D. R. Gaul Middle School is in Union, Maine, a blueberry-farming town where the summer fair finds kids competing in pig scrambles(争夺) and pie-eating contests.

Gaul, with about 170 seventh- and eighth-graders, has its own history of lower level academic achievement. One likely reason: Education beyond the basic requirements hasn't always been a top priority(优先) for families who've worked the same land for generations. Here, few adults have college degrees, and outsiders(局外人) (teachers included) are often kept at a respectful distance.

Since 2002, Gaul's students have been divided into four classes, each of them taught almost every subject by two teachers. The goal: To find common threads across disciplines to help students create a big picture that gives fresh meaning and context to their class work -- and sparks(激发) motivation for learning.

Working within state guidelines, each team makes its individual schedules and lesson plans, incorporating non-textbook literature, hands-on lab work and field trips. If students are covering the Civil War in social studies, they're reading The Red Badge of Courage or some other period literature in English class. In science, they study the viruses and bacteria that caused many deaths in the war.

Team teaching isn't unusual. About 77 percent of middle schools now employ some form of it, says John Lounsbury, consulting editor for the National Middle School Association. But most schools use four- or five-person teams, which Gaul tried before considering two-person teams more effective. Gaul supports the team concept by "looping" classes (跟班) so that the same two teachers stick with the same teens through seventh and eighth grades. Combining teams and looping creates an extremely strong bond between teacher and student. It also, says teacher Beth Ahlholm, "allows us to build an excellent relationship with parents."

Ahlholm and teammate Madelon Kelly are fully aware how many glazed looks they see in the classroom, but they know 72 percent of their eighth-graders met Maine's reading standard last year -- double the statewide average. Only 31 percent met the math standard, still better than the state average (21 percent). Their students also beat the state average in writing and science. And in2006, Gaul was one of 47 schools in the state to see testing gains of at least 20 percent in four of the previous five years, coinciding roughly with team teaching's arrival.

 

A Classroom With Context
1.      of the school	◆Being a farming town, Gaul achieved little in 2.        before. ◆Further education is considered less important there. ◆The community is relatively 3.         rather than open to the outsiders.
Ways of solving the problems	●dividing the students into different classes and creating ways to make the students well 4.         to learn. ●conducting5.       and lesson plans for each team ●establishing a strong 6.        between teacher and students through combining teams and looping
7.       of success	■72 percent of the eighth-graders8.       Maine's reading standard ■the school beating the state average in 9.         ■students’ math average being 10.       higher than the state average ■four of the previous five years  witnessing at least 20 percent test gains

 

 

According to sociologists(社会学家), every modern industrial society has some form of social stratification(阶层). Class, power and status are important in deciding people’s rank in society.
Class means a person’s economic position in society. A commonly used classification is lower class, middle class and upper class. While sociologists disagree on how these terms should be exactly defined, they do describe societies like the United States quite well. One study shows that 53% of Americans belong to the lower class, 46% the middle class, and 1% the upper class. Interestingly, a surgeon earning ＄500,000 a year and a bus driver earning ＄50,000 a year both regard themselves as the middle class!
Power refers to the amount of control a person has over other people. Obviously, people in positions of great power (such as governors) exercise(行使)big power, but people who take orders from others have less power. Power and class do not always go hand in hand, however. For example, the governor of a state has great power, but he or she may not belong to a corresponding (相应的)economic class. Generally, however, there is a relationship between power and class.   
To our knowledge, there aren’t too many people who aren’t millionaires in the U.S. Senate!
Status is the honor or respect attached to a person’s position in society. It can also be affected by power and class, but not necessarily so. For example, a university professor may have a high status but not belong to a high social class or have a lot of power over others.
【小题1】What can we learn about “the middle class” from Paragraph 2?

A．People earning ＄50,000 a year belong to the middle class.

B．Nearly half Americans belong to the middle class.

C．People generally consider bus drivers as the middle class.

D．Sociologists have a clear definition of the middle class.

【小题2】According to the text, we know that _____.

A．power and class do not always correspond with each other

B．status refers to a person’s economic position in society

C．people with high status have a lot of control over others

D．class is less important in deciding a person’s social rank

【小题3】Which of the following shows the structure of the whole text?

 

SECTION B (10 points)

Direction: Read the following passage and answer the questions according to the information you get in the passage and the required words limit.

Several years ago, Masaru Ibuka, the chairman of Sony, was at a company planning a meeting. Suddenly he had a brilliant idea. He stopped the meeting and asked everyone present what would happen if Sony removed the recording function and speaker and sold headphones(耳机) with a tape player instead. Almost everyone thought he was crazy. Still, Ibuka kept thinking about his idea and worked at refining it. The result, of course, turned out to be the wildly successful Sony Walkman.

Good ideas often start with a really silly question. Bill Bowerman was making breakfast one day. As he stood there making waffles(蛋奶烙饼)for his son, he wondered what would happen if he poured rubber into his waffle iron(蛋奶烙饼烤模).So, he tried and the result looked something like the bottom of most sports shoes we see today. Still, when he took this idea to several existing shoe companies he was literally(确实地)laughed at. In fact, every single company turned him down. Though rather disappointed, Bowerman was determined and went on to form his own company, making NIKE athletic shoes.

Sometimes good ideas grow out of frustration(挫败). When Fred Smith was a student at Yale University, he had some paperwork that he needed to have delivered across the country the next day. Smith was amazed to find out that overnight delivery(隔夜送货) was impossible. He sat for a long while wondering why. Why couldn’t there be reliable overnight mail delivery service? He decided to design one. Smith did just that and turned his design into a class project. His business professor thought it was not a good class project and gave him only a C. However, Smith refined the idea in that class project and eventually turned it into one of the first and most successful overnight mail services in the world——FedEx.

81. What did Masaru Ibuka’s idea turn out to be? （no more than 2 words）

______________________________________________________________________________

82. What did Fred Smith’s teacher think of his class project? （no more than 8 words）

______________________________________________________________________________

83. Nike athletic shoes came from Bill Bowerman’s idea of____________. （no more than 6 words）

______________________________________________________________________________

84. What is the main idea of the passage? （no more than 12 words）

______________________________________________________________________________

 

Most students hate their endless homework. The students from Class 2, Senior 2 of the High School Affiliated to Peking University certainly did before they published their own collection of English novels at home.

Their small book contains stories about a holy (神圣的) war, the happy life of a self-taught artist and the story of a laid-off worker who devoted his last breath to playing his beloved accordion (手风琴). The book becomes an instant hit on campus. About 3,000 copies have been sold and the class is already working on the second volume.

"We're up to our ears in homework. Exercises and exams make us out of breath. But to do something creative and full of imagination is such a great achievement," said Yu Xiaoxiao, 16.

"I took the writing as an ordinary homework at the beginning, but after I finished the first part of my story, I could not help but let it flow," said Wang An, who wrote "Accordion".

Inspired by "Lord of the Rings", Jiang Lu wrote his story about magic wars between angels from the light and the dark side. "The main message of the story was to look at the balance of the world. Both dark and light angels fight with love as their weapons. I want to tell people that selfish love might bring hate," Jiang said.

"I was shocked by their work and felt so proud to be the editor of my students' book," said Nathaniel Timmermann, the oral English teacher at the school. Liu Xiuqin, an English teacher, started the project by asking students to write whatever was in their mind every week. "They have performed beyond expectation," Liu said. "They wrote interesting stories and their English has improved after they started to express their real minds."

"We never imagined that our homework would be so popular and profitable (盈利的). We sell the novels at five yuan, but many teachers pay more to encourage us," said Yuan Mengyao.

1. After Wang An finished the first part of his story, he _________.

A. couldn't go on                 B. had to put it aside   

C. just wanted to express it freely   D. lost it

2.What was not the outcome of the students' homework of writing whatever was in their mind?

A. Being popular.            B. Being profitable. 

C. Improving their English.    D. Winning prize.

3.What is the reason for the students' liking to write interesting stories?

A. It is creative and imaginative.             

B. It is profitable.

C. Interesting stories are sure to be popular.   

D. Interesting stories can be well sold.

4.What is the best title of this passage?

A. Creative homework leads to a popular book      

B. Writing interesting stories

C. Students' new book           

D. A popular book

 

Roger Alvarez, 22, was one of the 52 percent of students who didn’t make it through his senior year at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles.

    He dropped out several years ago, but by the time he was in ninth grade, Alvarez says he already knew he wasn’t going to graduate.

    “There’s a certain amount of knowledge you have to have when you enter in a specific grade, and I didn’t have it.” Alvarez says,“Every class I used to go in, I was like, ‘Do I know this? I don’t know this.’”

    It was a shameful attitude, he tells his former English teacher, Antero Garcia, 29.

    “You were determined to help me, but what was I willing to give? I could have actually tried.”

    For his part, Garcia wants to know how he could have reached out to Alvarez better, but Alvarez says Garcia had always been helpful.

    “I mean, you could cheer me up, and then I see other students doing way better,” Alvarez says,“So then, I get nervous. I get stuck, and then my motivation goes to the floor.” He felt the situation was hopeless.

    “You talked to me like if I could do it, but inside me, I knew I couldn’t.” he tells Garcia,“I just didn’t want you to think that I’m…stupid.”

    Now, school is a life tool that Alvarez says he’s missing—but his teacher isn’t to blame.

    “Always, I just wanted you to know…you were a good teacher, and I always respected you.” he tells Garcia,“Some teachers, I felt like they only wanted to teach a certain group of people. But you looked at me and you paid attention.”

    “Maybe it didn’t get me to graduate, but there’re a lot of teachers, they don’t take the time to take a look. And it was never your fault.”

    Alvarez now works the night shift at a loading dock(码头). He still hopes to get his degree one day.

1.When Alvarez entered a grade, he was sure that ___________.

A. he wasn’t going to pass the class

B. he would do better than other students

C. he might learn an amount of knowledge

D. he would try his best to learn at class

2.By saying “my motivation goes to the floor”,  Alvarez meant __________.

A. he hid his goal from others              B. he lost heart gradually

C. he built up his motivation               D. he fell to the ground completely

3.In the opinion of Alvarez, most teachers _______.

A. paid no attention to teaching             B. had no time to read books

C. didn’t care about what he did             D. showed no respect to students

4.The passage mainly tells us that _________.

A. a dropout complains about being treated badly

B. a dropout plans to get his degree again

C. a dropout shows respect for not graduating

D. a dropout has thanks to his teacher not blame