试题库在线考试题库-历年真题模拟试题及答案-考博英语在线试题测试中心-希赛网

北京理工大学

Home schooling appears to be a great success for middle-class and wealthy families when one parent is home most of the time. However，home schooling does not work in inner-city neighborhoods because parents either work during the day or actively look for work. Numerous estimates between 1 and 2 million have been made regarding the number of home-schooled children in this country. Home schooling will grow in the future as course materials and tutoring systems vastly improve.Not too many years ago，learning at home meant reading a book and doing homework with tutoring from a parent or older sibling. Today, homes have an outstanding tutor available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This tutor never loses its patience，becomes upset, turns critical, or scolds a child for poor performance. In fact, the new tutoring system constantly recognizes good performance and provides praise for progress in learning. This tutor is the multimedia personal computer. For decades，students have been learning via television programs. In recent years，students have learned how to use a personal computer. Now technology is bringing together the Internet, video, slides，CD-ROM, and the interactivity of a computer to create multimedia presentations that students enjoy.The cost of this tutoring system is about $ 1,200. It can be used for at least six years, so the annual cost is $ 200. If there are two students in the family, the annual cost drops to $ 100 per student. In many households, the parents also use the computer, which reduces the annual cost even further.The tutoring system allows home schoolers to explore subjects without a parent or teacher telling them what to do next. The computer also provides a safe environment for students to take risks. They see and hear immediate, positive reinforcement every time they learn something. Immediate, positive remediation also is available when the student doesn’t fully understand the lesson. The computer is truly a breakthrough in student learning and in building self-esteem.At first, courseware developers thought they had to sell their products to curriculum directors, teacher committees, and school boards. Now, these companies sell course ware directly to parents. For example, instead of buying a leather-bound edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, working parents can purchase a computerized encyclopedia for $ 35 or less.Courseware quality and course materials improve annually because parents and students buy only high-quality and motivational courses. With millions of home schoolers and other children using these materials, the price per subject now varies from $ 20 to$ 40. In the early school years, one or two courseware systems are sufficient for the entire school year. The courseware market has become a multi-million-dollar industry in which quality increases and costs decrease constantly.Studies have shown that interactive courseware speeds learning by 30 to 50 percent over conventional teaching methods. Lesson retention also improves. Many home schoolers need to study only three or four hours, leaving them more than enough time for extracurricular activities.How will courseware impact the public schools? It can either be viewed as a sides how that has no place in a school system, which would be a mistake, or public schools can study why courseware and home schooling have succeeded. Investing in outstanding course materials, learning systems, and tutoring systems have been home schooling’s keys to success. This is exactly what most public schools do not do，even though they spend more than $ 300 billion in taxpayers’ money. Instead, they claim they have no money for outstanding course materials, learning systems, and tutoring systems.It should also be noted that most home-schooling parents are not former teachers. Many of them just have high school diplomas or have studied a year or two in community colleges. This information indicates that certified teachers within inner-city schools could be more successful if their classrooms had outstanding course materials, learning systems，and tutoring systems.Home schooling will grow in response to the violence in schools and to the constant drone of messages about poor student performance，but it cannot replace our public schools systems because most parents are simply not available to provide home schooling. It is hoped, however, that public schools will begin to adopt the successful aspects of homeschooling. In some communities, school districts are working with home-schooling families on special classes and extracurricular activities. This partnership helps solve the problem of overcrowded schools and helps reduce the massive building costs associated with new school buildings.1.Which of the following is true according to the passage?2.The growth of home schooling is due to several factors EXCEPT（）.3.Home schooling will not replace public school systems because（）.4.According to the author，public schools are expected to（）.5.What is the author’s attitude towards public schools?

In economics，demand implies something slightly different from the common meaning of the term. The layman, for example，often used the term to mean the amount that is demanded of an item. Thus, if the price were to decrease and individuals wanted more of the item, it is commonly said that demand increases. To an economist, demand is a relationship between a series of prices and a series of corresponding quantities that are demanded at these prices. I£ one roads the previous sentences carefully，it should become apparent that there is a distinction between the quantity demanded and demand. This distinction is often a point of confusion and we all should be aware of and understand the difference between these two items. We repeat, therefore, that demand is a relationship between price and quantities demanded, and therefore suggests the effect of one (e. g.，price) on the other(e. g. quantity demanded). Therefore, knowledge of the demand for a product enables one to predict how much more of a product will be purchased if price decreases. But the increase in quantity demanded does not mean demand has increased, since the relationship between price and quantity (i. e.，the demand for the product) has not changed. Demand shifts when there is a change in income, expectations, tastes, etc.，such that a different quantity of the product is demanded at the same price.In almost all cases，a consumer wants more of an item if the price decreases. This relationship between price and quantity demanded is so strong that it is referred to as the “law of demand”. This “law” can be explained by the income and substitution effects. The income effect occurs because price increases reduce the purchasing power of the individual and, thus，the quantity demanded of goods must decrease. The substitution effect reflects the consumer’s desire to get the “best buy”. Accordingly, if the price of product A increases, the individual will tend to substitute another product and purchase less of goods A The negative correlation between price and quantity demanded is also explained by the law of diminishing marginal utility. According to this law，the additional utility the consumer gains from consuming a product decreases as successively more units of the product are consumed. Because the additional units yield less utility or satisfaction, the consumer is willing to purchase more only if the price of the product decreases.Economists distinguish between individual and market demand. As the term implies，individual demand concerns the individual consumer and illustrate the quantities that individuals demand at different prices. Market demand includes the demand of all individuals for a particular goods and is found by summing the quantities demanded by all individuals at the various prices.The other side of the price system is supply. As in the case of demand, supply is a relationship between a series of prices and the associated quantities supplied. It is assumed that as price increases the individual or firm will supply greater quantities of a product. There is a positive correlation between quantity supplied and product price.Economists also distinguish between a change in supply and quantity supplied. The distinction is similar to the one made with respect to demand. Also，as in the case of demand, economists distinguish between individual firm supply and market supply，which is the summation of individual supply.Taken together, supply and demand yield equilibrium of price and quantity. Equilibrium is a state of stability, with balanced forces in which prices and quantity will remain constant. Moreover，there are forces in the market that will act to establish equilibrium if changes in demand or supply create disequilibrium. For example, if prices are above equilibrium, the quantity supplied exceeds quantity demanded and surpluses occur that have a downward pressure on prices. These pressures will persist until equilibrium is established. If prices are below equilibrium, the product will become scare and there will be an upward pressure on price.1.According to the passage, demand_____.2.According to the passage, the law of diminishing marginal utility_____.3.The word “equilibrium”（Line 1，Para. 6） most probably means_____ .4.What can you infer from the passage?5.The purpose of this passage is to illustrate_____.

Modern lore has it that in England death is imminent, in Canada inevitable and in California optional. Small wonder. Americans’ life expectancy has nearly doubled over the past century. Failing hips can be replaced，clinical depression controlled, cataracts removed in a30-minute surgical procedure. Such advances offer the aging population a quality of life that was unimaginable when I entered medicine 50 years ago. But not even a great health-care system can cure death—and our failure to confront that reality now threatens this greatness of ours.Death is normal. We are genetically programmed to disintegrate and perish，even under optimal conditions. We all understand that at some level，yet as medical consumers we treat death as a problem to be solved. Shielded by third-party payers from the cost of our care, we demand everything that can possibly be done for us, even if it’s futile. The most obvious example is late-stage cancer care. A vast industry pushed for aggressive and expensive therapy for prostate cancer, despite a lack of demonstrable benefit for many patients. Physicians—frustrated by their inability to cure the disease and fearing loss of hope in the patient—too often offer aggressive treatment far beyond what is scientifically justified.Meanwhile, the kind of palliative care provided in hospices is taught derogatorily to medical students as a treatment of last resort. In 1950 the United States spent $ 12. 7 billion, or 4. 4 percent of gross domestic product, on health care. In 2002 the cost will be$ 1. 54 trillion—nearly 14 percent of GDP, by far the largest percentage spent by any developed country.Anyone can see that this trend is unsustainable. Yet few seem willing to try to reverse it. Some ethicists conclude that a government with finite resources should simply stop paying for medical care that sustains life beyond a certain age—say 83 or so. Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm has been quoted as saying that the old and infirm “have a duty to die and get out of the way” so that younger, healthier people can realize their potential.I wouldn’t go that far. Not long ago similar arguments were used to justify mandatory retirement ages as young as 55 for employees in industry, academia and government. The message was “Step aside—I want your desk and your paycheck. ’’ Energetic people now routinely work through their 60s and beyond，and remain dazzlingly productive. At 78, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone jokingly claims to be 53. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is in her 70s，and former surgeon general C. Everett Koop chairs an Internet start-up in his 80s. These leaders are living proof that prevention works and that we can manage the maladies that come naturally with age. As a mere 68-year-old, I aspire to age as productively as they have.Yet there are limits to what a society can spend in this pursuit, or should. I’ve watched as the lives of my family members and friends have been painfully prolonged. It’s a stark contrast with the inexpensive and compassionate deaths of my parents a generation ago.As a medical consumer，I may want Medicare to buy me multiple coronary bypass operations or a desperate round of bone-marrow transplantation. As a taxpaying citizen, I know—intellectually，if not emotionally — that the value of such measures must be weighed against other social goods，such as housing，defense and education. And as a physician, I know the most costly and dramatic measures may be ineffective and painful. I also know that people in Japan and Sweden, countries that spend far less on medical care，have achieved longer，healthier lives than we have. As a nation, we may be overfunding the quest for unlikely cures while underfunding research on humbler therapies that could improve peoples’ lives. For example，the field of alternative and complementary medicine receives just a 5 percent chunk of the National Institutes of Health budget.To create a humane system of health care, we must acknowledge that death and dying are not themselves the enemies. As the post-World War II British epidemiologist Archie Cochrane once observed, cures in medicine are rare, but the need for “care” —attention and reassurance from approachable, sympathetic physicians and caregivers—is widespread. Cochrane worried that by pursuing cures at all cost, we would restrict the supply of care that patients can receive. This is precisely the crisis of contemporary medicine: billions for cures, and pennies for care. Medicine can accomplish great things for the generation now passing 50, but only if we’re wise enough not to ask too much of it.1.People’s different attitudes towards death show that_____.2.The best health care_______.3.Palliative care provided in hospices_______.4.The government with finite resources had better_______.5.What patients need most is_______.

A TIME columnist bears witness to an operation to help triplets with cerebral palsy walk like other boys.Cindy Hickman nearly bled to death the day she gave birth—three months prematurely—to her triplet sons. Weighing less than 2 lbs each, her babies were alive，but barely. They clung so tenuously to life that her doctors recommended she name them A, B and C. Then, after a year of heroic interventions—brain shunts，tracheotomies, skull remodeling—often requiring emergency helicopter rides to the hospital nearest their rural Tennessee home, the Hickman learned that their triplets had cerebral palsy.Fifteen years ago there wasn’t much that could be done about cerebral palsy，a disorder caused by damage to the motor centers of the brain. But pediatric medicine has come along way since then, both in intervention before birth, with better prenatal care and various techniques to postpone delivery，and surgical interventions after birth to correct physical deficiencies. So although the incidence of cerebral palsy seems to be increasing (because the odds of preemies surviving are so much better), so too are the number of success stories.This is one of them. Lane, Codie and Wyatt (as the Hickman boys are called) have spastic cerebral palsy, the most common form, accounting for nearly 80% o£ cases. “We first noticed that they weren’t walking when they should，” Cindy recalls. “Instead they were only doing the combat crawl.” Their brains seemed to be developing age appropriately, but their muscles were unnaturally stiff，making walking difficult if not impossible.Happily, spastic cerebral palsy is also the most treatable form of CP, largely thanks to a procedure known as selective dorsal rhizotomy, in which the nerve roots that are causing the problem are isolated and severed. Among the first to champion SDR in the U. S. in the late 1980s was Dr. T. S. Park, a Korean-born pediatric neurosurgeon at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., who has performed more than 800 of these operations and hopes to do an additional 1,000 before he retires.Having performed the operation myself as a resident in neurosurgery, I was eager to see how the country’s most prolific SDR surgeon does it. Last month I got an opportunity to stand by his side as he operated on 3-year-old Lane Hickman.Peering through a microscope and guided by an electric probe, we were able to distinguish between the two groups of nerve roots leaving the spinal cord. The ventral roots send information to the muscle; the dorsal roots send information back to the spinal cord. The dorsal roots cause spasticity, and if just the right ones are severed，the symptoms can be greatly reduced.Nearly half a million Americans suffer from cerebral palsy. Not all are candidates for SDR, but Park estimates that as many as half may be. He gets the best results with children between ages 2 and 6 who were born prematurely and have stiffness only in their legs. He is known for performing the operation very high up in the spine，right where the nerve roots exit the spinal cord. It’s riskier that way, but the recovery is faster, and in Park’s skilled hands, the success rate is higher.Cindy and Jeremy Hickman will testify to that. Just a few weeks after the procedure，two of their sons are walking almost normally and the third is rapidly improving.1.When the triplets were born, _______.2.Cerebral palsy is____.3.There are more and more cases of cerebral palsy_______.4.Dr. T. S. Park____.5.SDR is a procedure of____.

You are to write a composition of no less than 250 words and do your composition neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. Your composition should be based on the following topic: On Knowledge and Ability

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