1 . The “reading wars,” one of the most confusing and disabling conflicts in the history of education, went on heatedly in the 1980s and then peace came. Advocates of phonics (learning by being taught the sound of each letter group) seemed to defeat advocates of whole language (learning by using cues like context and being exposed to much good literature).
Recent events suggest the conflict of complicated concepts is far from over. Teachers, parents and experts appear to agree that phonics is crucial, but what is going on in classrooms is not in agreement with what research studies say is required, which has aroused a national debate over the meaning of the word “phonics.”
Lucy M. Calkins, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and a much-respected expert on how to teach reading, has drawn attention with an eight-page essay. Here is part of her argument: “The important thing is to teach kids that they needn’t freeze when they come to a hard word, nor skip past it. The important thing is to teach them that they have resources to draw upon, and to use those resources to develop endurance.”
To Calkins’s critics, it is cruel and wasteful to encourage 6-year-olds to look for clues if they don’t immediately know the correct sounds. They should work on decoding — knowing the pronunciation of every letter group — until they master it, say the critics, backed by much research.
Calkins’s approach “is a slow, unreliable way to read words and an inefficient way to develop word recognition skill,” Mark S. Seidenberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, said in a blog post. “Dr. Calkins treats word recognition as a reasoning problem — like solving a puzzle. She is committed to the educational principle that children learn best by discovering how systems work rather than being told.”
Many others share his view. “Children should learn to decode — i.e., go from print on the page to words in the mind — not by clever guesswork and inference, but by learning to decode,” Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, told me. He said the inferences Calkins applauds are “cognitively (认知地) demanding, and readers don’t have much endurance for it. … It disturbs the flow of what you’re reading, and doing a lot of it gets frustrating.”
Yet a recent survey found that only 22 percent of 670 early-reading teachers are using the approach of phonics and what they mean by phonics is often no more than marking up a worksheet.
Both sides agree that children need to acquire the vocabulary and background information that gives meaning to words. But first, they have to pronounce them correctly to connect the words they have learned to speak.
Calkins said in her essay: “Much of what the phonics people are saying is praiseworthy,” but it would be a mistake to teach phonics “at the expense of reading and writing.”
The two sides appear to agree with her on that.
1. Critics of phonics hold the opinion that ________.A.children should be taught to use context |
B.teaching phonics is both boring and useless |
C.kids acquire vocabulary in hearing letter groups |
D.pronunciation has nothing to do with meaning of words |
A.Tell me and I will forget; show me and I will remember. |
B.Skilled reading is fast and automatic but not deliberative. |
C.Word recognition skill should be developed in problem reasoning. |
D.Learning to make reasonable inferences is also a way of decoding. |
A.phonics approach has been proved to be successful |
B.children don’t shy away from difficulties in reading |
C.the two reading approaches might integrate with each other |
D.reading and writing are much more important than phonics |
A.An everlasting reading war among critics |
B.From print on the page to words in the mind |
C.A battle restarts between phonics, whole language |
D.Decoding and inferring confuse early-reading teachers |
2 . Beating Burnout and Compassion Fatigue in the New Year
This year has continued to bring many of us closer to the pain, suffering and exhaustion of those experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue (疲倦). There is no doubt that 2021 has been filled with additional challenges.
The data is clearly showing that our workforce shares feelings of burnout. A recent Gallup report indicated that 67% of us feel burned out either some or most of the time. At an organizational level, Hogan reports that burned out employees are 18% less productive and 2.6 times more likely to be actively seeking a different job.
Fatigue and burnout arise not when we fail to get sufficient rest but when we fail to appreciate the moments of purpose and joy in our lives.
There are a few myths around burnout and compassion fatigue:
Myth 1: Burnout is an individual's problem.
Many people believe that burnout is about an individual who needs to “figure it out”.
Myth 2:
Surprisingly, the individuals most likely to experience burnout are committed employees and leaders who love their job and are highly engaged. These top performers are the people you are most likely to lose.
Myth 3: People who experience burnout are just less resilient.
Research shows a correlation between higher levels of resilience (复原力) and lower levels of burnout.
If 2021 has taught us anything, it is that we cannot separate burnout from our emotions, whether they may be fear, anger, shame or guilt.
A.While fatigue is more sudden and results from carrying the pain and suffering of others, what we experience is similar. |
B.Burnout results from lack of responsibility. |
C.Burnout hurts individuals' enthusiasm and passion. |
D.At this point, burnout and compassion fatigue has expanded into many aspects of our lives. |
E.But burnout occurs at different levels and is the result from challenges to individuals, teams and organizations. |
F.At one point, people believed resilience was established by “sucking it up”, or “just staying positive”. |
G.And the path forward requires us to deepen the relationship with feelings of joy, passion, pride and fulfillment. |
3 . Some documents have been making the rounds lately — where people who work various positions in different industries share how much they’re paid.
Bravo! It’s about time we blew up that old belief that salaries have to stay secret. This is not just a matter of curiosity. Having information about salaries can help narrow the gender wage gap, which has barely changed for more than a decade. Recently released date from the US Census Bureau shows that, on average, women working full time still are paid only 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man. And the gap is even wider for many women of color: Black women make 62 cents, and Latinas just 54 cents. What’s more, the pay gap even extends into her retirement. Because she earned less and therefore paid less to the social security system, she receives less in social security benefits.
Having greater access to salary information is helping to speed things up. A new research report by the American Association of University Women shows that the wage gap tends to be smaller in job sectors where pay transparency (透明) is a must. For example, among federal government workers, there’s just a 13 percent pay difference between men and women, and in state government, the gap is about 17 percent. But in private, for-profit companies, where salaries are generally kept under wraps, the gender wage gap jumps to 29 percent.
Fortunately, salary information is increasingly available on some websites. Certain companies and many human resources departments are pushing ahead with this practice. Of course, it’s going to take more than salary transparency to equalize earnings between women and men. But sharing salaries can and must be part of the solution. The more information women have about how jobs are valued — and what different people earn — the better they will understand their value in the labor market and be able to push for the pay they deserve.
1. Why are the figures mentioned in paragraph 2?A.To reveal the severity of gender wage gap. |
B.To confirm the previous belief about salaries. |
C.To satisfy readers’ curiosity about others’ salaries. |
D.To appeal to readers to share their salary information. |
A.The inequality between men and women. |
B.The need to keep salary information a secret. |
C.The advantage of working for the government. |
D.The benefit of making salary information public. |
A.Critical. | B.Favourable. |
C.Unclean | D.Negative. |
A.Why It Pays to Share How Much You Make |
B.Where Salary Information Difference Lies |
C.What It Takes to Realize Gender Equality |
D.How Woman’s Value Improves at Work. |
4 . Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian novel by George Orwell, was set in a totalitarian state where even the language they use is controlled. Adjectives are forbidden and instead they use phrases such as “ungood”, “plus good” and “double plus good” to express emotions. As I first read this I thought how impossible it would be in our society to have such vocabulary. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised in its own way it's already happening. I type messages to my friends and alongside each is the obligatory (惯用的) emoji. I often use them to emphasise something, or to not seem too serious, or because this specific GIF conveys my emotions much better than I ever could using just words. And I wonder, with our too much use of emojis, are we losing the beauty and diversity of our vocabulary?
English has the largest vocabulary in the world, with over one million words, but who's to say what it'll be like in the future? Perhaps we will have a shorter language, full of saying “cry face” if something sad happens or using abbreviations like LOL (laugh out loud) or BRB (be right back) instead of saying the full phrase. So does this mean our vocabulary will shrink? Is it the start of an exciting new era? Will they look back on us in the future and say this is where it all began—the new language? Or is this a classic case of the older generations saying, “Things weren't like that when I was younger. We didn't use emoticons to show our emotions?”
Yet when you look back over time, the power of image has always been there. Even in the prehistoric era they used imagery to communicate, and what's even more incredible is that we are able to analyse those drawings and understand the meaning of them thousands of years later. Pictures have the ability to go beyond the usual limits of time and language. Images, be it cave paintings or emojis, allow us to convey a message that's not restrictive but rather universal.
1. Why does the author mention Nineteen Eight Four?A.To introduce the topic. | B.To show an example. |
C.To give the reason. | D.To describe a phenomenon |
A.To reduce the use of words. | B.To save time of typing. |
C.To express naturally and casually. | D.To make fun of friends. |
A.Disappear. | B.Lower. |
C.Reform. | D.Change. |
A.We can recognise the pictures' time period with technology. |
B.We have kept the same vocabulary since the prehistoric era. |
C.Pictures is an only way to record history. |
D.Pictures can express human feelings accurately and vividly. |
Snow began to fall across the Apennines Mountain in January and lasted for days. From his home in the suburbs, Matrone watched the weather with concern. He and his wife, Cicioni, had planned an overnight getaway to the hotel halfway up the mountain. But now he wondered whether they should go. After phoning the hotel, they decided to make the trip. When they finally arrived six hours later, they were both cold and exhausted. They checked into their room and went to bed early.
As they awoke the next day, they discovered that their difficulty had worsened overnight. The cars in the parking lot were invisible. The phone and power lines were down. Many people were digging their cars.
With a dozen vehicles freed by noon, the guests set off down the driveway. But when they reached the main road, the path was blocked by a six-foot-high wall of snow. Matrone climbed out of his car and there was no road in sight. “We're trapped! he told his wife. So they had no choice but to make their way back to the hotel.
As it was getting dark, they managed to be back. That was when the snow on the mountain began to slide. They heard the avalanche(雪崩)before they saw it. The avalanche gathered speed and size, grabbing anything in its way down the mountain and tearing the hotel from its foundation. When the avalanche came to a stop, those caught inside the hotel were left buried in the icy rocks and ruins.
注意:续写部分分为两段,每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1
When Matrone came to himself, he was stuck in the darkness. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2
It was not until the next morning that the rescuers finally arrived.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6 . Did you ever have to say “no” to somebody? Such as a classmate who asks to go to lunch with you? New research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection (拒绝) should not include an apology. In other words, saying you are sorry does not make the person being rejected feel any better. In fact, it might make the rejected person feel worse. That is surprising. Many people consider it to be good manners to say they are sorry when they turn down a request.
Gili Freedman is doing some related research at Dartmouth College. For her research, she asked over 1,000 people to respond to different examples of social rejection. In one example, the researchers asked people for their reaction (反应)after a person named Taylor asked to join a co-worker who went out to lunch every Friday. And Taylor was told “no”. But in some cases, the person rejecting Taylor offered an apology. In other cases, the people doing the rejection did not say they were sorry. People were asked how they would feel if they were being turned down, just as Taylor was. Most said they would be more hurt by a rejection with an apology than a rejection without an apology.
Freedman said the reason is that apologies make people feel like they need to say that the rejection was okay— even when they felt like it was not okay. Rejection without an apology lets them express their feelings of disappointment, hurt or anger more easily. Freedman also said that an apology often makes the person doing the rejection feel better—even as it makes the person being rejected feel worse.
Her research deals only with social communication. A business situation might be very different. “If a manager rejects a job interviewee or a boss must tell an employee that he or she is being fired from a job,” Freedman said, “reactions to apologies may be different.”
1. Why do people say they are sorry when they express rejection?A.Because they think it is more polite. |
B.Because they think it helps them express their dislike better. |
C.Because they think apologies are the basis of communication. |
D.Because they think it sounds more comfortable for the listener. |
A.rejected others without an apology |
B.offered an apology when rejecting others |
C.would be more hurt by a rejection with an apology |
D.were asked to answer the question in different situations |
A.It makes the rejection more acceptable. |
B.It makes a good impression on the listener. |
C.It makes the communication more pleasant. |
D.It makes the person doing the rejecting feel better. |
A.The effect of an apology during a rejection. |
B.Gili Freedman’s research on business situations. |
C.A rejection with an apology in a business situation. |
D.The difference between a social situation and a business one. |
7 . Don't get mad the next time you catch your teenager texting when he promised to be studying. He simply may not be able to resist. A University of lowa(UI) study found teenagers are far more sensitive than adults to the immediate effect or reward of their behaviors. The findings may help explain why the initial rush of texting may be more attractive for adolescents than the long-term pay off of studying.
"For the teenager, 'the rewards are attractive." says Professor Jatin Vaidya,an author of the study. "They draw adolescent. Sometimes, the rewards are a kind of motivation for them. Even when a behavior is no longer in a teenager's best interest to continue, they will, because the effect of the reward is still there and lasts much longer in adolescents than in adults ."
For parents,that means limiting distraction (分心的事情)so teenagers can make better choices. Take the homework and social media dilemma: At 9 p.m., shut off everything except a computer that has no access to Facehook or Twitter, the researchers advise. "I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed access to technology," Vaidya says. But some help in netting their concentration is necessary for them so they can develop those impulse-control skills.”
In their study,Vaidya and co-author Shaun Vecera note researchers generally believe teenagers are impulsive(冲动的),make bad decisions,and engage in risky behavior because the frontal lobes(额叶)of their trains are not fully developed. But the UI researchers wondered. whether something more fundamental was going on with adolescents to cause behaviors independent of higher-level reasoning.
"We wanted to try to understand the brain's reward system how it change from chillhood to adulthood," Says Vaidya, who adds the reward character in the human brain is easier than decision-making. “We've been trying to understand the reward process in adolescence and whether there is more to adolescence behavior than an under-developed frontal lobe,”he adds.For their study ,the researchers persuaded 40 adolescents, aged 13 and 16,and 40 adults, aged 20 and 35 to participate.
In the future,researchers hope to look into the psychological and neurological(神经学上的)aspects of their results.
1. What does the passage mainly tell us?A.The initial rush of texting is less attractive for adolescents than the long-term pay off of studying. |
B.Always, rewards are attractive to teenagers. |
C.Resistance can be controlled well by adolescents. |
D.Getting rewards is the greatest motivation for adolescents to study. |
A.The influence of the reward is weak in adolescents. |
B.Parents should help children in making decisions. |
C.Children should have access to the Internet. |
D.Children need help in refocusing their attention. |
A.Doing things after some thought. |
B.Making good decisions. |
C.Joining in dangerous actions. |
D.Escaping risky behavior. |
A.By making a comparison of brain examinations. |
B.By examining adults’ brain. |
C.By examining teenage brain. |
D.By building the train’s reward system. |
8 . Home prices remained divergent in China during December, with some of the first-tier cities recording price drops, while second and third-tier cities saw increases due to the varied market policies, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.
Newly built commercial housing prices in the first-tier cities-namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen-remained stable in December, while those in second and third- tier cities rose by 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent respectively from November 2017.
The same trend was witnessed in second-hand home prices, which dropped slightly by 0.1 percent in first-tier cities and rose 0.3 percent in both second and third-tier cities in December, said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the NBS.
In September 2017, the local governments of several regional capitals launched new restrictions to further slow home sales, in response to the central government’s call to end housing speculation and cool the red-hot housing market in certain cities.
As housing regulations in larger cities have tightened, investors have started looking for opportunities in medium-sized and small cities, thus causing a noticeable home price increase in third-tier cities.
Fan Hengshan, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at an economic forum on Thursday that housing prices in third and fourth-tier cities have risen too fast, and this needs to be monitored carefully.
“The home price increase in third-tier cities will have a fairly large impact, considering that a large part of China’s gross domestic product and population come from these cities,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist and head of equity strategy for China at Deutsche Bank, during a recent media briefing.
Zhang estimated that third-tier cities accounted for a major part of Chinese residents’ 50 trillion yuan wealth gains, driven by rising home prices in 2017.
“Despite a relatively large increase in home prices in third-tier cities, studies have found that at the end of 2017, local residents in 85 third-tier cities need to save four to eight years of their income to buy a home, meaning that house price to income ratios are not too high in these cities,” he said.
1. What does the underlined word “divergent” in the first paragraph mean?A.Diverse | B.Stable |
C.Increasing | D.Decreasing |
A.Housing prices in the first-tier cities dropped slightly in December. |
B.Home prices in medium-sized and small cities remained stable in November. |
C.National housing prices rose in most time of 2017. |
D.The second-hand home prices dropped slightly in the first-tier cities while rose in both second and third-tier cities in November. |
A.Because the local governments didn’t launch any restrictions and regulations. |
B.Because the governments in the first-tier cities have carried out tougher measures. |
C.Because there are more people living in these cities. |
D.Because people there saved more money than other cities. |
A.A science book. | B.A newspaper. |
C.A fashion magazine. | D.A text book. |
Up to 82 percent of children with healthy mothers are not easy to be obese(肥胖的), according to research. A mother,
And research suggests it could be more to do with nurture(养育)
The study examined the medical history and lifestyles of more than 24,000 children aged nine
The mother's health was judged on her height-to-weight ratio(比例), her diet, amount of physical
10 . Researchers define self-control or self-discipline as“ability to control or change one’s inner responses”.
In their study,205 adults were given smart phones and required to report their emotions at random moments throughout the week.
The researchers found that the more self-control people had,the more satisfied they were with their lives in the long run.
These researchers also figured out that people high in self-control are simply less likely to find themselves in situations where that’s even an issue.They don’t waste time fighting inner battles over whether or not to eat a second piece of cake.
A.In a word,they are not bothered about such little desires. |
B.Researchers checked these general ideas through a survey and study. |
C.It is generally believed that in the long run self-control can make people happier. |
D.Meanwhile,they were also asked to report whether they were experiencing any desires. |
E.However,people with more self-control were also more likely to be happy in the short run. |
F.But they are still uncertain why some people are more able to control their inner responses. |
G.Most adults reported they failed to control their desire to play video games before an exam. |