30. According to the passage, the behavior
of others towards you can be changed by your_______
A. age
B. dress
C. status
D. behavior
TEXT B
This fishing village of 1,480 people is a bleak and lonely place,
even in a country located at the top of the world. Set on the southwestern edge
of Iceland , the volcanic
landscape is whipped by the cold North Atlantic
winds. There is no movie theater, and many residents never venture to
the capital, a 50-minute drive away.
But Sandgerdi might be perfect place to raise
girls who have mathematical talent. Government researchers two year ago tested
almost every 15-year-old in Iceland
for it and found that boys trail far behind girls. That fact was unique among
the 41 countries that took part in the standardized test for that age group
designed by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. But while
in their significant lead in the math, their national advantage of 15 points
was small compared with the one they had over boys in fishing villages like Sandgerdi where it was close to 30.
The teachers of Sandgerdi’s 254 students were
not much surprised. They say the gender gap is a story not of talent but
motivation. Boys think of school as purgatory on the way to a future of
finding riches at sea; for girls, it’s their ticket out of town. Margret Ingporsdottir and Hanna Maria
Heidarsdottir, both 15, have no doubt that they are headed for university. “ I
think I will be a doctor” , says Heidarsdottir.
Meanwhile , by the harbor, Gisli Tor Hauksson, 14, already has big plans that don’t require
spending his afternoons working hard at mathematics. “ I’ll be a fisherman”, he
says , just like most of his ancestors. As for school, he says, “ it hurts the
brain.” But the story of female achievement in Iceland doesn’t necessarily have a
happy ending. While 61% of university students are women, they make up only
one-third of Iceland’s
science students. By the time they enter the labor market , many are overtaken
by men , who become doctors, engineers and computer technicians. Educators say
they watch many bright girls suddenly recoil in the face of head-to-head
competition with boys. Solrun Gensdottir,
the director of education at Ministry of Education, Science and Culture say: “
we have to find a way to stop girls from dropping out sciences.”
Teachers across the country have begun to experiment with ways to raise
schoolboys to the level of girls. Last year Sandgerdi’s
teachers segregated the 10th-grade mathematics classes after
deciding that boys needs intensive instruction. The high school in Kevavic tried the same experiment in 2002 and 2003 ,
separating 16-to-20-year-olds by gender for two years. The boys fell even
further behind. “The boys said the girls were better anyway,” says Krisjan Arsmundsson, who taught
the 25 boys . “ They didn’t even try.”