Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(SNMPTN 2010)
Many modern educational experts claim that teaching facts and academic
skill is less important than achieving other social objectives. From some liberals, the
school must first change attitudes of provide nurturing in place of failed families or
help establish equality and social justice. For some conservatives, the schools must
first prepare kids for the workplace by molding them into supple corporate citizens,
while others want the focus to be on family values, a competitive spirit, or other
social or behavioral objectives. But the idea of simply educating kids seems to have
taken a backseat to most educational experts and administrators. They miss the
point that kids with real academic skills, especially skills in reading, writing, and
mathematics, are more likely to overcome social barriers, more likely to have
genuine self esteem, and most likely to be genuinely prepared for the challenges of
life and the workplace. By emphasizing so many things besides a genuine, classical
education, the educational establishment tends to sell our kids short and bring
about many of the problems they claim to be solving.
Consider the case of Wesley Elementary School in Houston. According to
Richard Nadler in the article, Failing Grade, Weasley has all the demographic
markers of a school bound for failure. Over 80% of the students qualify for
subsidized lunches, and nearly all are minorities (92% black, 7% Hispanic). Yet it
ranks among the best schools of Houston, with first-graders placing at the 82 nd
percentile level in reading tests which is 50 points higher than the expected level for
similar at-risk schools.
What has made Wesley so successful? The answer is classical education in the
form of Direct Instruction curriculum designed by Siegfried Engelmann, an example
of the much ridiculed sage-on-the-stage approach. This Direct Instruction system
boosts reading, writing, and math scores by 30 to 40 percentile points in at-risk
schools. Sadly, Engelmann, like others who successfully challenge popular fads in
educational reform, has been rejected by much of the educational establishment.
His success is an embarrassment to them.
is
D. Wesley
is
a
prestigious school.
2.
6.
successful
A. an elaboration of purposes of an
effective school.
B. a
discussion
requirements for
school.
on
the
the
good
C. persuasive
D. descriptive
B. informative
Wesley
are
E. evaluative
8.
9. Given that the baseline score in
reading is 23 percentile points,
which of the following most likely
reflects the maximum impact of
Direct Instruction on the students
learning achievement in Wesley
Elementary School?
A. 45
B. 53
C. 63
usually
D. 85
E. 95
12.
A new study, published Thursday in Science, makes a strong case that
the second theory is the right one. A team of anthropologists from the Max Planck
Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, developed a battery of
learning tests they call the Primate Cognition Test Battery, and gave it to 106
chimps, 105 children and 32orang-utans, to compare the groups directly on physical
and social learning. Says Esther Hermann, a co-author of the paper: Its the first
time anything like this has been done.
13.
The three groups performed about equally well on physical learning
- locating hidden objects, figuring out the source of a noise, understanding the
concepts of more and less, using a stick to get something thats out of reach. And
indeed, the kids were of an age -- 2 years old - - where its widely known that
they do perform about as well as chimps in such tests. So for example, the scientists
would hide a treat of some kind -- a toy, or some food -- behind a box, while the
test subjects looked on, the kids, chimps and orang-utans would have to be
sophisticated enough to know that the object disappearing from view didnt mean it
stopped existing, and had to be able to figure out where it had gone. All three
groups did equally well at this sort of thing.
14.
15.With reference to the primates in
B. the comparison of the subjects
the experiment, the author mainly
physical
and
social
deals with their ...
performance.
A. intelligent capacity.
C. the development of learning
B. social achievement.
tests to evaluate a theory.
C. physical performance.
D. the strong claim to the second
D. emotional maturity.
acceptable theory .
E. cognitive curiosity.
E. the ability to find the location of
16.
a hidden object.
17.The purpose of the study is to ...
19.
A. examine the physical and social
20.From the passage it can be inferred
relationships
between
some
that infants of about 2 3 years of
animals and humans.
age would probably generally ...
B. analyze the physical and social
A. be unable to perform the tasks
ability between some animals
for chimps and orang-utans.
and humans.
B. know more the concepts of
C. describe the behavior of some
simple calculation than chimps
animals and humans in the
and orang-utans.
physical and social learning.
C. have the level of physical
D. see if there is a similarity
learning similar to chimps and
between some animals and
orang-utans.
humans in the physical and
D. perform test tasks more poorly
social learning.
than adult chimps and orangE. explain factors in the physical
utans.
and social learning between
E. be able to do social activities
some animals and humans.
that normally chimps and orang18.The expression physical learning in
utans can do.
The three groups performed about
21.
equally well on physical learning ...
22.The paragraph preceding the
(line 7) refers to ...
passage above is most likely about
A. the performance on the Primate
description of ...
Cognition Test Battery.
A. the psychological test.
D. where
E. what
45.
46.A. electric
B. electricity
C. electrical
D. electrify
E. electrician
47.
48.A. skilled
B. adapted
C. supported
D. contributed
E. manufactured
49.
50.
51.
D. to create
E. created
62.
63.Having seen the movie before, I
did not find it as exciting as it had
been.
64. The sentence above means
A. The movie is very interesting.
F.
G.