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请阅读Passage l,完成第21~25小题。
Passage 1
A new scheme for getting children to and from school is being started by the education authorities in part of Eastern England. This could end the worries of many parents fearful for their children's safety on the roads.
Until now the Country Council has only been prepared to provide bus services for children living more than three miles from their school, or sometimes less if special reasons existed. Now it has been decided that if a group of parents ask for help in organizing transport they will be prepared to go ahead, provided the arrangement will not lose money and that children taking part will be attending their nearest school.
The new scheme is to be tried out this term for children living at Milton who attend Impington school. The children live just within the three-mile limit and the Council has said in the past it will not undertake to provide free transport to the school. But now they have agreed to organize a bus service from Milton to Impington and back, a plan which has the support of the school's headmaster.
Between 50 and 60 parents have said they would like their children to take part in. Final calculations have still to be carried out, but a council official has said the cost of parents should be less than $6.50 a tenn.
They have been able to arrange the service at a low cost because there is already an agreement with the bus company for a bus to take children who live further away to Impington. The same bus would now just make an extra journey to pick up the Milton children. The official said they would get in touch with other groups of parents who in the past had asked if transport could be provided for their children, to see if they would like to take part in the new scheme.
21. The children the Council ran buses for in the past were those__________.
A. whose parents were worried about them
B. who would have had to walk otherwise
C. who could not walk
D. who had to travel a long way
22. Taking part in the Council's trial schemes are children who__________.
A. living in Milton and go to Impington school
B. living in Impington and go to Milton school
C. living in Milton and go to Milton school
D. living in Impington and go to Impington school
23. The new bus service will run__________.
A. on morning journeys to school only
B. in connection with an existing service
C. only for children living more than three miles away
D. only in wet weather
24. Agreement to pay for the new bus service has been obtained from__________.
A. the school's headmaster
B. the education department
C. the bus company
D. the parents
25. The parents the Council is now going to contact are those__________.
A. who had not yet answered letters
B. who didn't want to pay
C. whose children stayed away from school
D. who had asked about transport before
请阅读Passage 2,完成第26~30小题。
Passage 2
In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We're pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. I've twice been to the wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. We see our kids' college background as a prize demonstrating how well we've raised them. But we can't acknowledge that our obsession is more about us than them. So we've contrivedvarious justifications that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn't matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.
We have a full-blown prestige panic; we worry that there won't be enough prizes to go around. Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever. Underlying the hysteria is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts. All that is plausible--and mostly wrong. We haven't found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters. Selective schools don't systematically employ better instructional approaches than less selective schools. On two measures--professor's feedback and the number of essay exams--selective schools do slightly worse.
By some studies, selective schools do enhance their graduates' lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2-4% for every 100-point increase in a school's average SAT scores. But even this advantage is probably a statistical fluke. A well-known study examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere. They earned just as such as graduates from higher-status schools.
Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may signify intelligence, talent and ambition. But it's not the only indicator and, paradoxically, its significance is declining. The reason:
so many similar people go elsewhere. Getting into college isn't life's only competition. In the next competition--the job market and graduate school--the results may change. Old-boy networks are breaking down. Princeton economist Alan Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph.D. program. High scores on the GRE helped explain who got in; degrees of prestigious universities didn' t.
So, parents, lighten up. The stakes have been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can rationalize our pushiness. America is a competitive society; our kids need to adjust to that. But too much pushiness can be destructive. The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.
26. Why does the author say that parents are the true fighters in the college-admissions wars?
A. They have the final say in which university their children are to attend.
B. They know best which universities are most suitable for their children.
C. They have to carry out intensive surveys of colleges before children make an application.
D. They care more about which college their children go to than the children themselves.
27. Why do parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever?
A. They want to increase their children's chances of entering a prestigious college.
B. They hope their children can enter a university that offers attractive scholarships.
C. Their children will have a wider choice of which college to go to.
D. Elite universities now enroll fewer students than they used to.
28. What does the author mean by "Kids count more than their colleges" (Line 1, Para. 4)?
A. Continuing education is more important to a person's success.
B. A person's happiness should be valued more than their education.
C. Kids' actual abilities are more important than their college background.
D. What kids learn at college cannot keep up with job market requirements.
29. What does Krueger's study tell us?
A. Getting into Ph.D. programs may be more competitive than getting into college.
B. Degrees of prestigious universities do not guarantee entry to graduate programs,
C. Graduates from prestigious universities do not care much ahout their GRE scores.
D. Connections built in prestigious universities may he sustained long after graduation,
30. One possible result of pushing children into elite universities is that
A. they earn less than their peers from other institutions
B. they turn out to be less competitive in the job market
C. they experience more job dissatisfaction after graduation
D. they overemphasize their qualifications in job applications
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