2015年全国硕士研究生入学考试英语二试题（2）
Reading ComprehensionDirections:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by
choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points)
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 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 shool 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____.
is receiving more criticism
is no longer an educational ritual
is not required for advanced courses
is gaining more preferences
22. L.A.Unified has made the rule about homework mainly because poor
students_____.
tend to have moderate expectations for their education
have asked for a different educational standard
may have problems finishing their homework
have voiced their complaints about homework
23. According to Paragraph 3’one problem with the policy is that it
may____.
discourage students from doing homework
result in students’ indifference to their report cards
undermine the authority of state tests
restrict teachers’ power in education
24. As mentioned in Paragraph 4 a key question unanswered about homework
is_____.
it should be eliminated
it counts much in schooling
it places extra burdens on teachers
it is important for grades
25. A suitable title for this text could be____.
wrong Interpretations of an Educational Policy
A Welcomed Policy for Poor Students
Thorny Questions about Homework
A Faulty Approach to Homework
Text 2
Pretty in pink: adult women do not remember being so obsessed with the
colour, yet it is pervasive in our young girls’ lives. It is not that pink is
intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow and, though it may
celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girls’
identity to appearance. Then it presents that connection, even among
two-year-olds, between girls as not only innocent but as evidence of innocence.
Looking around, I despaired at the singular lack of imagination about girls’
lives and interests.
Girls’ attraction to pink may seem unavoidable, somehow encoded in their
DNA, but according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American Studies,
it is not. Children were not colour-coded at all until the early 20th century,
in the era before domestic washing machines all babies wore white as a practical
matter, since the only way of getting clothes clean was to boil them. What’s
more, both boys and girls wore what were thought of as gender-neutral dresses.
When nursery colours were introduced, pink was actually considered the more
masculine colour, a pastel version of red, which was associated with strength.
Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness,
symbolized femininity. It was not until the mid-1980s,when amplifying age and
sex differences became a dominant children’s marketing strategy, that pink fully
came into its own, when it began to seem inherently attractive to girls, part of
what defined them as female, at least for the first few critical years.
I had not realized how profoundly marketing trends dictated our perception
of what is natural to kids, including our core beliefs about their psychological
development. Take the toddler. I assumed that phase was something experts
developed after years of research into children’s behavior: wrong. Turns out,
according to Daniel Cook, a historian of childhood consumerism, it was
popularized as a marketing trick by clothing manufacturers in the 1930s.
Trade publications counseled department stores that, in order to increase
sales, they should create a “third stepping stone” between infant wear and older
kids’ clothes. It was only after “toddler” became a common shoppers’ term that
it evolved into a broadly accepted developmental stage. Splitting kids, or
adults, into ever-tinier categories has proved a sure-fire way to boost profits.
And one of the easiest ways to segment a market is to magnify gender
differences-or invent them where they did not previously exist.
26.By saying “it is … the rainbow” (Line3, Para.1), the author means
pink____.
should not be the sole representation of girlhood
should not be associated with girls’ innocence
cannot explain girls’ lack of imagination
cannot influence girls’ lives and interests
27. According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true of
colours?
Colours are encoded in girls’ DNA.
Blue used to be regarded as the colour for girls.
Pink used to be a neutral colour in symbolising genders.
White is preferred by babies.
28. The author suggests that our perception of children’s psychological
development was much influenced by_____.
the marketing of products for children
the observation of children’s nature
researches into children’s behaviour
studies of childhood consumption
29. We may learn from paragraph 4 that department stores were advised
to____.
focus on infant wear and older kids’ clothes
attach equal importance to different genders
classify consumers into smaller groups
create some common shoppers’ terms
30. It can be concluded that girls’ attraction to pink seems to be____.
clearly explained by their inborn tendency
fully understood by clothing manufacturers
mainly imposed by profit-driven businessmen
well interpreted by psychological experts
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