Text 1

Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recently years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on this educational ritual. Unfortunately, L.A. Unified has produced an inflexible policy which mandates that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student's academic grade.

This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot complete on their own or that they cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children.

District administrators say that homework will still be a part of schooling; teachers are allowed to assign as much of it as they want. But with homework counting for no more than 10% of their grades, students can easily skip half their homework and see very little difference on their report cards. Some students might do well on state tests without completing their homework, but what about the students who performed well on the tests and did their homework? It is quite possible that the homework helped. Yet rather than empowering teachers to find what works best for their students, the policy imposes a flat, across­-the-­board rule.

At the same time, the policy addresses none of the truly thorny questions about homework. If the district finds homework to be unimportant to its students' academic achievement, it should move to reduce or eliminate the assignments, not make them count for almost nothing. Conversely, if homework matters, it should account for a significant portion of the grade. Meanwhile, this policy does nothing to ensure that the homework students receive is meaningful or appropriate to their age and the subject, or that teachers are not assigning more than they are willing to review and correct.

The homework rules should be put on hold while the school board, which is responsible for setting educational policy, looks into the matter and conducts public hearings. It is not too late for L. A. Unified to do homework right

21. It is implied in Paragraph 1 that nowadays homework________.

[A] is receiving more criticism                                

[B] is no longer an educational ritual

[C] is not required for advanced courses                        

[D] is gaining more preferences

22. L.A. Unified has made the rule about homework mainly because poor students________.

[A] tend to have moderate expectations for their education    

[B] have asked for a different educational standard

[C] may have problems finishing their homework                

[D] have voiced their complaints about homework

23. According to Paragraph 3, one problem with the policy is that it may________.

[A] discourage students from doing homework                    

[B] result in students' indifference to their report cards

[C] undermine the authority of state tests                             

[D] restrict teachers' power in education

24. As mentioned in Paragraph 4, a key question unanswered about homework is whether ______.

[A] it should be eliminated                               [B] it counts much in schooling

[C] it places extra burdens on teachers                      [D] it is important for grades

25. A suitable title for this text could be________.

[A] Wrong Interpretations of an Educational Policy          

[B] A Welcomed Policy for Poor Students

[C] Thorny Questions about Homework                   

[D] A Faulty Approach to Homework
 

21.【答案】D

【解析】文章首段包含了两方面的内容，作者先简单介绍Peer pressure，再引出Tina Rosenberg在她的新书Join the Club中对于peer pressure的看法，这篇文章是以一篇书评的形式出现。而题目"根据第一段，同伴压力的出现常常是…"问的仅仅是同伴压力，并无涉及到Tina Rosenberg或者她的新书，因此答案则应主要涉及文章对于peer pressure的介绍，而非Tina对于peer pressure的看法。首段第三句说"(同伴压力)通常引起不好的事情，如酗酒，嗑药，乱交"，故答案选D，说明同伴压力出现导致的结果，这里的答案使用了同义替换的方式。

22.【答案】B

【解析】根据题干关键词"public-health advocates"可以定位到第三段最后一句话"Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure",即应该向广告商学习，这里主要是对于短语"take a page from"的理解，答案选B

23.【答案】A

【解析】根据题干"在作者看来，Rosenberg的书没能…"，所选答案是要找出作者看来这本书的缺点是什么。文章第四段第一句话说"但是，在…方面，Rosenberg不太有说服力"，紧接着说"Join the Club中太多无关的细节，而对于使同伴压力能产生如此大作用的社会和生物因素并未做足够的探究"，这句话充分说明了在作者心目中这本书的不足在哪儿，故答案选A

24.【答案】C

【解析】这是一道细节题。文章第五段首句告诉我们peer groups确实会对行为产生很大的影响，第二句具体说明影响的内容，即好的习惯和不好的习惯都会通过社会交际在朋友圈中传递，最后一句则对这种影响进行了总结，"这是同伴压力的细微表现，我们无意识地模仿日常所见到的行为"。而分析题干和选项，我们发现该题是对"imitation of behavior"进行归纳，回到原文，找到"我们无意识地模仿日常所见到的行为"，答案即刻清晰，这里是对unconsciously一词进行了释义，因此C选项正确。

25.【答案】D

【解析】这道题考查作者对于peer pressure所能带来的影响的态度，作者通过最后一段第一句话首先向我们表明他对"专家和其他官方人员是否能成功选择同伴来引导他们的行为朝好的方向发展"的不肯定，接下来以教师指导学生的例子为说明，得出结论"The tactic never really works."(这个策略从来没有真正起作用)。通过作者的这样一番描述，可以看出，作者对于peer pressure是否能有效果是质疑的，故答案选D。