India was once part of the British Empire, but thanks to modern technology and a booming economy, it has turned the tables on its former colonial master. Indian tutors are helping to teach math to British children over high-speed Internet connections. Early results suggest the idea is improving exam results. But not everyone is happy at this “outsourcing” of tutoring.
It’s 3:30, and pupils at Raynham Primary School in London are gathering for their after-school maths lessons.
Five time zones— thousands of kilometers away—their math tutors are also arriving for class. High-speed Internet has made it possible for Indian tutors to teach British pupils in real time. Each pupil gets a dedicated one-to-one online tutor. The students work with activities on their computer screen and wear a headset and microphone to talk to their tutor.
The class teacher, Altus Basson, says he has seen an improvement in results. “There are some children who’ve really rocketed in their results. Children who struggleto focus in class focus a lot better on the laptops. The real advantage is that each child gets a focused activity and a single tutor,” he said.
Such individualized teaching is the core idea of Brightspark Education, the company that provides the online tutoring, says founder Tom Hooper. “Children today feel very confident online; they feel very engaged; they feel very in control. And that's half the battle with education.Give them control, make them feel confident and enjoy their learning and you'll see them start to improve and embrace it," he said.
Raynham Primary School is among the first in Europe to try online tutoring. At between $20 and $25 an hour, it's about half the cost of face-to-face coaching. But some people say an Internet connection is not enough of a connection for teaching and learning. Kevin Courtney is deputy General Secretary of Britain's National Union of Teachers. "We think, there's a really important emotional connection between a teacher and a child whether it's a whole class or whether it's one-to-one. You need that immediacy of feedback and we're not convinced that that can happen across an Internet connection. In one of the wealthiest.countries in the world, we think that we can afford to have teachers with genuine emotional connection there with the children," he said.
Brightspark Education says the online tutoring is used only as an addition to supplement regular teaching. The company says its service does not represent a threat to teachers' jobs in Britain.
Parents say they're very satisfied with the results they've seen. And what about the children?Children: "I love it!"I love it!"I hate maths!" So math--or, as the British call it, maths—is still not everyone's favorite subject even with the latest technology to teach it.What do we know about the online tutoring?
| A．Indian tutors are helping to teach math in Britain. |
| B．Tutors and students are in different places. |
| C．An online tutor helps several students at the same time. |
| D．Tutors and students communicate by telephone. |
What can we learn about Brightspark Education?
| A．It shows a threat to teachers’ jobs in Britain. |
| B．It can take place of the regular teaching. |
| C．It only pays attention to math teaching. |
| D．It emphasizes the individualized teaching. |
According to Kevin Courtne, _________. .
| A．online tutoring will represent a threat to teachers’ jobs in Britain |
| B．online tutoring has a great influence on British. |
| C．the emotional connection between a teacher and a child is important |
| D．immediacy of feedback can happen across an Internet connection |
What’s the best title for this passage ?
| A．A New Teaching Pattern |
| B．Indian Teachers and British Students |
| C．To Learn Maths with the Latest Technology |
| D．Indian Tutors Teach British Kids Online |
Researchers have found that people's mental abilities hit the highest point at 22 before beginning to get worse just five years later.
Professor Timothy Salthouse said the results told us that treatment which was planned to prevent or make overage-connected conditions better may need to start earlier, long before people become retired (退休).
"Almost half of those over 50 is not clear about the main cause of the fall of mental abilities. Results show that the age-connected cognitive decline (认知衰退) begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s, " he said. Tests like those are often used to show mental disabilities and the falling, including dementia (痴呆症).
The research by the University of Virginia found that in nine out of 12 tests the common age at which the top performance appeared was 22.
The first age at which performance was much lower than the highest scores was 27—for three tests about reasoning, speed of thought and space imagination.
Memory was shown to fall from the average age of 37. In the other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42.
However, the report published in the magazine "Neurobiology Of Ageing", found that abilities that are based on collected knowledge, such as performance on tests of getting vocabulary (词汇) or general information, increased until at the age of 60.
The study of 2, 000 men and women lasted over seven years. The people attending the study, aged between 18—60, were asked to do picture puzzles, remember words and stories and mark patterns in letters and signs.
Twenty-seven has long had unhelpful connotations (隐含意义), as it is the age at which many popular musicians died, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain. Which of the following is NOT true?
| A．People's mental abilities perform best at 22. |
| B．People's mental abilities begin to get worse at 27. |
| C．People's mental abilities have nothing to do with age. |
| D．Many people don't know what cause mental abilities' falling. |
The tests of the study were planned to find __________.
| A．the difference of males and females |
| B．ways to help the people find better jobs |
| C．better ways to treat dementia of some old people |
| D．age has an effect on performance of mental abilities |
People at the age of 27 perform worse mainly at __________.
| A．reasoning, speed of thought and space imagination |
| B．getting vocabulary or general information |
| C．all of the mental abilities |
| D．only the ability of memory |
What is the best title of the passage?
| A．Twenty-seven Has Long Been Unhelpful |
| B．Mental Abilities Start to Fall at 27 |
| C．27 Musicians Died Earlier |
| D．How to Get Better Mental Abilities |
The European Union announced plans on Tuesday to temporarily ban the use of animal cloning for food production, while allowing imports of food derived from the offspring (后代) of clones from the United States and elsewhere.
The report from the European Commission followed a call by EU lawmakers in July for a total ban on food derived from cloned animals and their traditionally bred offspring, citing ethical concerns over the industrial production of cloned meat.
The Commission said a temporary five-year EU ban on cloning for food production was justified on animal welfare grounds, but said banning imports of food from the offspring of clones was unnecessary and would disrupt global trade.
"Food from cloned animals is safe. In fact, the scientific opinion is that it cannot be differentiated in any way from food normally bred animals. The issue is animal welfare," EU Health and Consumer Commissioner John Dalli told reporters.
Food derived from the offspring of clones presents no such animal welfare issues, and banning its sale and import would be impossible because the origin is untraceable, Dalli said.
"Such a prohibition would lead to a ban of imports of any food of animal origin (meat, milk and processed products) from third countries allowing the cloning technique," the report said.
"We're not going to regulate for the world," Dalli added.
But animal welfare groups criticized the Commission's decision, saying it had bowed to pressure from third countries.
"We do not accept the Commission's position that it would be impossible to enforce a ban that includes the offspring of cloned animals, as (other) meat traceability systems are already in place, " said Sonja Van Tichelen, director of the Eurogroup for Animals. From the passage we can infer that the ban is __________.
| A．justified | B．welcome |
| C．controversial | D．meaningless |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The ban is permanent. |
| B．The imports of food from the offspring of clones are not banned. |
| C．Animal welfare groups support the ban. |
| D．The ban has been put into effect. |
Which of the following is the reason for Commission's decision on the ban according to animal welfare groups?
| A．The origin of food derived from the offspring of clones is Untraceable. |
| B．Food from cloned animals is safe. |
| C．The issue is for animal welfare. |
| D．The pressure comes from third countries. |
What might be the most suitable title for the passage?
| A．The plans of the European Union |
| B．A temporary five-year EU ban |
| C．The EU proposes a ban on animal cloning for food |
| D．The danger of food derived from cloned animals |
In the modern world more and more people meet the problem of identity. The most interesting example is that of a so-called "banana", which refers to an American who has an Asian face but holds Western values.
In Shanghai, there now live a group of people from abroad. They look no different from the locals and speak fluent Chinese or even Shanghai dialect, but when it comes to writing Chinese characters, they are almost illiterate (文盲). Jack is such an example. He never learned to read or write Chinese characters, which he finds mysterious and difficult. From time to time, he files to the US as he does not feel Shanghai is where he comes from. "But when I am in the States, I feel that's not my home either," he said.
At De Gaulle Airport in France, there is a Swiss man who has been living in the waiting-room for a long time because he lost his passport during his travels. He was refused entry into several countries. But when he was eventually allowed to return to Swizerland, he refused to leave the airport. His reason was very simple—"I am sure who I am. I need no acknowledgement from others," he said during an interview. For this reason he was honored by the Western media as "the Hero of identity".
As the Internet becomes more and more popular, the problem of identity becomes more serious. In a virtual world, people can have different addresses registered with different names. In the Internet chat room, even one's gender (性别) is hard to determine. It seems that in the global village, people are saying hello every day to each other without knowing whom they are talking to.
What will be the next crisis (危机) of identity? With the development of cloning technology, it might be: who is the real "I"? What does the passage mainly talk about?
| A．The importance of identity. |
| B．The crisis of identity. |
| C．Differences between Eastern and Western cultures. |
| D．Difficulty in living in foreign counties. |
The Swiss man had to live in De Gaulle Airport in France because __________.
| A．he needed to board a plane at any time |
| B．he couldn't afford to live in a hotel |
| C．he needed others acknowledgement |
| D．he couldn't prove who he was |
A "banana" in the passage is in fact an __________.
| A．American traveling to Asia |
| B．American keeping Eastern culture |
| C．American born in Asia |
| D．America-born Asian |
We can infer from the passage that the author believes __________.
| A．there will be more problems relating to identity in the future |
| B．Internet technology helps solve problems of identity |
| C．only people traveling abroad have problems of identity |
| D．people don't need to worry about identity |
It is common to consider learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, even from birth and people continue to learn throughout their lives.
Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to use toys, food, and other objects. They use all of their senses to learn about the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their environments. They learn how to communicate with their parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and other people important to their world. When they enter school, children learn basic academic subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. They also continue to learn a great deal outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. They learn social skills for communicating with other children. After they finish school, people must learn to deal with the many major changes that affect their lives, such as getting married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.
Because learning continues throughout our lives and affects almost everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate children. Psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and other human-service workers need to understand how certain experiences change people's behaviors. Employers, politicians, and advertisers make use of the principles of learning to affect the behavior of workers, voters, and consumers.
Learning is closely related to memory, which is the storage of information in the brain. Psychologists who study memory are interested in how the brain stores knowledge, where this storage takes place, and how the brain later outputs knowledge when we need it. In contrast, psychologists who study learning are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes as a result of a person's experiences. The author thinks "Learning" in the passage most refers to __________.
| A．life-long learning |
| B．family learning |
| C．learning after graduation |
| D．behavior learning |
The underlined "siblings" in the second paragraph probably means __________.
| A．teachers | B．classmates |
| C．doctors | D．brothers or sisters |
Which period of children's life do they begin to learn how to behave well according to the passage?
| A．After they go into society. |
| B．Before they enter school. |
| C．When they are at school. |
| D．Before they are born. |
Which of the following is WRONG according to the passage?
| A．As a matter of fact, learning begins with formal school education. |
| B．Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate their students. |
| C．People need to understand how certain experiences change their behaviors. |
| D．Employers should study the principles of learning to manage their workers well. |
Chinese people take their food and eat it extremely seriously. Eating is a communal (公共的), social, human experience in China. Sharing a meal is a sign of friendship and trust. Eating plays a central role in friendship, business, medicine, family and love. In short, food is life.
When eating, the rice is separated into your own personal bowl, but the dishes are placed in communal bowls in the center of the table and everybody helps themselves with chopsticks. It's considered polite, and sign of respect and friendship, to encourage other people to eat plenty of the good bits, even to pick up food with your chopsticks and drop it into their rice bowls for them.
Food is an important component of weddings, funerals and almost all Chinese festivals. New Year is the time for dumplings, the Dragon Boat Festival is the time for sticky rice Zongzi wrapped in leaves, and Mid-Autumn Day is the time for Moon Cakes. The dinner table is the best forum (公共讨论场所) to close business deals, and it's the number one thing to do with friends.
Chinese women express their admiration for the opposite sex by cooking delicious meals of many courses, and these days it's the other way round.
In short, if you want to get to know Chinese people, understand Chinese culture and thinking and get into Chinese life, you have to eat and appreciate Chinese food. What is the best title of this passage?
| A．Eating Food in China |
| B．How Do Chinese People Eat Food |
| C．The Importance of Chinese Food |
| D．Different Foods for Different Chinese Food |
In the first paragraph, what does the author mean by saying "food is life"?
| A．Without food, there will be no life |
| B．food is as important as life |
| C．we must take food seriously |
| D．we must eat food every day |
What is the representative food for the Dragon Boat Festival in China?
| A．Dumplings | B．Moon Cakes |
| C．Jiaozi | D．Zongzi |
If you want to learn Chinese culture well, one main thing is __________.
| A．Making friends with Chinese |
| B．Eating Chinese food |
| C．Studying Chinese history |
| D．Adapting to Chinese customs |
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