题目内容
Engineering students are supposed to be examples of practicality and rationality, but when it comes to my college education, I am an idealist and a fool. In high school I wanted to be an electrical engineer and, of course, any sensible student with my aims would have chosen a college with a large engineering department, famous reputation and lots of good labs and research equipment. But that’s not what I did.
I chose to study engineering at a small liberal arts(文科)university that doesn’t even offer a major in electrical engineering. Obviously, this was not a practical choice; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a broad education that would provide me with flexibility and a value system to guide me in my career. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my vision by interacting with people who weren’t studying science or engineering. My parents, teachers and other adults praised me for such a sensible choice. They told me I was wise and mature beyond my 18 years, and I believed them.
I headed off to college, sure I was going to have an advantage over those students who went to big engineering “factories”, where they didn’t care if you had values or were flexible. I was going to be a complete engineer: technical genius and sensitive humanist(人文学者)all in one.
Now I’m not so sure. Somewhere along the way my noble ideals crashed into reality, as all noble ideals eventually do. After three years of struggling to balance math, physics and engineering courses with liberal arts courses, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering students try to reconcile(协调)engineering with liberal arts courses in college.
The reality that has blocked my path to become the typical successful student is that engineering and the liberal arts simply don’t mix as easily as I assumed in high school. Individually they shape a person in very different ways; together they threaten to confuse. The struggle to reconcile the two fields of study is difficult.
57. The author chose to study engineering at a small liberal arts university because
he _____.
A. wanted to be an example of practicality and rationality
B. intended to be a combination of engineer and humanist
C. wanted to coordinate engineering with liberal arts courses in college
D. intended to be a sensible student with noble ideals.
58. In the eyes of the author, a successful engineering student is expected ______.
A. to have an excellent academic record
B. to be wise and mature
C. to be imaginative with a value system to guide him
D. to be a technical genius with a wide vision
59. The author’s experience shows that he was _______.
A. creative B. ambitious
C. unrealistic D. irrational
60. The word “they” in “…together they threaten to confuse.” refers to ______.
A. engineering and the liberal arts.
B. reality and noble ideals
C. flexibility and a value system
D. practicality and rationality
BDCA
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This was no ordinary class. The students who came together were all science or engineering professors at Cornell University. They had interrupted their research to accept an invitation to take part in an unusual experiment: “an interesting week of poetry.” This class was part of a study to answer the questions: Why is science difficult for many nonscience students? What can teachers learn about teaching if they take a class that is not in their field?
The students in the poetry class listened to lectures and took notes. They had reading tasks and had to write three short papers. All students noticed one thing – the importance of spoken words. In science and engineering classes, the instructors put tables and drawings on the blackboard. But in this poetry class, the instructors just talked. They didn’t write anything on the board.
The scientists and engineers noticed one similarity between science and poetry. In both subjects, students need to find layers (层次) of meaning . Some layers are simple, clean, and on the surface; other layers are deeper and more difficult. This search for different levels of meaning doesn’t happen much in undergraduate(本科) science classes, but it is important later, in graduate school. And it is always important in humanities(人文科学).
Both the poetry instructors and their students learned something about teaching from this experience. One poetry instructor, for example, now sees the importance of using informative as he teaches. Most of the scientists agreed on several points. First, humanities classes might help science students to see patterns and decide which information is important. Second, the poetry class was fun. One engineer decided, “We need to change the way we teach engineering to make to make it an enjoyable experience for students.”
But perhaps the most important result of the experience was this; All of the professors began to think about how they teach and how they cam teach better.
【小题1】What do we know about this unusual class?
| A.The teachers did lots of writing on the board |
| B.The teacher were invited to attend several lectures. |
| C.The student were professors from a university |
| D.The students were studying science and humanities. |
| A.how to teach the students in the science class |
| B.whether poetry is difficult for science students |
| C.what to be taught in the humanities class |
| D.why many humanities students find science hard. |
| A.important for graduate students in humanities |
| B.difficult for graduate students in humanities |
| C.common for undergraduate students in science |
| D.easy for undergraduate students in science. |
| A.They should change the way they teach |
| B.A poem could be explained in clear definitions. |
| C.A poetry class could be more informative. |
| D.Their teaching was an enjoyable experience. |