Contribution of Coeducation
Imagining being asked to spend twelve or so years of your life in a society which consisted only of members of own sex. How would you react? Unless there was something definitely wrong with you, you wouldn’t be too happy about it, to say the least. It is all the more surprising therefore that so many parents in the world choose to impose such abnormal conditions on their children – conditions which they themselves wouldn’t put up with for one minute!
Any discussion of this topic is bound to question the aims of education. Stuffing children’s heads full of knowledge is far from being foremost among them. One of the chief aims of educations is to equip future citizens with all they require to take their place in adult society. Now adult society is made up of men and women, so how can a segregated school possibly offer the right sort of preparation for it? Anyone entering adult society after years of segregation can only be in for a shock.
A co-educational school offers children nothing less than a true version of society in miniature. Boys and girls are given the opportunity to get to know each other, to learn to live together from their earliest years. They are put in a position where they can compare themselves with each other in terms of academic ability, athletic achievement and many of the extra-curricular activities which are part of school life. What a practical advantage it is ( to give just a small example ) to be able to put on a school play in which the male parts will be taken by boys and the female parts by girls! What nonsense co-education makes of the argument that boys are cleverer than girl or vice-versa. When segregated, boys and girls are made to feel that they are a race apart. Rivalry between the sexes is fostered. In a coeducational school, everything falls into its proper place.
But perhaps the greatest contribution of co-education is the healthy attitude to life it encourages. Boys don’t grow up believing that women are mysterious creatures – airy goddesses, more like book-illustrations to a fairy-tale, than human beings. Girls don’t grow up imagining that men are romantic heroes. Years of living together at school dispel illusions of this kind. There are no goddesses with freckles, pigtails, piercing voices and inky fingers. There are no romantic heroes with knobby knees, dirty fingernails and unkempt hair. The awkward stage of adolescence brings into sharp focus some of the physical and emotional problems involved in growing up. These can better be overcome in a co-educational environment. Segregated schools sometimes provide the right conditions for sexual deviation. This is hardly possible under a co-educational system. When the time comes for the pupils to leave school, they are fully prepared to enter society as well-adjusted adults. They have already had years of experience in coping with many of the problems that face men and women.
小題1:What is the best title for this passage?
A only co-education can be in harmony with society.
B people are in great need of co-education.
C any form of education other than co-education is simply unthinkable.
D co-education has many features.
小題2:what does co-education offer to children?
A A society.           B A true small model of society.
C A real life.          D True version of social condition.
小題3:According to the passage, what is one of the chief aims of education?
A It is for students to acquire knowledge.
B It is to equip future citizens with scientific technology.
C It is to equip future citizens with what is required in getting a position in society.
D It is for students to get academic achievements.
小題4:Why do boys and girls in co-education have no illusion about each other?
A They live together and know each other too well.
B Years of living together at school dismiss such illusion.
C co-education encourage them to have an healthy attitude toward life.
D They are familiar with each other’s problems.

While students in Hainan are quite used to clear skies, Beijing teenagers are not so lucky. As another warm winter approaches, the city can expect the normal clouds of smoke caused by air pollution.
But things could start to get better soon. The government is co-operating with a US-based environmental protection agency to update existing buses and trucks with clean fuel technology. The new technology could reduce air pollutants in existing diesel vehicles (柴油機(jī)) by 40 per cent. The programme will begin by testing buses in Beijing to see if the technology can be applied to them.
“We encourage the development of public transportation. But at the same time we need to reduce pollution from them,” said an official.
Efforts are being made to improve the capital’s environment with tighter controls on emissions (排放). Some heavily polluting factories and construction sites, such as those owned by the steel giant Shougang Group, have been asked to cut production in November and December or be closed.
Beijing was the third polluted city in the world at the end of last century, according to the UN. But thanks to recent measures, the capital has made some progress. Last year 224 clear days were rated as having good air quality. In 1998 the air quality index (指數(shù)) gave just 100 days as good.
“I am glad to see an improvement,” said a Senior 1 boy living in the northwest of Beijing. “Compared to other places, the air quality of Beijing is still worrying though. I hate the pollution. Once I was riding my bike in the morning when I almost had a traffic accident because I couldn’t see a car only metres away from me in frog.”
In early October, the skies were covered by such a thick fog that a display show by the visiting French air force was called off.
Rapid development, industry, traffic fumes (煙) and sandstorms from the desert all contribute to the city’s bad air.
小題1:The passage is mainly about ________?

A．a(chǎn) programme to improve Beijing’s air quality

B．progress made in Beijing’s air quality

C．Beijing’s air pollution

D．the difference between Hainan and Beijing

小題2:Which of the following is not the measure taken or to be taken to improve Beijing’s air?

A．Clean fuel technology will be used in public transportation.

B．Some factories have been asked to cut production.

C．Some construction sites have been told to be closed.

D．A display show of airplanes has been called off.

小題3:We can infer from the passage that, with the aim of being an ecological (生態(tài)的) city by the 2008 Olympics, ________.

A．far more still needs to be done

B．nothing else needs to be done

C．a(chǎn)ll traffic has to be closed

D．the development of the city has to be slowed down

小題4:Which is not correct according to the passage?

A．Beijing’s air quality is getting worse and worse.

B．Development, industry, traffic fumes and sandstorms are all the causes of bad air quality.

C．Clouds of smoke in the sky is the common feature in the winter of Beijing.

D．The government is making every effort to stop air pollution.

A “l(fā)ost tribe” that reached America from Australia may have been the first Native Americans, according to a new theory.
If proved by DNA evidence, the theory will break long established beliefs about the southerly migration of people who entered America across the Bering Strait, found it empty and occupied it.
On this theory rests the belief of Native Americans to have been the first true Americans. They would be classified to the ranks of escapee, beaten to the New World by Aboriginals (土著人) in boats.
To a European, this may seem like an academic argument, but to Americans it is a philosophical question about identity, Silvia Gonzales, of Liverpool University said .
Her claims are based on skeletons found in the California Peninsula of Mexico that have skulls quite unlike the broad Mongolian features of Native Americans. These narrow-skulled people have more in common with southern Asians, Aboriginal Australians and people of the South Pacific Region.
The bones, stored at the National Museum of Anthropology (人類(lèi)學(xué)) in Mexico City, have been carbon-dated and one is 12,700 years old, which places it several thousand years before the arrival of people from the North. “We think there were several migration waves into the Americas at different times by different human groups,” Dr. Gonzales said. “The timing, route and point of origin of the first colonization of the Americas remains a most contentious topic in human evolution.”
But comparisons based on skull shape are not considered conclusive by anthropologists, so a team of Mexican and British scientists, backed by the Natural Environment Research Council, has also attempted to take out DNA from the bones. Dr. Gonzales declined yesterday to say exactly what the results were, as they need to be checked, but indicated that they were consistent(一致) with an Australian origin.
小題1:It is generally considered that the first Native Americans came from ________.

A．North Asia	B．Australia
C．South Pacific	D．South Asia

小題2:The skeletons found in the California Peninsula of Mexico have ________.

A．the broad skull shape

B．the narrow skull shape

C．different features of Aboriginal Australians

D．the same features of Native Americans

小題3:The underlined “contentious” is similar in meaning to “________”.

A．likely to cause great interest	B．difficult to solve
C．well-known to all	D．likely to cause argument

小題4:Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

A．Research on skulls can draw an exact conclusion.

B．DNA tests have proved the fact that the first Native Americans came from Australian.

C．Scientists are still not sure about the origin of the Native Americans.

D．People began to enter America across the Bering Strait about 12,700 years ago.

The Best of Friends
The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image(印象)of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past.” We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seen to be about their families,” said one member of the research team.” They’re expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There’s more negotiation(商議) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends.” My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-years-old Daniel Lazall.” I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.”Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees.”Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework ,I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenagers’ rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments,” Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in out social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.”
小題1:What is the popular images of teenagers today?

A．They worry about school	B．They dislike living with their parents
C．They have to be locked in to avoid troubles	D．They quarrel a lot with other family members

小題2:  The study shows that teenagers don’t want to ___

A．share family responsibility	B．cause trouble in their families
C．go boating with their family	D．make family decisions

小題3: Compared with parents of 30 years age, today’s parents___.

A．go to clubs more often with their children	B．a(chǎn)re much stricter with their children
C．care less about their children’s life	D．give their children more freedom

小題4: According to the author, teenage rebellion____.

A．may be a false belief	B．is common nowadays
C．existed only in the 1960s	D．resulted from changes in families

小題5:What is the passage mainly about?

A．Negotiation in family	B．Education in family
C．Harmony in family	D．Teenage trouble in family

For a clearer picture of what the student knows, most teachers use another kind of examination in addition to objective tests. They use “essay” tests, which require students to write long answers to broad, general questions such as the following: “Mention several ways in which Benjamin Franklin has influenced thinking of people in his own country and in other parts of the world.”
One advantage of the essay test is that it reduces the element of luck. The student cannot get a high score just by making a lucky guess. Another advantage is that it shows the examiner more cares about the student’s ability to put facts together into a meaningful whole. It should show how deeply he has thought about the subject. Sometimes, though, essay tests have disadvantages, too. Some students are able to write rather good answers without really knowing much about the subject, while other students who actually know the material have trouble expressing their ideas in the essay form.
Besides, in an essay test the student’s score may depend upon the examiner’s feelings at the time of reading the answer. If he is feeling tired or bored, the student may receive a lower score than he should. Another examiner reading the same answer might give it a much higher mark. Because of this, the objective test gives each student a fairer chance, and of course it is easier and quicker to score.
Whether an objective test or an essay test is used, problems arise. When some objective questions are used along with some essay questions, however, a fairly clear picture of the student’s knowledge can usually be gotten.
小題1:What may have been discussed in the previous paragraphs?

A．The essay test.	B．How teachers test their students.
C．How students write their essays.	D．The objective test.

小題2:The essay test is preferred because ______.

A．it shows more about the student’s understanding of the subject

B．it tests the student’s knowledge of the material as well as his expression of ideas

C．it gives each student a fairer chance

D．its scoring may be influenced by the examiner’s feelings

小題3: The underlined word “this” refers to the fact that ______.

A．students may receive a lower score in an essay test

B．a(chǎn)nother examiner usually gives the answer a higher mark

C．different examiners may give the same essay different scores

D．the objective test gives each student a fairer chance

小題4:According to the passage, which of the following statements about the objective test is NOT true?

A．It is more objective than the essay test in terms of scoring.

B．It allows the student to guess the correct answer without really knowing the material.

C．It shows the student’s ability to think about difficult problems.

D．It is easy and quick to score.

Everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older, but men's minds decline more than women's, according to the results of a worldwide survey.
Certain differences seem to be inherent in male and female brains: Men are better at maintaining and dealing with mental images (useful in mathematical reasoning<推論；說(shuō)服> and spatial <空間的>skills), while women tend to excel (擅長(zhǎng)) at recalling information from their brain's files (helpful with language skills and remembering the locations of objects).
Many studies have looked for a connection between sex and the amount of mental decline (衰退) people experience as they age, but the results have been mixed.
Some studies found more age-related decline in men than in women, while others saw the opposite or even no relationship at all between sex and mental decline. Those results could be improper because the studies involved older people, and women live longer than men: The men tested are the survivors, "so they're the ones that may not have shown such cognitive（認(rèn)知的；認(rèn)識(shí)的） decline," said study team leader Elizabeth of the University of Warwick in England.
People surveyed completed four tasks that tested sex-related cognitive skills: matching an object to its rotated（旋轉(zhuǎn)的） form, matching lines shown from the same angle, typing as many words in a particular category (范疇) as possible in the given time, e.g.  "object usually colored gray", and recalling the location of objects in a line drawing. The first two were tasks at which men usually excel; the latter are typically dominated(占有主導(dǎo)地位的) by women.
Within each age group studied, men and women performed better in their separate categories on average. And though performance declined with age for both genders（性別）, women showed obviously less decline than men overall（全部地）.
小題1:The underlined word in the second paragraph means_________.

A．natural

B．great

C．obvious

D．a(chǎn)bsolute

小題2:According to the passage, which of the following can Not be typed into the same category?

A．cloud

B．sheep

C．trees

D．goose

小題3:Which of the following statements is true according the article?

A．Men do better than women when it comes to learning English.

B．Women stand out at remembering people’s names.

C．Men excel at typing as many words in a particular category as possible in the given time.

D．Women excel at dealing mathematic problems.

小題4: One important factor that affects the correctness of the results is that _________.

A．the old men tested may not have shown such cognitive decline
B．people surveyed are all old
C．people taking part in this test came from all over the world	D．women live longer than men

小題5:The author aims to tell us that __________.

A．women’s minds perform better than men’s

B．men’s minds decline more with age

C．everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older

D．a(chǎn) survey on human’s mind decline was done recently

Superconducting Materials
The stone age, The Iron Age. Entire epochs have been named for materials. So what to call the decades ahead? The choice will be tough. Welcome to the age of superstuff(超級(jí)材料). Material science -- once the least sexy technology – is bursting with new, practical discoveries led by superconducting ceramics that may revolutionize electronics. But superconductors are just part of the picture: from house and cars to cook pots and artificial teeth, the world will someday be made of different stuff. Exotic plastics, glass and ceramics will shape the future just as surely as have genetic engineering and computer science.
The key to the new materials is researchers’ increasing ability to manipulate substances at the molecular level. Ceramics, for example, have long been limited by their brittleness. But by minimizing the microscopic imperfections that cause it, scientists are making far stronger ceramics that still retain such qualities as hardness and heat resistance. Ford Motor Co. now uses ceramic tools to cut steel. A firm called Kyocera has created a line of ceramic scissors and knives that stay sharp for years and never rust or corrode.
A similar transformation has overtaken plastics. High-strength polymers now form bridges, ice-skating rinks and helicopter rotors. And one new plastic that generates electricity when vibrated or pushed is used in electric guitars, touch sensors for robot hands and karate jackets that automatically record each punch and chop. Even plastic litter, which once threatened to permanently blot the landscape, has proved amenable to molecular tinkering. Several manufacturers now make biodegradable forms; some plastic six-pack rings for example, gradually decompose when exposed to sunlight. Researchers are developing ways to make plastics as recyclable as metal or glass. Besides, composites – plastic reinforced with fibers of graphite or other compounds – made the round-the-world flight of the voyager possible and have even been proved in combat: a helmet saved an infantryman’s life by deflecting two bullets in the Grenada invasion.
Some advanced materials are old standard with a new twist. The newest fiberoptic(光學(xué)纖維的) cable that carry telephone calls cross-country are made of glass so transparent that a piece of 100 miles thick is clearer than a standard window pane.
But new materials have no impact until they are made into products. And that transition could prove difficult, for switching requires lengthy research and investment. It can be said a firmer handle on how to move to commercialization will determine the success or failure of a country in the near future.
小題1:How many new materials are mentioned in this passage?
A Two      B Three    C Four    D Five
小題2:Why does the author mention genetic engineering and computer science?
A To compare them with the new materials.
B To show the significance of the new materials on the future world.
C To compare the new materials to them.
D To explain his view point.
小題3:Why is transition difficult?
A Because transition requires money and time.
B Because many manufacturers are unwilling to change their equipment.
C Because research on new materials is very difficult.
D Because it takes 10 years.
小題4:Where lies success of a country in the New Age of superstuff?
A It lies in research.      B It lies in investment.
C It lies in innovation.    D It lies in application.

 To many web-building spiders, most of whom are nearly blind, the web is their essential window on the world: their means of communicating, capturing prey（獵物）, meeting mates and protecting themselves. A web-building spider without its web is like a men cast away on an island of solid rock，totally out of touch and destined to

starve to death.
So important is the web to an orb-web spider's survival that the animal will continue to construct new webs daily even if it is being starved. For 16 days the starving spider builds completely normal webs. Then, as the animal gets scrawnier（憔悴的）， it constructs a wider-meshed web using fewer strands（線）. Such webs would only trap larger prey, which is more economical from the perspective of a starving spider.
The spider stores energy by recycling web protein. It simply eats its own web each evening and reuses it to produce new silk. In studies with radioactively，labeled materials, it was found that 95 percent of web protein reappears in the next day' web. Most of the energy needed for web-building is used in walking over the strands as they are laid down．
Scientists are impressed by the adaptability of the spider's highly preprogrammed brain, which is larger for its size than the brain of any other invertebrate（無(wú)脊推動(dòng)物）．If web-building is interrupted, or if some of the existing strands are destroyed，the spider simply goes back to see where the web is left off and then finishes building a normal web. One spider will finish building the incomplete web of another.　
小題1: Which of the following best expresses the main ideas of the passage?

A．Secrets of Spiders' Adaptability	B．Importance of Webs to Spiders
C．Secrets of the Spiders' Life	D．Spiders' Highly Preprogrammed Brain

小題2:According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Most spiders will stop conducting webs when hungry.

B．One Web-building spider usually conducts one web.

C．Web-building spiders will probably die without their webs．

D．Web-building spiders have good eyesight.

小題3:A spider conducts a wider-meshed web when____________.

A．it is 16 days old	B．it is getting weaker
C．it has fewer wends	D．it hunts for food

小題4:A spider's ability to finish an incomplete web proves that___________.

A．it has a highly preprogrammed brain	B．it reuses its web protein to reproduce new silk
C．the web is everything for a spider	D．it is able to rebuild a destroyed web

It's time to be water efficient!
As populations increase across Australia and the rest of the world, demand for water will also increase. If we don’t reduce each individual’s demand for water (both directly and through embodied water) the water situation will become dire.
It is obvious that we cannot increase demands for water much more without detrimental(有害的) effects to the environment, society and the economy.
It’s all too easy to blame someone else for the water situation –“if 70% of water is used for agriculture then that’s what we should target” – but it’s not that easy. We all depend on the food and resources that agriculture provides, and while there are definitely opportunities to increase water efficiency on the farm, the solution will take more than that.
We each share responsibility for the sustainable management of our water resources, which means using less water at home, in the workplace, at school, on holidays, on the farm, … everyone, everywhere, every time.
It's time to become water efficient! This involves reassessing our relationship with water, and learning to use it more sparingly. On the most basic level, it requires a behavioural（行動(dòng)的） change, and assigning a value to water that truly reflects its worth.
We can also unlock economic benefits of being water efficient. There are many real world examples given in the case studies on this site.
Everybody has a responsibility to save water, if future generations are to enjoy a similar standard of living to the one we enjoy now. In fact, many of the impacts associated with water use are likely to have an effect on our own lives!
www.savewater.com.au has been designed to help you respond to the challenge to become water efficient. It acts as a central repository for relevant information and further advice, so that you can actually achieve significant savings. It also showcases those companies with products that will assist you in your goal.
小題1:Can you infer where this passage is from?

A．newspaper

B．TV programme

C．Radio broadcast

D．Internet

小題2:What can we do to save water?

A．find more water resources

B．use less water everywhere, every time

C．realize the importance of saving water

D．unlock economic benefits of being water efficient

小題3:What is not the reason to save water?

A．There are more and more people in the world.

B．The water resources are limited.

C．Agriculture needs more water.

D．The water is very important for us.

小題4:What is the main idea of this passage?

A．Water is very important for the human.

B．Everybody has a responsibility to save water.

C．It's time to be water efficient.

D．Let’s save water for our future generations.

Dogs may help save the day in the Philippines, as they use their noses to smell out survivors buried by Friday’s mudslide(泥石流). The team of dogs arrived in the Philippines from Spain, and this Tuesday they were just beginning their work. Search officials told CNN they hope the recent rain will wash away the smell of rescue teams so the dogs can do their job more accurately.
The dogs were brought in after sound equipment found sounds coming from deep inside the ruins, at a place where a school stood before the mudslide covered it. The sounds could mean people are still alive under all the mud or it could just be the earth resettling.
On Monday, rescue workers worked at the school site until three in the morning, trying to locate survivors, and they will begin digging again as soon as the dogs think they find someone.
Human teams from the US, Malaysia, and Australia are all trying to help, too. But so far they have yet to locate any survivors. Rescue workers told CNN that an earlier report that 50 survivors had been found was false.
How did all that mud bury the village in the first place? On Friday, 2,400-foot Mt Kanabag turned into a mudslide after two weeks of constant rain weakened it. The mountain crumbled and the mud fell onto the village Guinsaugon, burying the 1,800 people who lived there . Out of the 300 houses in the village, only 3 were not covered by the mud . The village is on a southern Philippine Island called Levte. Rescue efforts have been difficult because the village takes six hours to reach from the nearest airport. Hopefully, the dogs can help their human friends find survivors.
小題1:According to the search officials’ words in the first paragraph, we can learn that_________

A．the smell of rescue teams can disturb the dogs

B．the dogs can follow the smell of rescue teams

C．the gods can’t smell the rescue teams

D．the dogs can tell the differences between people and rescue teams

小題2: The main purpose of this passage is probably_______.

A．to show the way to rescue the victims in the ruins

B．to introduce the instruments to save victims in a disaster

C．to tell readers that dogs can smell out victims buried in the ruins

D．to show how to train dogs to save victims in a mudslide

小題3:How many survivors were found by the dogs?

A．50.

B．Only a few.

C．1,800.

D．None.

小題4:The reason why the rescue work wasn’t going smoothly was probably that_______.

A．the rain was heavy

B．so many people were buried

C．it was difficult to reach the village

D．these is little chance to save the survivors

小題5:The underlined word “crumbled” in the last paragraph can be replaced by______.

A．broke

B．shook

C．fell

D．moved