brochure in the mail. Carnegie Mellons dean of admissions, Michael Steidel, drives through Berkeley Springs a few times a year, but hes never stopped to scout for
9、students. He cuts through the small mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains en route from the Pittsburgh campus to more affluent high schools around Washington, D. C. The admissions office doesnt have the money or the time, he says, to help rural kids unravel the admissions process. “Recruiting kids
10、 like that is almost one-on-one.“ he says. When prestigious colleges do reach out to rural students, they often focus on local applicants. Dartmouth encourages applications from kids in New England farm towns. Every year Cornell accepts 175 transfer students from area community colleges, where these
11、 kids often end up. Even when poor rural students have the grades for top colleges, their high schools often dont know how to get them there. Admissions officers rely on guidance counselors to direct them to promising prospects. In affluent high schools, guidance counselors often have personal relat
12、ionships with both kids and admissions officers. “In rural areas, a teacher, a counselor or even an alumnus can help put a rural student on our radar screen“, says Wesleyan admissions dean Nancy Meislahn. “But poor rural schools rarely have college advisers with those connections; without them, admi
13、ssion can be a crapshoot“, says Carnegie Mellons Steidel. Spangenburger would like to roll the dice; hes just not sure how. Tall, soft-spoken and handsome, Spangenburger is the cream of the 660 students in his school. More than half his classmates live below the poverty line. Just 40 percent of grad
14、uates get some higher education, most often community college or vocational school. About 10 percent go to the state university in Morgantown; Spangenburgers scores guarantee him a full scholarship there. But stepping from his small community to a pricey, competitive college requires a big leap of f
15、aith. Carnegie Mellon and Cornell cost about $ 35,000 a year, and figuring out how to cobble together loans, grants and financial aid has been daunting. Many of the adults in Spangenburgers life especially his parents(a nursing assistant and a factory worker) are urging him to aim high. And he has p
16、ored over dozens of glossy brochures, eliminating any school that requires history(his least favorite subject). Hes studied the Web sites of his dream schools, but is too nervous to e-mail admissions officers or faculty members, even though colleges encourage prospective students to get in touch. He
17、s thinking about visiting Carnegie Mellon, but hasnt yet. Berkeley Springs guidance counselor, Linda McGraw, has been some help. But shes quick to point out that shes more social worker than college adviser. “I have kids who have gotten pregnant, kids who have moved out from their families, “ says M
18、cGraw. “I wish I had more time for college advising, but I just dont. “ Months ago, Spangenburger grilled her about early action(nonbinding)versus Early Decision(binding). For other details about college life, he relies on friends of friends. Not all Berkeley Springs high-school students go it alone
19、. Last summer, coach Angelo Luvara made 50 videotapes of Matt Rockwell, the schools star football player, and sent them to coaches at top schools around the nation. Since then Rockwell, who has a B average, has been deluged with calls from coaches at Yale; the University of California, Berkeley; Jam
20、es Madison, and Eastern Kentucky University. “I want to help one smart, talented kid get his foot in the door, “ says Luvara. In the past few years some schools have begun to open that door a little wider. At MIT its something of a mission for Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions. Twenty years ago,
21、 25 percent of each MIT class were first-generation college goers from poor backgrounds who used the celebrated engineering school as a ticket out of the blue-collar world. Five years ago, when that number dipped below 10 percent, Jones began scouring(搜索 )the country for bright kids, and then paired
22、 the potential applicants with MIT faculty and students who could answer questions about college life. In four years Jones has doubled the number of poor first-generation students at MIT. As college-application deadlines loom in the next two months, Spangenburger reads and rereads the brochures hes
23、saved and tries to imagine himself amid the crowds of smiling, well-dressed students. “A couple of people have told me, Buy a BMW, youll fit right in, “ he says bleakly, “I wonder what theyll make of a hick from West Virginia. “ Spangenburgers parents worry their son will be so intimidated by the cu
24、lture of an elite school that he wont attend, even if he gets in. “We know hes afraid, “ says David Spangenburger. “He doesnt think hes good enough. “ Hes decided to apply to Carnegie Mellon and Cornell. If he doesnt get in or cant find the money to attend, hell settle for WVU. Although the computer
25、-science program at WVU isnt as famous, its not bad, either. “Ive gotten myself this far, “ he says. “Ill do what I have to do to make myself a success. “ He speaks with a determination that any college admissions officer would love if only they could hear him. 1 Which of the following is an obstacl
26、e that hinders Spangenburger to go to a prestigious college? （ A） His home economic condition. （ B） His SAT scores. （ C） His short insecure study time. （ D） His ignorance to registration requirement. 2 Not all students enrolled by elite schools are qualified because_. （ A） there arent so-called elit
27、e schools at all （ B） black and latino cannot be qualified no matter how hard they try （ C） some applicants are given a special preference （ D） there exists no ideal world 3 What can we know from the study by the Century Foundation? （ A） The complexion of mostly white universities have changed. （ B）
28、 A large portion of the students in the famous universities is white. （ C） Poor kids remain scarce in the most competitive schools. （ D） Famous universities refuse to recruit poor students. 4 According to Richard Kahlenberg, the poor kids_. （ A） are the key to keep the campuses intellectually vital
29、（ B） dont know how to get access to the recruiters （ C） are not qualified for good schools （ D） lack the chance to be found by schools 5 Usually, admissions officers contact promising prospects by_. （ A） consulting guidance counselors （ B） handing out glossy brochures （ C） recruiting college student
30、s in person （ D） keeping good relationship with kids 6 According to the passage, two fifths of Spangenburgers classmates prefer to choose _for their higher education. （ A） community college （ B） state university （ C） private university （ D） technology university 7 McGraw helps Spangenburger by_. （ A
31、） telling him something about early action and early decision （ B） telling him some details about college life （ C） guiding him in Carnegie Mellon （ D） applying university for him 8 So many famous universities call Rockwell because they have seen his performance by_. 9 Marilee Jones makes effort to
32、let the potential applicants of MIT know about_ from MIT faculty and students. 10 If Spangenburger cannot be enrolled in the colleges he dreams of, the last choice will be to major in_in WVU. 10 States Experiment With Out-of-Classroom Learning At the end of this month, most of Ohios teenagers will s
33、hake off their summertime blues, dust off their book bags, and head back to school. But others might be heading to an internship at a local newspaper or hitting the books for independent study. Some might even stay planted in front of the computer screen. Thats thanks to the states new credit flexib
34、ility program, which Ohio is launching for the 2010-11 academic year. The plan puts Ohio on the front lines of a transition a-way from a century-old paradigm of equating classroom time with learning. But while theres a broad consensus that that measure, the Carnegie Unit(卡内基学分 ), is due for replacem
35、ent, no such unanimity exists about the design and prospects for plans like Ohios. While most stakeholders agree that its theoretically preferable to give students the chance to personalize their education, it remains unclear how effective the alternatives are, how best to assess them, and whether t
36、odays teachers are equipped to administer them. “Certainly the Carnegie Unit needs undermining, “ says Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based education think tank that also runs charter schools in Ohio. “Its far better to have a competency-based system
37、in which some kind of an objective measure of whether you know anything or have learned anything is better. “ The Ohio States program will be among the most sweeping, but nearly half of the states now offer similar alternatives although in many cases thats nothing more than allowing students to test
38、 out of classes by demonstrating proficiency. A smaller but growing number of states, from Florida to New Jersey to Kentucky, have begun allowing students to earn credit through internships, independent studies, and the like. Its a logical extension of the realization that simply being in a seat fro
39、m bell to bell doesnt guarantee intellectual development. Students and their parents are at least theoretically attracted to the idea of studying what they want, at the pace they want. Teachers are on board, too. “It really will allow more meaningful experiences for students, “ says Sue Taylor, pres
40、ident of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, a teachers union that participated in designing the program. “Any time a student is able to take the lead or take some charge of some aspect, that student is going to be more motivated and learn something at a deeper level. “ The motivation will extend to ed
41、ucators, she says: “many teachers complain that the controversial No Child Left Behind law forced them to teach to tests, preparing students to pass inflexible multiple-choice assessments, but the new rules should make room for more creativity. “ Of course, creativity cant preclude quality. “The con
42、cern is that the advocates of personalization dont necessarily advocate between good personalization and bad personalization, “ says Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “A lot of these internships end up being time wasters, being silly,
43、being trivial. “ While individual schools have found success with flexible systems, its unclear how they will work when scaled up to apply to entire districts or states. Many states with provisions for internships and independent-study programs are “local control“ states, meaning that while the stat
44、es Department of Education may mandate or allow high schools to give students options, the decision about what qualifies as a valid educational experience is left to local authorities. The bar could be set differently from city to city, school to school, or even teacher to teacher. Ohio, for example
45、, hasnt offered solid guidelines to districts, although a spokesman says the state will collect data each year on how many students participated and what program they chose in order to “inform Credit Rex statewide going forward. “ It wont conduct a formal audit, though. Thats not enough for some obs
46、ervers. “Thats an easy way for state officials to hide behind the mantra(咒语 )of local control and shirk(逃避 )authority, “ Finn says. In fact, it could run at cross-purposes to a push for the Common Core national curricu-lum standards, an effort President Obama has endorsed and which he discussed in a
47、 July 29 speech on education policy. “Its ironic that were moving toward national standards even at the same time as we are freeing students to do what they want,“ Finn says. “How do policymakers reconcile the commonness and heavy intellectual standards theyve adopted? I dont think its going to be d
48、one well. “ Starting alternatives wont be easy in a difficult fiscal environment. With states across the country desperately broke, even basic public services like schools and police have been put on the chopping block. Hawaii, for instance, cut some school weeks to four days, giving students 17 Fri
49、days off, in the last school year; the plan was massively unpopular. Even though Congress held a special session this week to pass a bill giving states $ 10 billion to keep teachers on the job, school districts are looking at lean times for years to come. Floridas Credit Acceleration Program which expands previous options for accelerated graduation was passed this year with the primary goal of allowing students who are ready to move to
