For years, studies have found that first-generation college students — those who do not have a parent with a college degree — lag behind other students on a range of education achievement factors. Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher. But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them. This has created a ‘paradox’ in that recruiting first-generation students, but then watching many of them fail, means that higher education has ‘continued to reproduce and widen, rather than close’ the achievement gap based on social class, according to the depressing beginning of a paper set to be published in the journal Psychological Science.
But the article is actually quite optimistic, as it outlines a potential solution to this problem, suggesting that an approach (which involves a one-hour, next-to-no-cost program) can close 63 percent of the achievement gap (measured by such factors as grades) between first-generation and other students.
The authors of the paper are from different universities, and their findings are based on a study involving 147 students (who completed the project) at an unnamed private university. First generation was defined as not having a parent with a four-year college degree. Most of the first-generation students (59.1 percent) were recipients of Pell Grants, a federal grant for undergraduates with financial needs, while this was true only for 8.6 percent of the students with at least one parent with a four-year degree.
Their thesis — that a relatively modest intervention could have a big impact — was based on the view that first-generation students may be most lacking not in potential but in practical knowledge about how to deal with the issues that face most college students. They cite past research by several authors to show that this is the gap that must be narrowed to close the achievement gap.
Many first-generation students “struggle to navigate the middle-class culture of higher education, learn the rules of the game, and take advantage of college resources,” they write. And this becomes more of a problem when colleges don’t talk about the class advantage and disadvantages of different groups of students. Because U.S. colleges and universities seldom acknowledge how social class can affect students’ educational experience, many first-generation students lack sight about why they are struggling and do not understand how students like them can improve.
1. The authors of the research article are optimistic because _____________.A.the problem is solvable |
B.their approach is costless |
C.the recruiting rate has increased |
D.their findings appeal to students |
A.study at private universities |
B.are from single-parent families |
C.are in need of financial support |
D.have failed their college education |
A.are actually indifferent to the achievement gap |
B.are inexperienced in handling their issues at college |
C.may lack opportunities to apply for research projects |
D.can have a potential influence on other students |
A.universities often reject the culture of the middle-class |
B.students are usually to blame for their lack of resources |
C.social class greatly helps enrich one’s educational experience |
D.colleges are partly responsible for the problem in question |
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【推荐1】Conservationists go to war over whether humans are the measure of nature’s value. New Conservationists argue such trade-offs are necessary in this human dominated epoch. And they support “re-wilding”, a concept originally proposed by Soule where people curtail economic growth and withdraw from landscapes, which then return to nature.
New Conservationists believe the withdrawal could happen together with economic growth. The California-based Breakthrough Institute believes in a future where most people live in cities and rely less on natural resources for economic growth.
They would get food from industrial agriculture, including genetically modified foods, desalination intensified meat production and aquaculture, all of which have a smaller land footprint. And they would get their energy from renewables and natural gas.
Driving these profound shifts would be greater efficiency of production, where more products could be manufactured from fewer inputs. And some unsustainable commodities would be replaced in the market by other, greener ones — natural gas for coal, for instance, explained Michael Heisenberg, president of the Breakthrough Institute. Nature would, in essence, be decoupled from the economy.
And then he added a caveat: We are not suggesting decoupling as the paradigm to save the world, or that it solves all the problems or eliminates all the trade-offs.
Cynics (悲观者) may say all this sounds too utopian, but Breakthrough maintains the world is already on this path toward decoupling. Nowhere is this more evident than in the United Sates, according to Iddo Wernick, a research scholar at the Rockefeller University, who has examined the nation’s use of 100 main commodities.
Wenick and his colleagues looked at data carefully from the U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center, which keeps a record of commodities used from 1900 through the present day. They found that the use of 36 commodities (sand, iron ore, cotton etc.) in the U. S. Economy had peaked.
Another 53 commodities (nitrogen, timber, beef, etc.) are being used more efficiently per dollar value of gross domestic product than in the pre-1970s era. Their use would peak soon, Wernick said.
Only 11 commodities (industrial diamond, indium, chicken, etc.) are increasing in use (Greenwire, Nov.6), and most of these are employed by industries in small quantities to improve systems processes. Chicken use is rising because people are eating less beef, a desirable development since poultry cultivation has a smaller environmental footprint.
The numbers show the United States has not intensified resource consumption since the 1970s even while increasing its GDP and population, said Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University.
“It seems like the 20th-century expectation we had, we were always assuming the future entailed greater consumption of resources,” Ausubel said. “But what we are seeing in the developed countries is, of course, peaks.”
1. What does the underlined word “trade-offs” refer to in the first paragraph?A.The balance between human development and natural ecology. |
B.The profitability of import and export trade. |
C.The consumption of natural resources by industrial development. |
D.The difficult plight of economies growth. |
A.They believe that mankind should live in forests with rich vegetation. |
B.They believe that mankind will need more natural resources in the future. |
C.They believe that mankind is the master of the whole universe. |
D.They believe that mankind should limit economic growth. |
A.Natural resources cannot support economic development. |
B.More resource consumption will not occur in a certain period of time. |
C.Excessive resource consumption will not affect the ecological environment. |
D.All resource consumption in developed countries has reached a peak. |
A.Urbanization and re-wildness. |
B.Human existence and industrial development. |
C.Socioeconomic development and resource consumption. |
D.Commodity trading and raw material development. |
【推荐2】Even when communing with nature we depend on technology for help-but then, so did Thoreau at Walden Pond.
Walking in the same woods yesterday, I let myself wander at random, communing with nature.
I took in beautiful scenery near and far thanks to my progressive-lens eyeglasses. Occasionally I’d pull out my smartphone to take pictures on anything interesting. I recorded an inner monologue (独白) with a background of all sounds of the forest. At times, I consulted my smart watch to check on my heartbeat, mileage and calorie burn. Eventually I realized I was quite lost. Not a problem of course. Online maps came to my rescue.
But something bothered me. In what I’d intended as a nature experience, here I was using very high technology to help myself out. This insight set off a reconsideration of everything that happened during my “nature walk”, which had been technologically enhanced every step of the way. I’d been functioning as a man-machine combination: a cyborg.
What would the true naturalist Thoreau think of that? My first thought was that he’d be shocked. But later I did some research. Thoreau enjoyed what his spyglass discovered, like this eagle from his journal:
Lying on the ground with my glass, I could watch him very easily…till I almost lost him in the clouds… I think I have got the worth of my glass now that it has revealed to me the white- headed eagle.
Famously, Thoreau always set out equipped with a walking stick, which he used not only for support but also to take measurements of water and snow levels. His hat was also a tool, which he called his “botany-box”. And he was prepared even with needles and thread, so when coming out of the woods, he was “the best dressed”. Clearly, Thoreau was a bit of a cyborg himself.
Thinking more deeply, I realized we’ve come a long way from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who walked from necessity and relied on nature’s gift. Cyborgs are us.
1. What does the underlined part “communing with nature” probably mean in paragraph 1?A.Enjoying the nature in a quiet peaceful way. |
B.Searching for wild animals and birds. |
C.Wandering in nature with high-tech equipment. |
D.Singing and dancing happily in nature. |
A.To recommend Thoreau’s book Walden Pond. |
B.To argue that humans have developed into cyborgs. |
C.To share the reflections on man’s reliance on nature. |
D.To question whether people are technology-dependent. |
A. | B. |
C. | D. |
A.To prove that even naturalists use technology. |
B.To introduce a literary work on nature. |
C.To describe the natural beauty Thoreau enjoyed. |
D.To explain how to prepare for a nature walk. |
【推荐3】With an eye on urbanization, population growth and efficiency, tiny spaces were a big theme at this summer’s Dwell on Design conference in Los Angeles. Designers from around the world proudly presented housing and products for living small – from transformable furniture to 3D printed interior objects.
In North America, about 82% of the total population – roughly 473.8 million people – lives in urban areas.
Micro-apartments tricked out with scaled-down, adaptable furniture and decor could make urban living more compatible (兼容的) with the way people increasingly live now – and help cities as they attempt to absorb more people in the future. The challenges include how to do so affordably, comfortably and with enough privacy to make these spaces homes as well as housing.
Re-thinking the toilet
The greater Tokyo area is the world’s most densely populated metropolitan region with some 38 million residents packed into about 5,200 sq miles.
The design also carries the EPA WaterSense label, averaging a lean 1 gallon per flush. This “saves a family of four more than $90 annually on their water bill, and $2,000 over the lifetime of the toilet”, said TOTO USA’s Lenora Campos.
Convertible furniture re-imagined
To furnish a micro-apartment comfortably, Resource Furniture has re-imagined the old Murphy beds and folding tables with sophisticated book shelves, desks and sofas that can convert into beds. Drawers pull out from under stairs.
A.A sleeping layer might include a platform bed with a desk or closet space underneath, for example. |
B.There’s a very fixed idea of what an apartment needs to be and who you expect to live in the unit will affect the design. |
C.Often their strategies sought to reduce the human footprint on the environment and save energy. |
D.So small sinks and showers are nothing new in compact Japanese bathrooms. |
E.Storage space is cleverly hidden within walls and pushed up to ceilings. |
F.The number of single-person households is rising, although housing has not kept pace with demographic change. |
【推荐1】A simple gesture can be formed into a child’s memory so quickly that it will cause the child to give a false answer to a question along with that gesture. A new finding suggests that parents, social workers, psychologists and lawyers should be careful with their hands as well as their words.
While memories of both adults and children are easy to react to suggestion, those of children are known to be particularly influenced, said lead researcher Sara Broaders of Northwestern University. Kids are used to looking to adults to tell events for them and can be misled even if not intentionally.
Previous research, for example, has shown that detail-loaded questions often cause false answers; when asked, say “Did you drink juice at the picnic?” the child is likely to say “yes” even if no juice had been available. It is not that the child is consciously lying, but rather the detail is quickly formed into his or her memory.
To avoid this problem, social workers have long been advised to ask children only open-ended questions, such as “What did you have at the picnic?” But an open-ended question paired with a gesture, briefly meaning a juice box, is treated like a detailed question. That is, children become likely to answer falsely.
And it isn’t just a few kids: 77% of children gave at least one piece of false information when a detail was suggested by an ordinary gesture. Gestures may also become more popular when talking with non-fluent language users, such as little kids, Broaders said as hand movements can impart meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. “It certainly seems reasonable that adults would gesture more with children.”
In general, Broaders advises parents and other adults to “try to be aware of your hands when questioning a child about an event. Otherwise, you might be getting answers that don’t reflect what actually happened.”
1. What can we know about gestures from the text?A.They are rarely used by people. | B.They have not any function at all. |
C.They have certain effect on children. | D.They are often used by social workers. |
A.Children are easy to tell lies. | B.These gestures are very attractive. |
C.These gestures are used frequently. | D.Children’s memories are affected easily. |
A.Where are you going Lucy? | B.What will you have for lunch? |
C.Did you see anything else last night? | D.Did you cheat in the last English examination? |
A.Tell apart. | B.Pass on. | C.Mix up. | D.Break up. |
【推荐2】With the outbreak of the COVID-19, multiple kinds of protective medical equipment, such as disposable(一次性的)masks, have been consumed. Market research indicates a sharp increase rate of 53% in the mask market alone. People often use these types of protective equipment and then throw them without thinking of the consequences, both on the ecosystem and human beings.
Disposable surgical masks are severely affecting the ecosystem. When improperly-handled masks enter the water system, they break up into smaller pieces. Complete masks can trap marine animals, resulting in their impaired mobility and even death. Meanwhile, the poisonous plastic particles will cause marine animals to be poisoned to death or weakness when they consume plastic. Furthermore, these harmful pollutants can severely affect reproduction, growth, and the development of the young. Just like their effects on marine animals, these pollutants can also contribute to severe harm in human bodies, especially in the neuron system. Exposure to micro plastics may cause particle poisoning, cellular damage and neuro-degenerative (神经退化的) diseases like Alzheimer’s disease(阿尔茨海默症).
Despite the potential harm to the ocean system and human neuron system, improperly-handled disposable masks will likely become a dangerous public health threat under the environment of a global pandemic. Instead of helping us fight against the COVID-19, to some extent, micro plastic pollution also causes the potential risk of speeding up the spread of the virus. Micro plastic particles in the ocean can be mixed up with water vapour to form aerosols in the atmosphere because they are small enough to enter the water cycle, where they are transferred from the marine system to the atmosphere in vast amounts and become a source for the disease COVID-19. thus causing the virus to speed up the spread of the global pandemic.
Humans will eventually suffer from the wrongdoing in the ocean systems because humans are nothing but temporary residents of the planet. Just like what the famous English anthropologist, Jane Goodall, has said, “Every individual matters. Every individual makes a difference.”
1. The underlined word “impaired” in paragraph 2 probably means“_________”.A.strengthened | B.damaged |
C.completed | D.influenced |
A.the impact on marine lives’ reproduction, growth and weakness |
B.the destruction to human’s neuron system, cellular system |
C.the huge economic loss for people living near the sea |
D.the great burden of micro plastic particles on ecosystem |
A.to describe the negative effects of disposed masks on nature and human beings. |
B.to advise readers to deal with the improperly-handled masks. |
C.how the improperly-handled masks help spread the virus. |
D.how to deal with the virus. |
A.To explain a serious phenomenon caused by the virus. |
B.To advocate a proper solution to solving the disposable masks. |
C.To compare the sufferings between marine animals and human beings. |
D.To analyze the harmful results of the improperly-handled masks. |
【推荐3】Marco Springmann and his colleagues, at the Oxford Martin School’s Future of Food Programme, built computer models that predicted what would happen if everyone became vegetarian by 2050. The results indicate that if the world went vegan (严格的素食主义者), the greenhouse gas emissions declines would be around 70%.
In the US, for example, an average family of four emits more greenhouse gases because of the meal they eat than from driving two cars---but it is cars, not steaks, that regularly come up in discussions about global warming.
Food, especially livestock (牲畜,家畜) also takes up a lot of room. 68% of agricultural land in the world is used for livestock. When these lands become grasslands and forests, they would capture carbon dioxide and further ease climate change.
However, if the whole world went vegan, there would be negative effects too. First, it is necessary to keep livestock for environmental purposes. “I’m sitting here in Scotland where the Highlands’ environment is very man-made and based largely on grazing by sheep,” says Peter Alexander, a researcher in socio-ecological systems modeling at the University of Edinburgh. “If we took all the sheep away, the environment would look different and there would be a potential negative impact on biodiversity.”
Plus, meat is an important part of history, tradition and cultural identity. Numerous groups around the world give livestock gifts at weddings, celebratory dinners such as Christmas with turkey or roast beef.
And nowadays, moderation in meal-eating’s frequency and portion size is key to solving these conflicts. “Certain changes would encourage us to make healthier and more environmentally friendly dietary decisions,” says Springmann, “like putting a higher price lag on meat and making fresh fruits and vegetables cheaper.”
In fact, clear solutions already exist for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock industry. What is lacking is the will to carry out those changes.
1. What can we infer from the underlined sentence in the second paragraph?A.Driving cars is more dangerous than eating steaks in the US. |
B.Our dietary choices affecting climate change is often underestimated. |
C.People compare the greenhouse gas emissions of the cars and steaks. |
D.Cars affect the global warming more seriously than the steaks. |
A.It is hard to please all. |
B.Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. |
C.One cannot see the wood for the trees. |
D.Everything is a double-edged sword. |
A.A biology textbook. | B.A health magazine. |
C.A scientific journal. | D.An educational review. |