How good are you at maths? Some people love the challenge of algebra (代数) or enjoy working out number puzzles. Maths is all around us, from working out how to share the bill after a meal, to calculating your family bills. But many are afraid of the moment when they have to deal with numbers and figures and feel a real sense of worry and confusion. It can seem frightening, but this maths anxiety is perfectly normal, and you’re definitely not alone. And anyway, our worries and fears don’t necessarily reflect our ability.
The problem really starts in childhood, at school. Research has found that maths teachers who are nervous about teaching the subject can pass on their anxiety to the pupils, and girls may be more likely to be affected. The Programme for International Student Assessment found around 31% of 15 — and 16 — year — olds across 34 countries said they got very nervous doing maths problems, 33% said they got tense doing maths homework, and nearly 60% said they worried that maths classes would be difficult. Shulamit Kahn, a professor from Boston University, believes that giving students, particularly girls, good role models is critical, especially at a young age. She thinks the key is to get people, especially women who love maths, to teach younger children.
Writing for the BBC, David Robson says, “It’s not clear why maths causes so much fear compared to geography. But the fact that there’s no room for playing tricks might make you more worried about underperforming.” And once we assume that we’re not a maths person, we avoid solving things that we probably could do.
Psychologists have been trying to work out why mental arithmetic (心算) can bring us out in a sweat. That seed of fear may come from many sources, but some suggest that voicing your fears can loosen their control over you. They also suggest encouraging children to see a maths test as a challenge, not a threat. Most importantly, we need to think positively about maths and give it a second chance.
1. What is the author’s understanding of maths anxiety in paragraph 1?| A．It happens when you have to pay bills after a meal. |
| B．It actually reflects one’s poor performance in maths. |
| C．Only students often suffer from this sense of worry. |
| D．People normally have it when dealing with numbers |
| A．The particular feature of maths. |
| B．The fear of failure in maths tests. |
| C．Students’ dislike of learning maths. |
| D．Maths teachers’ lack of confidence. |
| A．Geography seldom causes worry. |
| B．Slow students have maths anxiety. |
| C．Dishonesty is difficult in maths tests. |
| D．Maths students like number puzzles. |
| A．Speaking out your fears in public. |
| B．Employing female maths teachers. |
| C．Having a positive attitude to maths. |
| D．Viewing maths tests as a challenge. |
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【推荐1】Junior Alvarado, a high school student in the Washington Leadership Academy, often struggled in his math classes and earned poor grades. The teachers at the Washington Leadership Academy used computer programs to identify the areas he was weak in and design a learning plan just for him.
“They explain the problem step by step. It wouldn’t be as fast, but at your speed,” said the 15-year-old. “Now I feel better about my maths skills.”
The application of technology in schools is part of a larger idea of personalised learning. This idea has been gaining in popularity in recent years. Personalised learning is a way of teaching centring around the interests and needs of individual (单独的) students instead of entire classes as a whole. It includes flexible (灵活的) learning environments and specially-designed education plans. Students can decide what and how they learn. That way, they are able to master subjects at their own speed.
Joseph Webb, headmaster of the Washington Leadership Academy, says the digital tools help teachers identify problems students are facing before they become too serious. “We can solve them right then and there; we don’t have to wait for the problem to come to us,” he said.
Still, many researchers say it is too early to tell if personalised learning works better than traditional teaching. A recent study found that personalised learning only led to small improvements. It found only a 3% improvement in math and even smaller improvements in reading compared to traditional teaching methods. In addition, experts in children’s health warn that the overuse of technology can damage face-to-face relationships and young people’s interest in physical activity.
Some teachers have their doubts as well. Marla Kilfoyle, a teacher in a public high school, admits that technology can be helpful in the classroom in many ways. But she argues that no computer program should ever replace the personal touch, support and inspiration (启发) teachers give their students.
1. Why does the author mention the example of Junior Alvarado?| A．To encourage schools to use technology. |
| B．To introduce the idea of personalised learning. |
| C．To advise students to try a new way of learning. |
| D．To draw the teacher’s attention to the weak students. |
| A．Students learn on their own. |
| B．Students can do whatever they like. |
| C．Students learn at their own pace. |
| D．Students learn with a teacher face to face. |
| A．The digital tools. | B．The learning problems. |
| C．Students. | D．Teachers. |
| A．Only a few teachers prefer personalised learning. |
| B．Personalised learning is a failed attempt to help slow learners. |
| C．Computer programs are likely to replace the role of teachers. |
| D．Experts are worried about the overuse of technology. |
【推荐2】Online classes began to be popularized just a few decades ago. They are advertised as a way for adults to finish their education and students to learn the material at their own pace—it is far more suitable for people with busy schedules.
But after being enrolled in an online course last fall semester, I came to realize online classes were merely a means to fulfil course requirements.
First of all, students lack the desire to learn, and they simply complete their assignments to receive credit for a passing grade rather than genuinely engage with the course material.
As online courses tend to have more than 100 students, most of the assignments are short and simple. They are not designed for students to interact with the material in depth but designed to be graded casily to accommodate such a large number of students.
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of taking an online class is the absence of face-to-face interaction between the teacher and their students. Live sessions are infrequent and are often scheduled during the middle of the day when students have to attend other classes or work. The office hours of the professor may also be during inconvenient times for many students as well. Most interaction with the professor has to be through email which is often impersonal. It is nearly impossible for students to build a relationship with their professor.
There is also little interaction amongst students. It can be harder for students to create study groups and form relationships with their peers.
Online classes also require either a computer or laptop and a reliable internet connection. Not all students have access to these types of resources, whether it is for financial or other reasons, and some students can be put at a disadvantage.
Offering online classes certainly helps students who would otherwise not be able to attend classroom sessions. However, they fail to provide a genuine education with an emphasis on convenience rather than critical thinking. We need restructured online classes in which students can have a learning experience that will actually provide quality education.
1. What does the author say about students enrolled in online classes?| A．They can access course materials easily. | B．They are unmotivated to learn. |
| C．They can learn at their own pace. | D．They rarely fulfil the course requirements. |
| A．They are made convenient to mark. |
| B．They are meant to facilitate interaction. |
| C．They are based on easily accessible material. |
| D．They are given to accommodate students’ needs. |
| A．They are frequently scheduled at irregular times. |
| B．They make professors’ offices much less accessible. |
| C．They tend to increase professors’ burden of responding to students’ emails. |
| D．They provide little chance for students to build relationships with each other. |
| A．More students may find it easy to be absent from them. |
| B．Teachers will worry about poor internet connections. |
| C．Some students may have difficulty attending them. |
| D．Schools with limited resources will be at a disadvantage. |
| A．Acquisition of useful knowledge. | B．Training of real-life skills on campus. |
| C．Development of students’ personalities. | D．Cultivation of analytical thinking ability. |
【推荐3】It is a known fact that a little bit of competition can be healthy and motivating, but too much competition can do harm to the learning experience.
Try your best.
Accept your mistakes. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You can’t make an A+ every time. When you get a grade you’re not happy with, take it as a learning opportunity and try to do better next time.
Avoid cheating. Be honest and maintain your integrity (诚实). Lying and cheating only help you feel superior to your peers temporarily.
| A．Surround yourself with positive people. |
| B．Let’s say you bombed an important test. |
| C．Don’t lose sight of what makes you special. |
| D．They won’t make you feel good in the long run. |
| E．This helps you feel good no matter what the results. |
| F．Always keep in mind that everybody is in a dog race with you. |
| G．Luckily, you can do a lot to minimize competition’s negative effects. |
【推荐1】Desertification (沙漠化) is a course that has caused much concern over the past few years — and it’s a major problem for the ancient land of Egypt, where 96% of the country’s land is desert.
So why is it that — if you drove a car 10 miles west of the Suez Canal — you would see a large number of forests outlined against the orange sand and blue sky of the Sahara?
The Serapium Forest is the richest of Egypt’s 36 areas that make up a program to fight desertification by creating sustainably managed commercial forests fed completely by wastewater. The 500-mile forest is only a short distance from the 400, 000 people living in the Egyptian city of Ismailia, who produce millions of tons of wastewater every year.
After a dozen-mile journey to the Serapium Forest, the wastewater is then stored underground where oxygen is fed in to speed up the bacterial purification process. A system of pipes then spreads the wastewater throughout the forest. And human wastewater is still rich in chemicals even after being treated.
The government’s effort, called the National Program for Safe Use of Treated Sewage Water for Afforestation is going a long way toward achieving the country’s goals voiced in the 1992 UN Rio conference on climate change.
The research was supported by ForestFinance, a German company that has already planted near-natural forests in Panama and Vietnam to help those countries with their development and wildlife protection. ForestFinance wants to increase the number of species grown in Serapium by including a forest on the site. That way, the biodiversity (生物多样性) of the commercial forest would be able to support a greater number of species, and hopefully bring in money as well. Although the Serapium Forest faces a lot of difficulties, it’s still growing — a 500-acre green wall to join the others in the world in preventing the sands of the world’s deserts from spreading.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To voice a different idea. |
| B．To present research findings. |
| C．To offer background information. |
| D．To introduce a problem-solving approach. |
| A．It was built by the people of Ismailia. |
| B．It was planted to fight climate change. |
| C．It is in danger of being destroyed. |
| D．It is the smallest forest in Egypt. |
| A．The influence of green space on cities. |
| B．The value of the newly-founded Serapium Forest. |
| C．The way of using wastewater to feed the Serapium Forest. |
| D．The preparation for the government setting up the program. |
| A．It raises serious doubts. |
| B．It will bring great benefits. |
| C．It has been going smoothly. |
| D．It encourages the government to take action. |
【推荐2】Most of us are familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation — the idea is that anyone in the planet can be connected to anyone else in just six steps. But is there actually any science to back up this commonly cited theory?
If you just take a look at the following numbers, the six degrees of separation idea seems pretty plausible. Assuming everyone knows at least 44 people, and that each of those people knows an entirely new 44 people, and so on, the math shows that in just six steps everyone could be connected to 446, or 7.26 billion people — more than are alive on Earth today.
But this idea wasn’t scientifically tested until the 1960s, when a psychologist sent 300 packages out to people in Nebraska and Boston, and asked them to use their networks to get them back to one specific target — a stockbroker (股票经纪人) living in Boston. They weren’t asked to forward it to him directly, but to send it to someone they knew on a first name basis, with instructions for that person to forward it on to someone in their network that they thought might know the stockbroker.
Only 64 of those packages actually reached the target, with an average path length of just 5.2 intermediary (中间人) connections, and this experiment was used as evidence for six degrees of separation, or the “small world phenomenon”, as the researcher called it.
But Derek Muller, a researcher, dug a little deeper, and found that, of the original 300 packages, 100 were sent to people already living in Boston (where the target also lives) and 100 were sent to stockbrokers who shared a profession with the target, so there were really only 100 purely random packages sent out. And of those 100, only 18 made it back to the target. “So we’re talking about a sample size of 18 — that’s all the evidence there was for six degrees of separation,” Derek explains.
1. What does the underlined word “plausible” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Reasonable. | B．Absurd. | C．Unbelievable. | D．Original. |
| A．By entrusting the delivery to 5.2 intermediaries. |
| B．By delivering it in person as quickly as possible. |
| C．By passing it on to the target in the shortest time. |
| D．By forwarding it in the shortest intermediary-chain. |
| A．The concept didn’t exist at all. |
| B．The experiment provided solid evidence. |
| C．The sample size was too small to be useful. |
| D．The experiment was carried out scientifically. |
| A．How to Play Six Degrees of Separation in Our Real Life? |
| B．Six Degrees of Separation: An Theory Founded by Derek |
| C．Are We Really All Connected by Six Degrees of Separation? |
| D．Six Degrees of Separation: Scientists Find a Smaller Number |
【推荐3】As life in cities worldwide becomes more expensive, urban designers are using modern technology to help citizens avoid traffic jams and shorten the time needed for bus waiting and other things. Technology also is used to cut costly waste.
In Santander, a Spanish port city, parking is easy to find. As one car drives away, an underground sensor (传感器) shows that a parking space is now free. 400 sensors send messages to signs on streets, and GPS devices direct drivers to the nearest available parking spaces, reducing traffic jams. Trash is collected only when the bins are full and bus stop signs show exactly when the next bus is coming. The public parks are watered only when the soil gets dry.
All this is made possible by 20,000 sensors installed on buildings, street posts and even buses. They are part of the “smart city” project, launched by the University of Cantabria seven years ago. University researchers like Luis Munoz regularly meet with locals to discuss how to make their city even smarter. “They have ideas they propose and sometimes even develop by themselves. Here, we give them the opportunity to see these ideas happen in real life,” said Munoz. For example, the university helped a woman create an app that outlines the easiest route for walking with a baby stroller. Another provides information to residents about their water consumption and sends an alarm to their phone if there is a leak.
The Santander smart project is attracting the attention of larger cities in Europe and elsewhere that are looking for smart solutions to urban problems.
1. What is life in Santander mainly like?| A．It is colorful. | B．It is full of freedom. |
| C．It is likely to change fast. | D．It is made easy by technology. |
| A．By offering an innovative idea. |
| B．By showing him around the city. |
| C．By installing sensors themselves. |
| D．By using as less water as possible. |
| A．A university. | B．A phone. | C．An easy route. | D．An app. |
| A．A Worldwide Problem | B．A Smart City project |
| C．A Creative Researcher | D．A Trend in Urban Design |
