1 . If you are in a dilemma about being self-taught or getting formal education, you have come to the right webpage. In this article, we note the advantages of each of these to help you decide which one would be the best for you.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of being self-taught is that you are able to save a lot of money. With each passing year, the cost of getting a degree is on the rise. As a result, many students these days tend to graduate from college with a significant amount of debt. This makes it necessary for them to get a job as soon as possible, otherwise a number of serious issues may arise. Besides, it is possible to learn faster on your own, by focusing on only those areas that you are interested in. Finally, learning on your own can be a great confidence builder. You have to struggle to gain knowledge but once you clear the basics on your own, you will find yourself being much more confident about your abilities.

One of the biggest advantages of formal education is that you get a degree which is a mark of recognition that you have achieved a level of knowledge in that particular field. Many companies tend to prefer candidates who have a college degree. What’s more, though formal education lacks the convenience and flexibility of self-education, it offers you much more in terms of the actual structure of the learning process. Last, being formally educated means that you will enter a college or other similar educational institutions. There you will get the benefit of being taught and guided by learned teachers and other subject experts. This will be a big benefit as you will be able to take advantage of their experience and gain in-depth knowledge about the subject.

Thus, both formal education and self-education have their own sets of advantages. The choice between the two comes down to individual preferences as well as personal situations.

1. Which of the following is an advantage of self-education?

A．A faster pace of learning

B．Being guided by subject experts

C．A wider range of ways to gain knowledge

D．Having more chances of getting part-time jobs.

2. To get the benefit of being taught by learned experts, you should ________.

A．choose self-education

B．enter an educational institution

C．work for learned teachers

D．make use of webpages about education

3. What is the most important factor in choosing the way of education?

A．The reputation of educational institutions.

B．The knowledge of teachers and experts.

C．The opinions of relatives and friends.

D．One’s preference and situations.

4. What is the author’s purpose of writing this text?

A．To promote a webpage about education.

B．To prove that self-education is the best choice.

C．To help readers choose between two form of education.

D．To prove that it’s difficult to decide on the proper education.

2 .     1     Learn how to show them why it’s important to save, how to avoid overspending, and what they can do to successfully manage their money.

Have deliberate conversations about money.

Talk openly with your kids about the money you make and what it pays for, such as home, food, clothing and transportation. A conversation like this will give them context and will help them grasp early on that it costs money to have the essentials and that everything else is extra.

    2    

Give them a modest allowance.

A child who is old enough to count is old enough to get allowance. The amount should be an age-appropriate amount where stuff they’ll want will require at least a few weeks of saving to buy.
    3     Normal chores(家务)are part of being in a family, not about getting paid.

    4    

Your kids have “regular” chores, already. By all means feel free to offer up those bigger, unpleasant tasks as optional paid jobs — weeding, shoveling snow, whatever they’ll really have to work at to earn those extra bucks m and kick back while they learn the value of a dollar.

Be a good financial role model.

    5     So remember that you’re constantly sending financial cues to the children in your life in ways big and small. Be a good financial role model by using examples from your own life to teach them things they should and should not do with their money. Handle your money the way you’d want them to handle their own.

A．Children are always curious.

B．Money matters a lot in our daily life.

C．Don’t tie this money to chores, either.

D．Create opportunities for extra earnings.

E．Children learn by observing adult behavior.

F．Avoiding the subject actually creates unnecessary negative feelings.

G．It’s never too early or too late to teach the children the value or a dollar.

3 . According to a recent survey, violence did exist in schools. Students     1    (show) their fear and parents and teachers also expressed their great concern about it.     2    (expert) hope the whole society will pay more attention to the mental health of adolescents.

Nowadays, school violence is     3    hot issue. I think this is a phenomenon (现象),     4    calls for our great concern. We should try every effort     5    (prevent) violence happening at school for more and more students would drop out of school if their personal     6    (safe) could not be guaranteed. In fact, violence can be learned. Children learn violent behavior from adults or from     7    they see on television or on the Internet.

If I meet with school violence, I will not answer violence     8    violence, for it will result in     9    (much) fighting. I will tell my teachers or parents about it. I think they will help me deal with it well and they will protect me from the bad guys.

All in all, every student should behave     10    (he) and keep away from violence.

4 . In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. I’ve twice been to the wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. We see our kids’ college background as a prize demonstrating how well we’ve raised them. But we can’t acknowledge that our obsession (痴迷) is more about us than them. So we’ve created various justifications (辩解) that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn’t matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.

We have a full-developed panic; we worry that there won’t be enough prizes to go around. Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever. What causes the hysteria (歇斯底里) is the belief that scarce elite (精英) degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts. All seems right but mostly wrong. We haven’t found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters. Selective schools don’t systematically employ better instructional approaches than less selective schools. On two measures—professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams selective schools do slightly worse.

By some studies, selective schools do enhance (提高) their graduates’ lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2-4% for every 100-point increase in a school’s average SAT scores. But even this advantage is probably a statistical fluke (偶然). A well-known study examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere. They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.

Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may signify intelligence, talent and ambition. But it’s not the only indicator and, surprisingly, its significance is declining. The reason: so many similar people go elsewhere. Getting into college is not life’s only competition. In the next competition—the job market and graduate school—the results may change. Princeton economist Alan Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph.D. program. High scores on the GRE helped explain who got in; degrees of famous universities didn’t.

So, parents, take it easy(lighten up). The stakes (利害关系) have been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can rationalize our pushiness. America is a competitive society; our kids need to adjust to that. But too much pushiness can be destructive. The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.

1. Why does the author say that parents are the true fighters in the college-admissions wars?

A．They have the final say in which university their children are to attend.

B．They know best which universities are most suitable for their children.

C．They have to carry out intensive surveys of colleges before children make an application.

D．They care more about which college their children go to than the children themselves.

2. Why do parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever?

A．They want to increase their children’s chances of entering a prestigious college.

B．They hope their children can enter a university that offers attractive scholarships.

C．Their children will have a wider choice of which college to go to.

D．Elite universities now enroll fewer student than they used to.

3. What does the author mean by “kids count more than their colleges” Line1, para.4?

A．Continuing education is more important to a person’s success.

B．A person’s happiness should be valued more than their education.

C．Kids’ actual abilities are more important than their college background.

D．What kids learn at college cannot keep up with job market requirements.

4. What does Krueger’s study tell us?

A．Getting into Ph.D. programs may be more competitive than getting into college.

B．Degrees of prestigious universities do not guarantee entry to graduate programs.

C．Graduates from prestigious universities do not care much about their GRE scores.

D．Connections built in prestigious universities may be kept long after graduation.

5. One possible result of pushing children into elite universities is that______

A．they earn less than their peers from other institutions

B．they turn out to be less competitive in the job market

C．they experience more job dissatisfaction after graduation

D．they overemphasize their qualifications in job application

5 . China is now sending more college students to study in the United States than any other country. A new report shows a 23 percent increase in the number of Chinese students coming to the U.S.
The latest edition of the annual Institute of International Education (IIE) and another US institute found a 5 percent rise in the number of international university students in the US compared to one year ago. There are now over 157, 000 Chinese students at U.S. colleges and universities.
Asia accounted for four of the top five countries and regions to take advantage of the US higher education system. “Increased numbers of students from China, particularly at the undergraduate level, largely accounts for the growth this past year,” the report stated. “They really enroll in a full range of US higher education,” said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president of IIE, the group that made the report. “20 years ago, students from China only knew of a handful of US institutions, but now, they are enrolling in our community colleges, in our small liberal arts institutions, in the research universities. Really spread across the country,” she said.
Chinese mainland was in the number one spot, while India was the number two country of origin. South Korea was the third and Canada was number four. China’s Taiwan held the number five spot. Saudi Arabia was in sixth with a 44-percent increase, while Japan was seventh, down 14 percent.
Blumenthal associates the increase in the number of Chinese students heading to US colleges to limited university places in China, as well as a feeling from students and their parents than they want a “unique” educational experience. China’s family planning policy, says Blumenthal, has also meant that families can concentrate resources on a single child.
The University of California at Los Angeles has one of the largest Asian student populations of any college in the United States.
1. Which ranked the third place sharing US higher education?

A．Saudi Arabia	B．South Korea
C．Canada	D．India

2. Why is the number of Chinese students going to the US increasing?

A．The US colleges are better than those in China.

B．Each family in China has only one child.

C．China lacks enough educational resources.

D．Chinese students can enter varieties of US colleges.

3. Which of the following is right according to Peggy Blumenthal?

A．The number of Chinese students going to the US has increased by 23%.

B．The University of California has contributed to Asian education greatly.

C．Chinese student populations in the US mainly consist of undergraduates.

D．Chinese students know more about US higher education than before.

4. The best title for the passage can be ________.

A．Chinese College Students Rush to US Schools

B．The Large Number of Chinese Students in the US

C．Chinese Students Make Up Largely Foreign Students in the US

D．Asian Middle School Students in the US Universities

6 . 某英文报就近年来我国学生出国留学低龄化的利弊在报上展开讨论，希望广大读者畅所欲言，就此事发表自己的看法。假设你是中学生李华，请用英语给编辑写一封信，谈谈你的看法，并说明理由。100词左右。
(注意：信的开头已给出，字数不计算在内。)
Dear editor,
I’m writing to tell you about my opinion on Chinese students going abroad for further studies at an early age.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . We are all interested in equality, but while some people try to protect the school and examination system in the name of equality, others, still in the name of equality, want only to destroy it.
Any society which is interested in equality of opportunity and standards of achievement must regularly test its pupils. The standards may be changed—no examination is perfect — but to have no tests or examinations would mean the end of equality and of standards. There are groups of people who oppose this view and who do not believe either in examinations or in any controls in schools or on teachers. This would mean that everything would depend on luck since every pupil would depend on the efficiency, the values and the purpose of each teacher.
Without examinations, employers will look for employees from the highly respected schools and from families known to them--- a form of favoritism will replace equality. At the moment, the bright child from ill-respected school can show certificates to prove he or she is suitable for the job, while the lack of certificate indicates the unsuitability of a dull child attending a well-respected school. This defence of excellence and opportunity would disappear if examinations were taken away, and the bright child from a poor family would be a prisoner of his or her school’s reputation, unable to compete with the child from the favored school.
The opponents of the examination system suggest that examinations are an evil force because they show differences between pupils. According to these people, there must be no special, different, academic class. They have even suggested that there should be no form of difference in sport or any other area: all jobs or posts should be filled by unsystematic selection. The selection would be made by people who themselves are probably selected by some computer.
1. The underlined word “favoritism” in paragraph three is used to describe the phenomenon that _______.

A．bright children also need certificate to get satisfying jobs.

B．children from well-respected schools tend to have good jobs.

C．poor children with certificates are favored in job markets.

D．children attending ordinary schools achieve great success.

2. What would happen if examinations were taken away according to the author?

A．Schools for bright children would lose their reputation.

B．There would be more opportunities and excellence.

C．Children from poor families would be able to change their schools.

D．Children’s job opportunity would be affected by their school reputation.

3. The opponents of the examination system will agree that _______.

A．jobs should not be assigned by systematic selection.

B．computers should be selected to take over many jobs.

C．special classes are necessary to keep the school standards.

D．schools that win academic subjects should be done away with.

4. The passage mainly focuses on __________.

A．schools and certificates.	B．examination and equality.
C．opportunity and employment.	D．standards and reputation.

8 . Sometimes children do not do what their parents tell them to do. When this happens, a parent tries to help the child to do the right thing. When this does not work, the parent usually punishes the child.
There are many things that a parent can do. One thing that people have done is to spank (打屁股) the child. When a parent spanks a child, they will use their hand or a hard object to strike them on their bottom. This is meant to show the child that they have done something wrong.
One parent remembers being spanked when he was a child. His parents used a wooden spoon. When he spanked his own children with his hand, he saw that he put a red mark on his child’s leg. He never did that again.
One problem with spanking is that it teaches the child to hit someone when they do not like what the other person is doing. Another problem with spanking is that the parent is usually angry and can hit the child too hard. Sometimes parents will use spanking for everything and not try other ways to get the child to do the right thing.
Many parents are not sure what to do instead of spanking. Some people think that their religion（宗教）tells them that spanking is okay. Some think that the law lets them do it. The courts say that parents have the right to teach their children how to behave.
Other things should be tried before a parent decides to spank a child. Telling the child exactly what is wanted from them can be one thing. Giving a child more than one choice is another thing that can be tried. Getting down to the child’s level and taking a more child-friendly approach can help as well.
1. According to the passage, when children do something wrong, one thing that parents usually do to punish them is to ________.

A．strike them on the bottom	B．try to help them do the right thing
C．teach them what to do	D．take them to court

2. Which of the following is NOT the problem caused by spanking?

A．It teaches the child to hit others when they offend him or her.

B．The parent may get angry and hit the child too hard.

C．Sometimes parents may use spanking for everything.

D．It makes parents try other ways to make the child do right.

3. Which of the following can best describe the writer’s attitude towards spanking?

A．favorable (赞同的)

B．indifferent (不关心)

C．interested

D．unfavorable

4. From this passage, we can conclude that ________.

A．Good children always do the right thing.

B．Parents should try their best to avoid spanking their children.

C．Parents have no choice but to spank their children when they do something wrong.

D．Children can have more than one choice to avoid being spanked.