2 Some thought it was unfair to minority children. Through the past few decades such testing has gone out of fashion and many communities have indeed forbidden it. However, paradoxically, just recently a group of black parents filed a lawsuit in California claiming that the state's ban on IQ testing discriminates against their children by denying them the opportunity to take the test. (They believed, correctly, that IQ tests are a valid method of evaluating children for special education classes. ) The judge, therefore, reversed, at least partially, his original decision.
3 And so the argument goes on and on. Does it benefit or harm children from minority groups to have their intelligence tested? We have always been on the side of permitting, even facilitating, such testing. If a child of any color or group is doing poorly in school it seems to us very important to know whether it is because he or she is of low intelligence, or whether some other factor is the cause.
4 What school and family can do to improve poor performance is influenced by its cause. It is not discriminative to evaluate either a child's physical condition or his intellectual level. Unfortunately, intellectual level seems to be a sensitive subject, and what the law allows us to do varies from time to time. The same fluctuation back and forth occurs in areas other than intelligence. Thirty years or so ago, for instance, white families were encouraged to adopt black children. It was considered discriminative not to do so. And then the style. changed and this cross-racial adopting became generally unpopular, and social agencies felt that black children should go to black families only. It is hard to say what are the best procedures. But surely good will on the part of all of us is needed.
5 As to intelligence, in our opinion, the more we know about any child's intellectual level, the better for the child in question.
Intelligence testing became unpopular because_________.
A. it was thought to be a discrimination against minority children
B. it failed to measure children's intellectual level precisely
C. schools arc forbidden to do it
D. it became useless
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SECTION B INTERVIEW
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
听力原文:L— Liu Feifei, host of Dialogue on CCTV—9
R—Alistair Richards, Chief Operating Officer of Guinness World Records
L: Welcome to our show. Let's begin with the story of Guinness World Records. How did this Records come into being?
R: The Guinness World Records book came into being about fifty years ago. In 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the then Guinness Brewery was out doing some shooting of birds in his great country estate in Ireland. He went into an argument with one of his friends as to what was the fastest game bird in Europe. And later he decided that there should be some book of statistics which would stop this type of argument. He approached two statisticians and writers, the McWhirter twins, Norris and Ross McWhirter, and their office in central London, and asked them to develop the first Guinness World Records book, which they duly did.
L: That's funny. I mean, is that kind of related to the British personality that they like to talk about fine points and argue to a certain point where they need to verify the information with some statistical background?
R: I don't know if it's British but you're probably right. I think it's true to some degree of the male mind. For example, I think lots of boys and men love statistics and love competition and love comparisons. I mean it's grown out a bit more since then. The book is sold in a hundred countries around the world. We do about three million books a year. So it seems to have connected with something that all types of people can relate to.
L: Back in the 1950s, how long did it take for the first Records book to be put together?
R: I think he put it together pretty quickly, between probably eight months and two years.
L: How was he able to amass all this statistical information?
R: At the time he used it from the existing material. So what he did was put together the most comprehensive in terms of the most categories covered. He put together the ultimate facts--the highest, the lowest, the shortest, the fastest in as many different categories as he could. And he would have used the books that were published. They did the research, just the two of them, Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter.
L: How many different categories are there in your book today?
R: There are about fourteen or fifteen categories.
L: Are there sub-categories within the main categories?
R: There are. I mean you could talk about the human body. And we may talk about the most pierced women, for example, which in fact is 1,903. I met the Brazilian lady about three weeks ago. She now runs a Brazilian restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland. So there are those types of records and there are records about weight, records about strength and endurance. So each category is quite broad in terms of the number of different records that could fall underneath it.
L: You seem to suggest that those people are after fame or publicity. But tangibly--does this lead to wealth?
R: In some instances. What somebody could be good at doing to get a Guinness World Record is good enough for them to, perhaps, travel around the world doing it in exhibitions. Guinness World Records also makes TV programs in about ten countries and we sell TV programs in 76 countries around the world. So some- times people who get in the book can also get on the TV show. What happens is that if another TV program sees an individual who has got a Guinness World Record on our TV show, they might want to put him on their TV show. And it can sort of build from there. So they can become famous. It's not the primary purpose for which we put the book together. But
A. Guinness developed it by himself.
B. Sir Hugh Beaver first asked Mcwhirter twins to develop it.
C. It first developed in Ireland.
D. Somebody called Guinness developed it.
Luxembourg's Prime Minster Jean Claude Juncker vows to resign if the country says "no" to the treaty, which is aimed at streamlining decision-making in Europe after the trading bloc enlarged from 15 to 25 member states.
French and Dutch voters have already sent a resounding "no" to European leaders that they do not want the 448-article treaty.
Opinion polls taken in July last month indicate that the poll could go either way. Opinion polls are banned during the month prior to the election.
Luxembourg's parliament ratified the treaty in its first reading on June 28th, but a second reading will be axed if the voters say no.
Before Luxembourg goes to the polls, which country has already expressed their unwillingness to accept the treaty?
A. Germany.
B. Switzerland.
C. Spain.
D. France.
2 They may have resisted Socrates' lesson. We do not. Several thousand years later, we are more wary of the enchantments of beauty. We not only split off-with the greatest facility-the "inside" (character, intellect) from the "outside" (looks); but we are actually surprised when someone who is beautiful is also intelligent, talented, good.
3 It was principally the influence of Christianity that deprived beauty of the central place it had in classical ideals of human excellence. By limiting excellence (virtus in Latin) to moral virtue only, Christianity set beauty adrift-as an alienated, arbitrary, superficial enchantment. And beauty has continued to lose prestige. For close to two centuries it has become a convention to attribute beauty to only one of the two sexes: the sex which, however fair, is always Second. Associating beauty with women has put beauty even further on the defensive, morally.
4 A beautiful woman, we say in English, but a handsome man. "Handsome" is the masculine equivalent of-and refusal of-a compliment which has accumulated certain demeaning overtones, by being reserved for women only. That one can call a man "beautiful" in French and in Italian suggests that Catholic countries-unlike those countriesshaped by the Protestant version of Christianity-still retain some vestiges of the pagan admiration for beauty. But the difference, if one exists, is of degree only. In every modern country that is Christian or post-Christian, women are the beautiful sex-to the detriment of the notion of beauty as well as of women.
The author means _________ by "whole persons" in Para. 1.
A. persons of beauty
B. persons of virtue
C. persons of excellence
D. none of the above
According to the passage, back in the 1950s, how long did it take for the first Records book to be put together?
A. 5 months.
B. 6 months.
C. 12 months.
D. 32 months.