During her junior year of high school, Diane Ray's teacher handed her a worksheet and instructed the 17-year-old to map out her future financial life. Ray pretended to buy a car, rent an apartment, and apply for a credit card. Then, she and her classmates played the "stock market game", investing（投資) the hypothetical（虛擬的） earnings from their hypothetical jobs in the market in the disastrous fall of 2008. "Our pretend investments crashed," Ray says, still frightened. "We got to know how it felt to lose money."

That pain of earning and losing money is a feeling that public schools increasingly want to teach. Forty states now offer some type of financial instruction at the high-school level, teaching students how to balance checkbooks and buy stock in math and social-studies classes. Though it's too early to measure the full influence of the Great Recession（大蕭條）, the interest in personal-finance classes has risen since 2007 when bank failures started to occur regularly. Now, many states including Missouri, Utah, and Tennessee require teenagers to take financial classes to graduate from high school. School districts such as Chicago are encouraging money-management classes for kids as young as primary school, and about 300 colleges or universities now offer online personal-finance classes for incoming students. "These classes really say, 'This is how you live independently,' " says Ted Beck, president of National Endowment for Financial Education.

Rather than teach investment methods or financial skills, these courses offer a back-to-the-basics approach to handling money: Don't spend what you don't have. Put part of your monthly salary into a savings account, and invest in the stock market for the long-term rather than short-term gains. For Ray, this means dividing her earnings from her part-time job at a fast-food restaurant into separate envelopes for paying bills, spending and saving. "Money is so hard to make but so easy to spend," she says one weekday after school. "That is the big takeaway."

Teaching kids about the value of cash certainly is one of the programs' goals, but teachers also want students to think hard about their finances long term. It's easy for teenagers to get annoyed about gas prices because many of them drive cars. But the hard part is urging them to put off the instant satisfaction of buying a new T-shirt or an iPod. "Investing and retirement aren't things teenagers are thinking about. For them, the future is this weekend," says Gayle Whitefield, a business and marketing teacher at Uth’s Riverton High School.

That’s a big goal for these classes: preventing kids from making the same financial missteps their parents did when it comes to saving, spending, and debt. Though the personal savings rate has increased up to 4. 2 percent, that’s still a far distance from 1982, when Americans saved 11. 2 percent of their incomes. “It’s hard for schools to reach strict money-management skills when teenagers go home and watch their parents increase credit-card debt. It’s like telling your kids not to smoke and then lighting up a cigarette in front of them,” Beck says.

Even with these challenges, students such as Ray say learning about money in school is worthwhile. After Ray finished her financial class, she opened up a savings account at her local bank and started to think more about how she and her family would pay for college. “She just has a better understanding of money and how it affects the world,” says her mother, Darleen－and that’s sown to the details of how money is spent from daily expenses to various taxes. All of this talk of money can make Ray worry, she says, but luckily, she feels prepared to face it.

1.The “stock market game” mentioned in Paragraph 1 is meant to .

A. introduce a new course to students

B. help students learn about investment

C. teach how to apply for a credit card

D. encourage students’ personal savings

2.How does the writer show us that schools’ interest in teaching financial classes has increased in paragraph 2_________?

A. By giving examples. B. By providing data.

C. By raising questions. D. By making comparisons.

3.According to the passage, taking money-management courses will .

A. better students’ learning methods

B. prevent students going into debt

C. help students get accepted by colleges

D. make students become very wealthy

4.After completing the financial class, Diane Ray is likely to .

A. pay off all her debts. B. handle her money better

C. find a job in a bank. D. manage the family income

5.The passage is mainly about .

A. ways to teach students to earn money

B. how Diane Ray learns to value money

C. the push to teach personal finance in school

D. how students choose a proper financial class

 

1.B

2.A

3.B

4.B

5.C

【解析】

試題分析：由于受金融危機(jī)的影響，公立學(xué)校正在逐漸開設(shè)金融課，來教授學(xué)生基本知識(shí)，認(rèn)識(shí)金錢和如何使用、分配金錢，并未將來做打算。

1.instructed the 17-year-old to map out her future financial life.”可知，老師是在指導(dǎo)Ray如何進(jìn)行投資，故選B。

2.Now, many states including Missouri, Utah, and Tennessee require teenagers to take financial classes to graduate from high school. School districts such as Chicago are encouraging money-management classes for kids as young as primary school, and about 300 colleges or universities now offer online personal-finance classes for incoming students.”可知，作者通過舉例子的方式來說明學(xué)校對(duì)教授金融課的興趣的增加，故選A。

3.Rather than teach investment methods or financial skills, these courses offer a back-to-the-basics approach to handling money: Don't spend what you don't have. Put part of your monthly salary into a savings account, and invest in the stock market for the long-term rather than short-term gains.”和第五段“That’s a big goal for these classes: preventing kids from making the same financial missteps their parents did when it comes to saving, spending, and debt.”可知，學(xué)校更多的是教授學(xué)生基本的用錢之道，而不是教授投資技巧和金融知識(shí)，目標(biāo)是防止孩子犯他們父母犯過的錯(cuò)誤，故選B。

4.Ray say learning about money in school is worthwhile. After Ray finished her financial class, she opened up a savings account at her local bank and started to think more about how she and her family would pay for college.”可知，Ray在上過金融課之后，會(huì)更好地分配錢，故選B。

5.That pain of earning and losing money is a feeling that public schools increasingly want to teach. ...the interest in personal-finance classes has risen since 2007 when bank failures started to occur regularly”可知，經(jīng)濟(jì)危機(jī)帶來的損失正在越來越促使各地對(duì)的學(xué)校開設(shè)金融課，故選C。

考點(diǎn)：教育類短文閱讀

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