Going to school means learning new skills and facts in different subjects. Teachers teach and students learn, and many scientists are interested in finding ways to improve both teaching and learning processes.

Sian Beilock and Susan Leving, two psychologists at the University of Chicago, are trying to learn about learning. In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, Beilock and Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn: If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math. “If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grades, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement,” Levine told Science News. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.

Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult to learn—and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone.

The new study involved 65 girls, 52 boys and 17 first-and second-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.

The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers: To find out which teachers were anxious about math, the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example, was probably anxious about math.

Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher’s anxiety. On average, girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus, on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math—and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers with math anxiety.

According to surveys done before this one, college students who want to become elementary school teachers have the highest levels of anxiety about math. Plus, nine of every 10 elementary teachers are women, Levine said.

1.Sian Beilock and Susan Levine carried out the new research in order to ___________.

A．know the effects of teaching on learning      B．study students’ ways of learning math

C．prove women teachers are unfit to teach math D．find better teaching methods for teachers

2.The underlined part in paragraph 2 most probably means that girls may ___________.

A．end up learning math anxiety from their teachers

B．study the ways their female teachers behave

C．have an influence on their math-anxious female teachers

D．gain unexpected achievement in such subjects as math

3.In the study, what were the teachers required to do?

A．Prepare two math achievement tests for the students

B．Tell their feelings about math problems

C．Answer whether a math superstar had to be a boy

D．Compare the students’ scores after the math tests

4.What is the finding of the new study?

A．No male students were affected by their teachers’ anxiety

B．Almost all the girls got lower scores in the tests than the boys

C．About 30% of the girls thought boys are better at math than girls

D．Girls with math-anxious teachers all failed in the math tests

5.Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

A．117 students and teachers took part in the new study

B．The researchers felt surprised at the findings of their study

C．Beilock and Levine are interested in teaching math

D．Men teachers are better at teaching math than women teachers

The national assistance system for poor college students is getting more effective as proved by fewer phone calls to the hotline of the National Center for Student Assistance Administration.
"Poor college students and their parents are getting more satisfied with the national assistance system," said Ma Wenhua, deputy director of the administration, on Saturday. Over the past three years, the hotline received 8,488 calls. Statistics show 62 percent of the calls were made to ask about the funding policy, while 38 percent (3,200 calls) complained local colleges had failed to abide by the rules to support the students.
Complaints were seen a year-on-year decrease from 2006 to 2008. Ma said some poor families might still overlook what they should do to get support for their child. To ensure education equality, the government has introduced a set of favorable policies to help poor students, such as scholarships, grants(助学金), student loans, tuition waivers(学费全免) and the work-study programs under which poor students are helped out in libraries, teachers' offices or service departments to earn money.
Statistics show the government spent 29.3 billion yuan last year to aid college students, up 7.6 percent from the previous year. Around 40 million persons of college students received the national aid.
The Ministry of Education of the government would ensure that no students drop out of colleges or universities because of poverty.
Among the 20 million students in the country's public and private universities and colleges last year, about 20 percent came from poor backgrounds, official figures show.
【小题1】The national assistance system is set up ___.

51---------

Successful people are nicer to those who are jealous of them, psychologists have found.

　　　The fear that they may become the target of malicious（恶意的）envy makes people act more helpfully toward people who they think might be jealous of them.

　　　Previous research found jealousy could be divided into benign and malicious envy. Those with benign envy were motivated to improve themselves, to do better so they could be more like the person they envied.52--------　The Dutch researchers then set out to question the effect on the target of the envy.

      In lab experiments a group of people were made to feel like they would be maliciously envied by being told they would receive an award of five euros（欧元）53-------The researchers thought that the deserved prize would lead to benign envy, while the undeserved prize would lead to malicious envy.

　　　Then the volunteer was asked to give time-consuming advice to a potentially envious person.People who had reason to think they would be the target of malicious envy were more likely to take the time to give advice than targets of benign envy.

　　　In another experiment, an experimenter dropped a number of erasers on the floor as the volunteer was leaving.54--------　He said: 'This sort of serves a useful group function. We all think better-off people should share with others but that's not something we are inclined to do when we are better off..55----------　　

A. Those who thought they would be maliciously envied were more likely to help him pick them up.

    B. Helping others is a virtue.

C. However those with malicious envy wanted to bring the more successful person down.

    D. Malicious envy. is terrible.

E. This fear of envy can encourage us to behave in ways that improve the social interactions of the group.'

　　F. People are more likely to help others if they think they are envious of them.

G.. Sometimes the prize was deserved and was based on the score they were told they had earned on a quiz. But sometimes it was not based on their score at all.

Walking in any high school during the first class in the morning, you will find many students are struggling to stay awake.

“They’re sitting in the classroom, but their heads are at home on the pillows,” said a teacher from a high school.

Don’t blame them; blame the clocks in their brains. A research suggests that biological clocks make teens stay up at night and sleep in the morning.

During the first several weeks of school, students are more likely to lack sleep. In the holidays, students can sleep eight hours a night, but during the school days, they sleep only about six hours on average. Students lose 10 hours’ sleep a week. This may affect their school performances and leads to poor health.

Scientists in the US did research to reset teenagers’ biological clock to help them fall asleep earlier. They found the brain can produce a chemical that helps sleep. But it comes out only in the dark. So they use a special light in the classroom to try to force a reset of the students’ biological clock.

The research failed in the end. So some schools in the US tried to reset their school time from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. The results seemed to be good.

1.What can you see while walking in high schools in the early morning ? (no more than 7 words    2 分)

2.Why are students so sleepy in the first class ? ( no more than 6 words  3分)

3.During the school days, how many hours of sleep do the students lose every month?

( no more than 2 words   2分)

4.What suggestion will the scientists give to high schools? ( no more than 4 words 3分)

Barditch High School decided to hold an All-School Reunion．Over 450 people came to the event．There were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park．Several former teachers were on hands to tell stories about the old days．Ms．Mabel Yates, the English teacher for fifty years, was wheeled to the Park．
Some eyes rolled and there were a few low groans(嘟囔声)when Ms．Yates was about to speak．Many started looking at their watches and coming up with excuses to be anywhere instead of preparing to listen to a lecture from an old woman who had few kind words for her students and made them work harder than all the other teachers combined．
Then Ms．Yates started to speak:
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here．I haven’t seen many of you since your graduation, but I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies．I have a large collection of newspaper photographs of my students．Although I haven’t appeared in person, I have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the birth of your children, in my imagination．”
Ms．Yates paused and started crying a bit．Then she continued:
“It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and others would succeed to annoy me．Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been successful in you chosen path．”
“There is no greater comfort for an educator than to see the end result of his or her years of work．You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all from the bottom of my heart．”
There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping．The clapping turned into cheering, then into a deafening roar(呼喊)．Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all because of the words from a long forgotten English teacher from their hometown．
【小题1】What activity was organized for the school reunion?