题目内容
1 In proposed changes to Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education, the Bush administration wants to encourage creation of single-sex public schools and classes.
2 Our studies of sexism in America's education system have praised private single-sex schools because they offer the promise that education can transform. the future of girls. Girls who attend these schools speak more freely in class, are more likely to major in math and science, and perhaps most encouraging, are more likely to attend college and graduate school.
3 So, given our past support for single-sex schools, you might expect us to be real cheerleaders for the new Bush administration plan.
4 But we are not cheering.
5 There is a right way and a wrong way to explore educational innovation, and the Bush administration has chosen the latter. Congress and the public should stop it before the real problems begin.
6 The No Child Left Behind Act promises to avoid fads and to build educational programs based on scientific evidence and research. But, for public single-sex education, the Bush administration has decided we can skip the evidence. This proposal ignores sound educational policy, and is particularly troubling considering that the effectiveness of single- sex education in public schools-which involve different factors from private schools--has yet to be carefully studied.
7 What we applauded in private single-sex schools was not their gender uniformity, but their educational practices. Many educators, including us, attribute much of the academic successes of these private schools to their smaller class sizes, engaged parents, well-trained teachers, and strong academic emphasis. Other educators believe that single-sex schools work less well for boys than for girls, or that only boys from low-income families benefit. Still others' believe such schools may intensify gender stereotypes and homophobia. But so far, the Bush plan does not address these factors.
8 This is not the first time single-sex schooling has emerged as a quick fix. Pete Wilson, the former Republican governor of California, tried the same thing in the late 1990s, and even sweetened the pot by providing some extra funds to school districts willing to experiment with single-sex schools. A half-dozen created their own single-sex academies.
9 Did students benefit from the experiment？ It's hard to say, because-like the Bush proposal--planning and evaluation were absent. California provided no training for teachers and no clear rationale for the changes, and within a few years most of these schools returned to coeducation. There were anecdotal reports that the girls enjoyed being in an environment free of sexual harassment and classroom interruptions, while the boys' schools degenerated into a disciplinary disaster, becoming little more than magnets for troubled youth. The California experiment was a valuable lesson in how not to go about educational change-a lesson this administration has chosen to ignore.
10 What the authors of these proposed changes seem to have forgotten is that Title IX is not an educational option, it is a civil rights protection. While Title IX currently permits select single-sex classes--in physical education or to remedy past discrimination, for example-it doesn't allow schools to segregate students arbitrarily.
11 There are powerful reasons for this. Whenever groups have been segregated, the least-valued group has ended up with fewer resources and fewer opportunities. Historically that has been a costly lesson for girls (and African-Americans and the poor). The proposed changes do not require equal treatment or equal facilities, but only "substantially equal" programs. As the proposal now stands, a school could provide a single-sex option for boys and not for girls, or cutting-edge science equipment for boys and an up-to-date cosmetology center for girls.
12 The word "equal" is omitted fro
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2 Looking at being "good" as increasing strength of self, it would take trials and tribulations to increase our appreciation of what we have. Losing my life savings in an identity theft ring definitely wouldn't be a good thing, but the subsequent realization that I need to focus less on material things and more on my emotional, social and spiritual being would be priceless. Suffering can be a blessing.
3 In fact, not only is such stress necessary for increasing strength, but if bad things don't happen to good people, then perhaps they would lose those inner qualities that identify them as "good."
4 When we think of "good" people, we often imagine them with some sort of amazing intrinsic motivation, such as utter humility or divine inspiration. But perhaps it's not that these "good" people have such a high intrinsic motivation, but rather that others' motivationis shifted to more extrinsic factors.
5 Social psychologists call this shift the overjustification effect. They've found in various experiments that people who first started a task with inner motivation could lose that drive when given external rewards. For instance, let's say some students really like to study and end up doing well in school. Half of those students are then given money as a reward for their good grades. Eventually, those students will tend to get good grades for the money and not for their original passion. In fact, the paid students' performance will decrease if you take away any money.
6 This brings us back to why bad things happen to good people. If good things happened to me every time I did a good thing, then eventually I would only be good because I expected rewards and not for the sake of being good itself. Maybe this is why we think of people like Mother Teresa as good; she works hard without expecting lavish pay, whereas we're trying to get highest-possible paying jobs coming out of college. There is an intrinsic motivation beyond our simple societal rules of karma.
7 In any case, these are just a few things to think about. Obviously, if little Billy gets hurt in a horrible accident, it wouldn't be really meaningful to tell his mom about the overjustification effect.
8 But it's worth considering that not only do bad things happen to good people, but perhaps it's those bad things that make them good.
The author mentions all BUT _________ of the following assumptions that people may have.
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_________.
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
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？
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