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. In other words, girls may end up learning
math anxiety from their teachers. 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.
      The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that 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 who had 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. Which of the followings is NOT the study mentioned in the passage?

A. Girls may be bad at math because of their female teachers' anxiety.
B. Most students tend to believe that a math superstar has to be a boy.
C. What kind of teachers is more likely to have math anxiety.
D. On average boys are also affected by a teacher's anxiety.

2. What can you infer from the second paragraph?

A. Girls can do as well as boys if they are confident.
B. Girls are born much weaker than many boys.
C. Boys are stronger and better in math than girls.
D. Girls who are bad at math can do other things better.

3. According to the last paragraph, Levine's imply attitude to the math teaching in elementary schools
    is _______.

A. hopeful
B. disappointed
C. worried
D. content

    Psychologists tell us that there are four basic stages that human beings pass through when they enter and live in a new culture. This process, which helps us to deal with culture shock, is the way our brain and our
personality react to the strange new things we encounter when we move from one culture to another.
    Culture begins with the "honeymoon stage". This is the period of time when we first arrive in which
everything about the new culture is strange and exciting. We may be suffering from "jet lag" but we are
thrilled to be in the new environment, seeing new sights, hearing new sounds and language, eating new kind
s of food. This stage can last for quite a long time because we feel we are involved in some kind of great a
dventure.
    Unfortunately, the second stage can be more difficult. After we have settled down into our new life, we can become very tired and begin to miss our homeland and our family, friends, pets. All the little problems
in life seem to be much bigger and more disturbing when you face them in a foreign culture. This period of cultural adjustment can be very difficult and lead to the new arrival rejecting or pulling away from the new
culture.
    The third stage is called the "adjustment stage". This is when you begin to realize that things are not so
bad in the host culture. Your sense of humour usually becomes stronger and you realize that you are
becoming stronger by learning to take care of yourself in the new place. Things are still difficult, but you are
now a survivor!
  The fourth stage can be called "at ease at last". Now you feel quite comfortable in your new surroundings.
You can cope with most problems that occur. You may still have problems with the language, but you
know you are strong enough to deal with them.
     There is a fifth stage of culture shock which many people don't know about. This is called "reverse (颠倒、交换)culture shock". Surprisingly, this occurs when you go back to your native culture and find that
you have changed and that things there have changed while you have been away. Now you feel a little
uncomfortable back home. Life is a struggle!

1. When does culture shock happen?

A. When you reach your teens
B. When you move to a big city
C. When you meet foreign people for the first time
D. When you go to live in a foreign culture

2. How do you feel during the first stage of culture shock?

A. Lonely and depressed  
B. Bored and homesick
C. Happy and excited  
D. Angry and frustrated

3. How could the third stage be described?

A. Adjustment    
B. Rejection      
C. Enthusiasm    
D. Anger

4. Why might reverse culture shock be a problem?

A. It hardly ever happens.            
B. It is extremely stressful.
C. Most people do not expect it.      
D. It only happens to young people.

    Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we do not educate children only
for the purpose of educating them. Our purpose is to fit them for life.
     In some modern countries it has for some time been fashionable to think that by free education for
all - one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that
free education for all is not enough; we find in such countries a far larger number of people with
university degree; they refuse to do what they think "low" work; and, in fact, work with hands is thought
to be dirty and shameful in such countries. But we have only to think a moment to understand that the
work of a completely uneducated farmer is far more important than that of a professor; we can live
without education, but we die if we have no food. If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish
away from our houses, we should get terrible diseases in our towns…
     In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be
educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever work suited to his brains and ability
and, secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society, and that is very bad to be
ashamed of one's work. Only such a type of education can be considered valuable to society.

1. The writer of the passage thinks that _______.

A. education can settle most of the world's problems
B. free education for all probably leads to a perfect world
C. free education won't help to solve problems
D. all the social problems can't be solved by education

2. The writer wants to prove that _______.

A. our society needs all kinds of jobs
B. our society needs free education for all
C. a farmer is more important than a professor
D. work with hands is the most important

3. The purpose of education is _______.

A. to choose officials for the country
B. to prepare children mainly for their future work
C. to let everyone receive education fit for him
D. to build a perfect world

4. The passage tells us about _______ of the education.

A. the means
B. the system
C. the value
D. the type

     This year, Chongqing primary schools decide to start morning classes an hour later. This will help
students feel less tired. And most primary schools will begin the first classes at about9o'clock in the
morning.
     The students are happy about the change.
     Liu Ming told us that his class were excited by the news on the first day of the school. "Great! From
now on we students at Hope Primary School don't have to get up so early!" Liu said that he used to get
up at 6:40 am. Now he can get up at 7:50 am because class doesn't start until 8:50 am.
     Wu Hong feels the same. She said the new timetable(时间表) was good for her health. "I used to get
up at 6:30 am. I had to drink coffee every night, or I would feel too sleepy to finish my homework," said Wu. "Now I can finish it without coffee. Because I can sleep a little longer."
     Many teachers say the change will help students learn better. "Students used to doze(瞌睡) for the
first two classes in the morning," said Huang Shan, an English teacher at No. 1 Primary School. "But now
they are active and learn much better than before."
     But some parents are worried that more sleep will mean less learning. There used to be five classes in
the morning. Now there are only four.
      In fact, every coin has two sides. So does the change in the school timetable.

1 This year, most Chongqing primary schools started the first class at about ________.

A. 8:30 am      
B. 6:40 am    
C. 7:50 am      
D. 9:00 am

2. Hearing the news, the students at Hope Primary School felt _______.

A. worried      
B. sad          
C. excited      
D. angry

3. How many classes are there in the morning in Chongqing primary schools now?

A. Five.        
B. Four.        
C. Three.        
D. Two.

4. Which is RIGHT according to the text?

A. The students in No. 1 Primary School used to doze for the first two classes in the morning.
B. All the parents say the change will help students learn better.
C. The students will have to get up one hour earlier than before.
D. Many teachers are worried that more sleep will mean less learning.

     Let children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being
corrected all the time; if corrected too much, he will stop talking. He notices a thousand times
a day the difference between the language he uses and the language those around him use. Bit
by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people's. In the same
way, children learn to do all the other things without being taught to walk, run, climb, whistle,
ride a bicycle…They compare their own performances with those of more skilled people, and
slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his
mistakes and correct them for himself. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought that he
would never notice a mistake. If it is a matter in mathematics or science, give him the answer book.
Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time in such routine(日常的)work?
Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can't find the way to get the right answer.
Let the children learn what all educated persons must some day learn, how to measure their own
understanding, how to know what he does not know.

1. According to the passage, the best way for children to learn things is by_____.

A. listening to skilled people's advice.
B. asking older people many questions
C. making mistakes and having them corrected
D. doing what other people do

2. Which of the following does the writer think teachers should NOT do?

A. Give children correct answers
B. Allow children to mark mistakes.
C. Point out children's mistakes to them.
D. Let children mark their own work

3. According to the writer, teachers in school should _____

A. allow children to learn from each other
B. point out children's mistakes whenever found
C. correct children's mistakes as soon as possible
D. give children more book knowledge

4. The passage suggests that learning to speak and learning to ride a bicycle are____

A. different from learning other skills
B. the same as learning skills
C. more important than other skills
D. not really important skills