TEXT 1

 

　　Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on his 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 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 pat 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 vey 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 does nothing to ensure that the homework students are not assigning more than they are w

 

lling 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。

 

　　1.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

 

　　2.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

 

　　3.According to Paragraph 3,one problem with the policy is that it may。

 

　　[A]discourage students from doing homework

 

　　[B]result in students

 

　　[C]undermine the authority of state tests

 

　　[D]restrict teachers' power in education

 

　　4. 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

 

　　5.A suitable title for this text could be______。

 

　　[A]Wrong Interpretation of an Educational Policy

 

　　[B]A Welcomed Policy for Poor Students

 

　　[C]Thorny Questions about Homework

 

　　[D]A Faulty Approach to Homework

 

    TEXT 2

 

　　The complications frequently accompanying diabetes, such as impairment of vision and of kidney function, are now thought to result from the lack of continuous control of blood glucose concentrations. The healthy pancreas, in response to increases in blood glucose concentration, releases s*ll quantities of insulin throughout the day and thereby *intains the concentration within physiological limits (nomoglycemia). But the diabetic generally receives only one large dose daily. The diabetic’s blood glucose concentration can thus fluctuate greatly during the interval between doses, and it has been suggested that the complication result from the periods of high concentrations of blood glucose (hyperglycemia). Many investigators thus believe that restoration of normoglycemia might halt the progression of such complications and perhaps even reverse them.

 

　　There are three pri*ry techniques that have been investigated for restoration of normoglycemia. They are: transplantation of whole, healthy pancreases; transplantation of islets of Langerthan, that portion of the pancreas that actually secretes insulin, and implantation of artificial pancreases. There has, in fact been a great deal of success in the development of these techniques and each seems, on the whole, promising. Nonetheless, it will undoubtedly be *ny years before any one of them is accepted as a treatment for diabetes.

 

　　To *ny people, the obvious approach would seem to be simply to transplant pancreases from cadavers in the same *nner that kidneys and other organs are routinely transplanted. That was the rationale in 1966 when the first recorded pancreas was performed. Between 1960 and 1975, there were forty-six pancreas transplants in forty-five other patients in the United States and five other countries. But only one of these patients is still alive with a functioning graft and surgeons have found that the procedure is not * as they once thought.

 

　　The surviving patient has required no insulin since the operation. Another patient survived 638 days without requiring insulin. And one patient survived a transplantation for more than a year, but *d when he chose not to take immunosuppressive drugs. These results, though meager, suggest that the procedure has the potential for success.

 

　　The rest of the patients, however, either rejected the transplant or *d within a short period. There does not appear to be any technical problem with the procedure. Rather, most of the patients were already so severely debilitated by the complications of diabetes that they could not withstand the surgery and the immunosuppressive regimen required to prevent rejection. More than half of the patients, furthermore, also required a kidney transplant. Most investigators now agree that the simultaneous transplantation of both organs is too great a shock to the patient and greatly increases the total risk.

 

　　1. Which of the following best states one of the *in conclusions of the text?

 

　　[A] Although the techniques for pancreas transplants appear to be theoretically correct, there are problems that must be solved before the operation can be used as a treatment for diabetes.

 

　　[B] Although the techniques for pancreas transplants are still being developed, the experimental results show that the operation will be a successful treatment for diabetes in the near future.

 

　　[C] Although pancreas transplants are reliable, *ny diabetics are reluctant to undergo the operation because of the side effects of immunosuppressive drugs.

 

　　[D] Although pancreas transplants alone are not generally successful, the operation can be used in conjunction with other procedures to treat diabetes.

 

　　2. According to the text, widely spaced doses of insulin can cause

 

　　[A] reversal of nor*l kidney function.

 

　　[B] delay in the onset of diabetes.

 

　　[C] radical changes in the concentration of blood glucose.

 

　　[D] restoration of normoglycemia.

 

　　3. According to the text, a periodic high concentration of blood glucose in diabetics is a possible cause of

 

　　[A] deterioration of the pancreas.

 

　　[B] da*ge to the eyes and kidneys.

 

　　[C] rejection of transplanted organs.

 

　　[D] inadequate secretion of insulin.

 

　　4. It can be inferred from the text that one of the important contributing causes of the failure of most pancreas transplants has been the

 

　　[A] reluctance of patients to cooperate with physicians.

 

　　[B] imperfect techniques used in the operation.

 

　　[C] scarcity of immunosuppressive drugs.

 

　　[D] weakened condition of the patients.

 

　　5. The text suggests that the author considers the data concerning the success of pancreas transplants to be

 

　　[A] invalid.

 

　　[B] indirect.

 

　　[C] inaccurate.

 

　　[D] insufficient.

 

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