1 . According to a survey, in Washington, DC, only 69 percent of public school students graduate from high school on time. Many factors influence that low rate. One of the most important ones is whether the people around the students expect them to succeed.
So, for the past 40 years, a DC organization has stepped in to give around 10,000 students the support and positive environment they need to thrive. This organization, called Higher Achievement, provides students with a welcoming space, help with class work, and caring teachers. More than 95 percent of students who complete Higher Achievement graduate from high school on time.
Katherine Roboff is the group’s executive director in the DC area. She gives several reasons for the group’s success. One is timing. Higher Achievement does not work with students who are already in high school. It works with students in middle school. They start High Achievement at fifth or sixth grade—in US, that is usually age 11 or 12.
Robolf says research shows that if students are doing well academically in eighth grade—around age 13—they will have a greater chance of graduating from high school and going to college. In other words, what happens in middle school has a huge effect. The years between ages 10 and 13 may affect a student’s future more than anything that happens academically in high school.
Roboff explains that students participate in Higher Achievement after school and during the summer, when public schools take a break of about two months. High Achievement students do homework, have community meetings, and work one-on-one with a mentor（导师）.
The purpose of the program is to help them those after-school and summer hours to become better prepared academically and to develop their leadership skills and confidence so that by the time they get into eighth grade they are ready to get into some of the top high schools.”
1. What can we know from the second paragraph?| A．Higher Achievement works with college students. |
| B．Many students have doubts about the organization. |
| C．Higher Achievement has spread throughout the world. |
| D．Higher Achievement has helped many students. |
| A．they are certain to go to college |
| B．they are to succeed when they grow up |
| C．they are more likely to finish high school on time |
| D．they don’t need any help in their studies |
| A．Those students in higher school. |
| B．Those students in middle school. |
| C．Those students who don’t work well. |
| D．Those students whose family can’t afford. |
| A．Higher Achievement Helps Students |
| B．Public School Students Need Help |
| C．Katherine Roboff Works with Students |
| D．Higher Achievement Looks After Students |
2 . “To educate a girl is to educate a thousand people,” says Maimouna Samaké, a mother of six children (including five girls). “If you put one seed in the ground and rain comes, it will grow to produce many seeds.”
Samaké, one of 2,000 residents, lives in a small village, Sounkala, in one of the world’s poorest countries. Now she has a chance to see this wish come true thanks to Build On, an American non-profit organization that is building a school in her community.
For 17 years, build On has been sending American high school students overseas to create schools in places where literacy (文化) and formal education are usually out of reach. The organization has built about 300 schools in Mali, Malawi, Nepal, Senegal, Nicaragua and Haiti. Its goal is to get young Americans in mostly urban areas to get involved in education. At the same time it can bring literacy to children and adults in poor villages in the developing world.
Sounkala’s current school only has about 70 children; mud floors, poor lighting, few desks and an absence of books mean that the school is not the most ideal learning environment. Therefore they certainly could use Build On’s help.
Samaké hasn’t been to school, but she wants a better future for her five daughters, including Ramatou, 12, and Mariam, 10. “When a woman attends school, she will teach what she learns to her children,” said Ramatou, who wants to become a doctor. “She will also know how to take better care of her family.”
Build On tries to build schools for grades one to three. If things go well over those three years, they return to help build another school for grades four to six, and then set up evening adult literacy classes.
Ramatou and Mariam will not learn inside the walls of build On school since they are already in the sixth grade, but Samaké hopes that they will be able to attend evening classes to continue learning.
1. Which of the following aspects of build On is NOT mentioned in the text?| A．Its history. | B．Its goal. |
| C．Its approach. | D．Its sources of funding. |
| A．in a village in a developed country |
| B．in an urban area in a developing country |
| C．in a rural area in a developing country |
| D．in an earthquake-stricken area in a developed country |
| A．Samaké only has daughters. |
| B．Samaké is well-educated. |
| C．Ramatou is a doctor. |
| D．Mariam is in the sixth grade. |
| A．people’s education conditions in poor areas |
| B．a woman’s dream of going to school |
| C．an organization that helps build schools for people in poor areas |
| D．build On’s great contributions to education |
