题目内容
The further falling of the stock market as reported today has _______ a fresh wave of selling.
A. set off B. given off C. put off D. got off

Each new school year brings fresh reminders of what educators call the summer learning gap. Some call it the summer learning setback. Simply speaking, it means the longer kids are out of school, the more they forget. The only thing they might gain is weight.
Most American schools follow a traditional nine-month calendar. Students get winter and spring breaks and about ten weeks of summer vacation. Some schools follow a year-round calendar. They hold classes for about eight weeks at a time, with a few weeks off in between. The National Association for Year-Round Education says there were fewer than three thousand such schools at last count. They were spread among forty-six of the fifty states.
But many experts point out that the number of class days in a year-round school is generally the same as in a traditional school. Lead researcher Paul von Hippel said, "Year-round schools don't really solve the problem of the summer learning setback. They simply spread it out across the year."
Across the country, research shows that students from poor families fall farther behind over the summer than other students. Experts say this can be prevented. They note that many schools and local governments offer programs that can help.
But calling them "summer school" could be a problem. The director of the summer learning center at Johns Hopkins, Ron Fairchild, said research with groups of different parents in Chicago and Baltimore found that almost all strongly disliked the term summer school”. In American culture, the idea of summer vacation is connected to beliefs about freedom and the joys of childhood. The parents welcomed other terms like "summer camp," "enrichment," "extra time" and "hands-on learning."
1.According to the first paragraph the summer learning gap .
A.helps children to gain weight |
B.leads children to work harder |
C.improves children’s memories |
D.affects children’s regular studies |
2.Compared to traditional schools, students in the year-round ones .
A.perform better and have more learning gains |
B.have much less time for relaxation every year |
C.have generally the same number of class days |
D.hold more classes with more free weeks off |
3.Which of the following statements is true?
A.Students from poor families often fall behind after the vacation. |
B.Year-round schools can solve the problem of the learning gap. |
C.There are schools in each state following a year-round calendar. |
D.Nothing can help the students who fall behind after the vocation. |
4.Why did almost all parents dislike the term “summer school”?
A.They cherish the children’s rights of freedom very much. |
B.They are worried about the quality of the “summer school”. |
C.They want their children to be forced to make up the gap. |
D.They can’t afford to the further study during vacation. |
5.What would be the best title of this passage?
A.Opening Summer Camps |
B.Forbidding Summer Schools |
C.Spreading Year-Round Education |
D.Minding the Summer Learning Cap |
On the whole, it’s not something we parents shout about, but one in four of us does it. Hiring private tutors for our children is now widespread.
“It’s expensive, but worth it,” says Ashan Sabri, whose daughter Zarreen, is having tuition in biology and chemistry in preparation for A-levels this summer. “My husband and I tried to tutor her at home, but we found all our knowledge was out of date and we were only confusing Zarreen. We also tried a group revision course but all the children were sitting in a room for different kinds of exams. On the whole, we think one-to-one tuition works best.”
The real reason is: does tutoring do any good?
“It’s not the magic bullet,” says Professor Judith Ireson, author of a 2005 Institute of Education report on the subject. “It’s still up to the child to do the learning. If he or she isn’t interested, sending them to a private tutor won’t do any good. However, we did find that students who had private tuition in mathematics during the two years before GCSE achieved on average just under half a grade higher than students who did not have a tutor.”
In which case, surely it’s time to break open the champagne? Not necessarily, says Elaine Tyrrell, head of The Rowans School, Wimbledon, a preparation school which regularly gets children into the best private schools.
“While we recommend private tutoring for a few children whose first language isn’t English, we don’t encourage it for the others. With the level of education they get here, children really ought to be able to pass the entrance exams without any extra teaching. And our worry is that they might just get used to getting help from last-minute tutoring, but, once they actually get to that school, they won’t be able to cope.”
But Mylene Curtis, owner of Fleet Tutors, one of the biggest tutoring agencies in the country, holds a different view.
“In some respects, the hurdles children have to leap in order to get into these schools are set at a higher level than the reality,” says Curtis. “We often find that, once a child has got into a school, the standard of work isn’t as high as was feared. The trick is to do well enough in the exam to win a place.”
1.What does Ashan Sabri think of the group revision course?
A.It’s expensive but worthwhile because it works the best. |
B.It confuses students because the knowledge taught in it is out of date. |
C.It isn’t effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
D.It is effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
2. What do the underlined words “magic bullet” in Paragraph 4 mean?
A.Something that cannot help to solve problems at all. |
B.Something that solves a difficult problem in an easy way. |
C.Something that seems useful but has no use at all. |
D.Something that encourages interest in study. |
3.According to Elaine Tyrrell, private tutoring is _______.
A.effective in language learning but not for exams |
B.effective for foreign students but not for local students |
C.unnecessary in most cases and may harm the further study of students |
D.unnecessary in secondary school but helpful to further study |
4. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?
A.Fleet Tutors and the Rowans School are competitors. |
B.Entrance exams to schools are too difficult for most students. |
C.Further study isn’t as difficult as was first thought. |
D.Private tuition is worth the financial investment. |
5.What attitude does the author hold towards home tutoring?
A.Critical |
B.Objective |
C.Supportive |
D.Uninterested |