In the coming era of budget(预算) cuts to education, distance learning could become a common thing.
The appeal to those in charge of education budgets to trade teachers for technology is so strong that they tend to ignore the disadvantages of distance learning. School facilities are expensive to build and maintain, and teachers are expensive to employ. It’s true that online classes do not require buildings and each class can host hundreds of people, which can result in greater savings, but moving away from a traditional classroom in which a living, breathing human being teaches and interacts with students daily would be a disaster.
Physically attending school has hidden benefits: getting up every morning interacting with peers, and building relationships with teachers are important skills to cultivate(培养) in young people. Moreover, schools are more than simple places of traditional learning. They are also places that provide meals, places where students receive mental help and other support.
Those policy-makers are often fascinated by the latest technology in education and its potential to transform education overnight. But online education does not allow a teacher to keep a struggling student after class and offer help. Educational videos may deliver academic content, but they are unable to make eye contact or assess a student’s level of engagement. Distance education will never match the personal teaching in a traditional classroom. In their first 18 years of life, American children spend only 9% of their time in school. Yet teachers are expected to prepare them to be responsible citizens, cultivate their social skills, encourage successful time management, and enhance their capacity to compete in a competitive job market. Given these expectations, schools should not become permanently “remote”.
The power of the classroom is rooted in the qualities of the people gathered in the same place, at the same time, including their nature, empathy, devotion and so on. Technology, no matter how advanced, should simply be a tool of a good teacher.
1. What is one possible benefit of students attending school physically?| A．Forming the habit of getting up early. |
| B．Eating nutritionally well-balanced meals. |
| C．Growing into living and breathing human beings. |
| D．Developing relationships with peers and teachers. |
| A．It may reduce face-to-face interaction. |
| B．It may make many teachers jobless. |
| C．It may add to student’s financial burden. |
| D．It may revolutionize classroom teaching. |
| A．To enhance student’s leadership capacity. |
| B．To teach students skills in applying for jobs. |
| C．To enable students to adapt to the changes in life. |
| D．To prepare students to be competitive in the future. |
| A．It lacks humanity. | B．It can’t meet personal needs. |
| C．It is still not advanced. | D．It can’t track students’ growth. |
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【推荐1】HONG KONG — At the school where Ko Cheuk-kiu works, there are neither school bells ringing nor students running around the playground. “You look good today. Shall we review the text together?” After greeting her student Hei Hei, Ko, in a light blue uniform, turns on her tablet computer and begins to teach at the bedside.
Founded in 1954, the Hong Kong Red Cross Hospital Schools initially provided services in only one public medical institution. Now, it is a special education institute funded by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, with 26 school units attached to 19 public hospitals. Its services are mainly divided into three fields — general specialty, psychiatry, and homebound teaching programs. The first two provide services for hospitalized students to reduce their difficulties in returning to school, while homebound teaching is aimed at students who need to stay at home to recover for a long period. Teachers are assigned to different hospitals or students’ homes and shift on a regular basis. Depending on the situation, teachers will carry out small group or one-on-one bedside teaching, and each session lasts about 30 minutes.
“Teaching children in a hospital? I was curious and keen to know more about it,” Ko recalls, explaining she first learned about the school from a newspaper report in 2009 when she had just finished her master’s degree in language. Ko, who also studied special education, applied for a teaching position at the school and was hired as a Chinese language teacher.
Teachers in hospitals have to meet students with different medical conditions and face all kinds of challenges every day, but Ko regards these experiences as training, which have led her to have a deeper appreciation of life. Over the years, Ko has received a lot of greeting cards from parents and students showing their appreciation. Looking at these warm words of encouragement, she silently sends her best wishes to the students. “I hope they can soon recover and go back to school, and continue to pursue their dreams,” she says.
1. What is Ko doing?| A．Teaching at home. | B．Teaching online. |
| C．Teaching in a hospital. | D．Teaching in a regular classroom. |
| A．It was founded by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. |
| B．It offers teaching services for students both in hospital and at home. |
| C．It runs on money raised from the public. |
| D．It assigns teachers to the same hospitals or students’ homes. |
| A．Because she was curious about teaching. | B．Because she knew a lot about the school. |
| C．Because she just graduated from university. | D．Because she could apply what she had learned. |
| A．Passionate and dedicated. | B．Responsible and diligent. |
| C．Genuine and aggressive. | D．Self-centered and sensitive. |
【推荐2】Should Schoolchildren Have Jobs?
When you were in school, the last thing you probably wanted to do was spend your weekends going to work. There was homework to do, sports to play and fun to have. But our parents probably persuaded us to find a job to earn some money and get some life experience. When I was a teenager I had a paper round. I then progressed to a Saturday job in a supermarket.
Today in the UK children are allowed to take part-time jobs from the age of 13. It’s one of those things that is seen almost as a rite of passage（成人仪式）. It’s a taste of independence. Teenagers agree that it teaches valuable lessons about working with adults and also about managing your money.
Some research has shown that not taking on a Saturday or holiday jab could be harmful to a person later on. According to a 2017 study in the UK, employers’ organizations believed that not participating in part-time work at school age caused young adults to be ill-prepared for full-time employment. But despite this, recent numbers have shown that the number of schoolchildren in the UK with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five years.
So, does this mean that British teenagers are now more afraid of hard work? Probably not. Some experts think that young people feel going out to work will affect their performance at school, and they are under more pressure now to study hard and get good exam results—and a good job in the long term. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told BBC News that “Properly controlled part-time work is a good way of helping young people learn skills that they will need in their working lives.” In reality, it’s all about getting the right balance between doing part-time work and having enough time to study and rest.
Many young people actually want to work because it gives them a sense of freedom. One 13-year-old girl, who has a Saturday job in a shop, told the BBC that “I enjoy my job because I’m earning money and it helps my confidence speaking to people and socializing with people.” Did you do a part-time job when you were at school?
1. Employers believe if young adults don’t participate in part-time work at school age, ________.| A．they can’t work on their own |
| B．they can’t manage their money wisely |
| C．they won’t be well-prepared for the job |
| D．they won’t know how to work with others |
| A．more time to rest | B．having enough money |
| C．being afraid of hard work | D．more pressure from school |
| A．have a chance to see the world and meet more friends |
| B．understand their parents and grow up more quickly |
| C．learn skills and be confident to talk to people |
| D．get better grades and perform well in school |
【推荐3】The gender gap in maths-related subjects is obvious. In almost all countries, far fewer women than men choose STEM（理工科）careers.
It's not that girls and women are bad at maths. In the UK in 2019, for example, 39% of 18-year-old girls who studied maths at A-level achieved an A or A*, compared to 42% of boys. For A-level physics, 29% of girls achieved the top two grades, compared to 28% of boys. But in both subjects, boys heavily outnumbered girls-by more than 3:1 in the case of physics. So why are so many girls turning their backs on these subjects?
A study published recently in the journal PNAS suggests that the answer may in fact lie in male-female differences in academic ability, but the ability in question is reading, not maths. Thomas Breda, at Paris School of Economics, and Clotilde Napp, at Paris Dauphine University, wondered whether this male-female difference in reading could help explain the gender gap in STEM careers. Every three years, hundreds of thousands of 15-year-olds in more than 60 countries take part in the PISA study. Students complete tests in maths, reading and science, and answer questions about their future career intentions. When Breda and Napp looked at the data from PISA 2012, they realized they were on to something.
"There were small gender gaps in maths performance at 15 years old, but these gaps were too small to explain the huge gender segregation（隔离）in STEM," says Breda. But for reading, the tables were turned; the girls were much better than the boys. As a result, when a boy and a girl had similar scores in maths, the girl usually had an even better score in reading.
When Breda and Napp compared each student's scores in reading and maths, they found the greater a student's advantage in reading, the less likely they were to plan a career in maths, even when their maths score was also high. Notably, this was true for both boys and girls.
"It makes a lot of sense," says Sarah Cattan, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. "It shows that what matters most when boys and girls choose their field of study is not how good they are in maths or in reading, but how good they are in maths relative to reading."
1. What do the data in Paragraph 2 show?| A．The average gender difference in maths performance is small. |
| B．Those who are good at maths are also good at physics. |
| C．Physics tends to be easier for girls than maths. |
| D．Girls are not better than boys at maths. |
| A．Tom whose maths is worse than reading. |
| B．Lisa whose maths is better than reading. |
| C．Lily whose reading is better than maths. |
| D．Jack whose reading is as good as maths. |
| A．Their comparative strength instead of absolute ability. |
| B．Their gender advantages in a specific academic field. |
| C．Their future job landing possibility in an industry. |
| D．Their particular interest in a certain subject. |
| A．Why are we drawn to STEM careers? |
| B．Are boys worse at reading and writing? |
| C．Why are girls bad at maths-related subjects? |
| D．Are good readers more likely to give up maths? |
【推荐1】Around this time a few years ago, it was common to see videos of friends on social media having a bucket of icy water thrown on them. Known as the “ice bucket challenge”, it was created as a way to raise money for the medical condition ALS. But now, there’s a new challenge and this time, no water is involved.
What is it? Well, think of a fruit that you’d never normally sink your teeth into. Perhaps you’ve got it: a lemon. While we enjoy using lemons to add flavor to dishes, very few of us would actually eat one as we’d eat an apple or an orange.
But the horrible taste is the precise reason why the “lemon face challenge” is taking off. Participants bite into a lemon, taking a selfie as they do it before posting the photo online. The fun is all about expression people make as all that citric acid（柠檬酸）hits their taste buds（味蕾）. Every expression seems to say, “This is worse than freezing water.”
The serious side to this trend is the good cause it’s all in aid of. The challenge aims to raise awareness of a rare brain cancer that affects young children. It was started by Aubregh Nicholas, an 11-year-old US kid. She was diagnosed with this rare brain cancer herself in September 2017, but has since raised almost $50000 to cover her medical expenses thanks to the challenge.
If a challenge is going to raise publicity and contributions from people, it has to be something interesting and original. That way the ice bucket challenge took off in 2014 and it explains why so many people are now sharing their lemon faces. There are a lot of stories about the downside of social media these days. The charity challenges, however, show how online culture can unite the world and bring help to the people who most need it.
1. Why is the icy bucket challenge mentioned in the article?| A．to show how charity gained its popularity online. |
| B．to introduce a similar challenge that raises money for charity. |
| C．to attract people’s attention to a rare disease. |
| D．to prove its popularity around the world. |
| A．It raises more money than ever before. |
| B．It is started by the people who suffer rare diseases. |
| C．It brings people together easily and quickly. |
| D．It causes little doubt among people . |
| A．go away suddenly | B．become successful and popular |
| C．remove your clothes | D．take a break |
| A．positive | B．indifferent |
| C．negative | D．ambiguous |
【推荐2】A popular saying goes, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” However, that’s not really true. Words have the power to build us up or tear us down. It doesn’t matter if the words come from someone else or ourselves — the positive and negative effects are just as lasting.
We all talk to ourselves sometimes. We’re usually too ashamed to admit it, though. In fact, we really shouldn’t be because more and more experts believe talking to ourselves out loud is a healthy habit.
This “self-talk” helps us motivate ourselves, remember things, solve problems, and calm ourselves down. Be aware, though, that as much as 77% of self-talk tends to be negative. So in order to stay positive, we should only speak words of encouragement to ourselves. We should also be quick to give ourselves a pat on the back. The next time you finish a project, do well in a test, or finally clean your room, join me in saying “Good job!”
Often, words come out of our mouths without us thinking about the effect they will have. But we should be aware that our words cause certain responses in others. For example, when returning an item to a store, we might use warm, friendly language during the exchange. And the clerk will probably answer in a similar manner. Or harsh (刻薄的) and critical language will most likely cause the clerk to be defensive.
Words have power because of their lasting effect. Many of us regret something we once said. And we remember unkind words said to us! Before speaking, we should always ask ourselves: Is it loving? Is it needed? If what we want to say doesn’t pass this test, then it’s better left unsaid.
Words possess power: both positive and negative. Those around us receive encouragement when we speak positively. We can offer hope, build self-esteem (自尊) and motivate others to do their best. Negative words destroy all those things. Will we use our words to hurt or to heal? The choice is ours.
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?| A．Words have a great effect on us. | B．Encouraging words give us confidence. |
| C．Negative words may let us down. | D．Not sticks and stones but words will hurt us. |
| A．Almost everybody has the habit of talking to themselves. |
| B．Talking to ourselves can have positive effect on us. |
| C．Talking to ourselves always gives us courage. |
| D．It does no harm to have “self-talk” when we are alone. |
| A．Make ourselves relaxed. | B．Remind ourselves. |
| C．Praise ourselves. | D．Give ourselves happiness. |
| A．Encouraging words are sure to lead to kind offers. |
| B．Negative words may inspire us to make more progress. |
| C．It is better to think twice before talking to others. |
| D．People tend to remember friendly words. |
【推荐3】Give yourself a test. Which way is the wind blowing? How many kinds of wildflowers can be seen from your front door? If your awareness is as sharp as it could be, you’ll have no trouble answering these questions.
Most of us observed much more as children than we do as adults. A child’s day is filled with fascination, newness and wonder. Curiosity gave us all a natural awareness. But distinctions that were sharp to us as children become unclear; we are numb to new stimulation, new ideas. Relearning the art of seeing the world around us is quite simple, although it takes practice and requires breaking some bad habits.
The first step in awakening senses is to stop predicting what we are going to see and feel before it occurs. This blocks awareness. One chilly night when I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains with some students, I mentioned that we were going to cross a mountain stream. The students began complaining about how cold it would be. We reached the stream, and they unwillingly walked ahead. They were almost knee-deep when they realized it was a hot spring. Later they all admitted they’d felt cold water at first.
Another block to awareness is the obsession many of us have with naming things. I saw bird watchers who spotted a bird, immediately looked it up in field guides, and said, a “ruby-crowned kinglet” and checked it off. They no longer paid attention to the bird and never learned what it was doing.
The pressures of “time” and “destination” are further blocks to awareness. I encountered many hikers who were headed to a distant camp-ground with just enough time to get there before dark. It seldom occurred to them to wander a bit, to take a moment to see what’s around them. I asked them what they’d seen. “Oh, a few birds,” they said. They seemed bent on their destinations.
Nature seems to unfold to people who watch and wait. Next time you take a walk, no matter where it is, take in all the sights, sounds and sensations. Wander in this frame of mind and you will open a new dimension to your life.
1. According to Paragraph 2, compared with adults, children are more ________.| A．anxious to practice their skills | B．sensitive to others’ feelings |
| C．likely to develop unpleasant habits | D．eager to explore their surroundings |
| A．To avoid mistakes honestly. | B．To stop complaining all the time. |
| C．To avoid jumping to conclusions. | D．To follow the teacher’s unstruetions. |
| A．tired of | B．devoted to | C．confused about | D．pressed for |
| A．try our best to protect nature | B．open our mind to new things and ideas |
| C．get rid of some bad habits in our daily life | D．fill our senses to feel the wonders of the world |
