Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap year (a year between school and university when some students earn money, travel, etc. ) and a misty look will come into their eyes. There are some disasters and even the most motivated, organised gap student docs require family back-up, financial, cmotional and physical. The parental mistiness is not just about the brilliant experience that has matured their offspring; it is vicarious living. We all wish pre-university gap years had been the fashion in our day. We can see how much tougher our kids become, how much more prepared to benefit from university or to decide positively that they are going to do something other than a degree.
Gap years arc fashionable, as is reflected in the huge growth in the number of charities and private companies offering them. Pictures of Prince William toiling in Chile have helped, but the trend has been gathering steam for a decade. The range of gap packages starts with backpacking, and includes working with charities, building hospitals and schools and, very commonly, working as a language assistant, teaching English. With this trend, however, comes a danger. Once parents feel that a well-structured year is essential to their would-be undergraduate's progress to a better university, a good degree, an impressive CV and well paid employment, as the gap companies' blurbs (产品推介)suggest it might be, then parents will start organizing-- and paying for--the gaps.
Where there are disasters, according to Richard Oliver, director of the gap companies' umbrella organization, the Year Out Group, it is usually because of poor planning. That can be the fault of the company or of the student, he says, but the best insurance is thoughtful preparation. "When people get it wrong, it is usually medical or, especially among girls, it is that they have not been away from home before or because expectation does not match reality."
The point of a gap year is that it should be the time when the school leaver gets to do the thing that he or she fancies. The 18-year-old, who was dispatched by his parents at two weeks' notice to Canada to learn to be a snowboarding instructor at a cost of 5 800, probably came back with little more than a hangover. The 18-year-old on the same package who worked for his fare and spent the rest of his year instructing in resorts from New Zealand to Switzerland. and came back to apply for university, is the positive counterbalance.
It can be inferred from the first paragraph that parents of gap students may ______.
A. help children to be prepared for disasters
B. receive all kinds of support from their children
C. have rich experience in bringing tip their offspring
D. experience watching children grow up
听力原文: Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends? (26) Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. (27) We owe a lot to the birds and beasts which eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, (26) spiders never do the harm to us or our belongings.
Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance, (28) for a spider always has eight legs and insect never more than six.
How many spiders are engaged in this work in our behalf? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2 250 000 in one acre; that is something like 6 000 000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch. (29) Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.
(33)
A. Because they are beneficial insects.
Because they destroy insects without hurting us in any way.
C. Because they protect insect-eating animals.
D. Because they include some of the greatest enemies of the human race.
A.English grammar.B.English literature.C.Intercultural communication.D.Mathematics cla
A. English grammar.
B. English literature.
C. Intercultural communication.
D. Mathematics class.
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)
Directions: In this part you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1.For questions 1 7, choose the best answer from the .four choices marked A ) ,B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
how SATs Work
Tests are a fact of life throughout our school careers, but one of the most important, and, to some the scariest, of them all is the SAT—that three-hour exam that's supposed to measure a high school student's chance of academic success in the first year of college. Some colleges consider SAT scores major factors in their admission process, while others view high school academic performance, along with recommendations and extracurricular activities, equally, or even more importantly. No matter where you're headed, if you're a high school student, the SAT is important to you because most colleges require students to report either SAT or ACT Assessment (another test) scores.
What Is the SAT?
First of all, SAT no longer stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test (学术性倾向测验), the original name of the test when it was introduced in 1941.Although you may still see that name occasionally, the College Board, the not-for-profit educational association that sponsors the SATs, decided to let the acronym stand on its own as a way of addressing controversy about the meaning of the word "aptitude". The College Board also rejected the alternative "Scholastic Assessment Test". (English teachers probably pointed out that this name was redundant, since assessment means test.)
The SAT I measures verbal and math reasoning abilities that you've developed throughout your school years. The multiple-choice test, developed by the not-for-profit Educational Testing Service, is intended to let students demonstrate their verbal and math abilities without regard to the kind of schooling they've had. According to the College Board, the test looks for a student's ability to understand and analyze written material, to draw inferences, to differentiate shades of meaning, to draw conclusions and solve math problems all skills that are necessary for success in college and the work world.
The American College Testing (ACT).Assessment, which was introduced in 1959, is an alternative to the SAT that virtually all colleges and universities now accept. Developers of the test tout it for its curriculum-based questions, saying that their test is more directly related to what is actually taught in high school.
What's the SAT II
The newer SAT II: Subject Tests, formerly the College Board Achievement Tests, are intended to measure a student's knowledge of a particular subject, such as English (writing or literature), history and social sciences, mathematics (various levels), sciences, and languages (Chinese, French, German, modern He brew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Spanish, English). Some colleges require one or more SAT II tests, but even if they aren't required, SAT II tests scores can help you present a more personalized portfolio that illustrates how well you would fit at a particular school. Most colleges use SAT II scores not for admission purposes but for program placement and counseling. SAT II tests are given on a slightly different schedule from the SATI. Generally, SAT II tests are one hour long and consist of multiple choice questions. There are except ions. For example, the Writing Test has 40 minutes of multiple-choice questions and a 20-minute writing sample.
To decide which subject test should be taken, first, make a list of all the colleges you're considering. Then review their catalogs or websites to find out if they require Subject Test scores
A. measure whether a student's ability can be successful in the first year of college
B. evaluate high schools' education quality throughout the country
C. help improve the education in college throughout the country
D. measure high school students' chance of a fruitful life