高三閱讀練習

The role of the high school has changeddramatically over the past century. It has e-volved from an institution designed to serveonly a few， privileged students to one thatserves as a gateway——for all students——toboth postsecondary education and the work-place. But as late as the 1940s， access to ahigh school education remained limited inmany rural areas of the nation， and it wasn'tuntil the civil-rights movement of the 1960sthat the first generation of African Amcri-cans had universal access to a public highschool education.

Over the years， expectations for highschools and the students they serve havesteadily increased. In the 1970s， states be-gan to mandate minimum-competency teststo ensure high school graduates could atleast read， write and compute at an 8th-grade level. More recently， the adoption ofhigher academic standards and increasedcalls for accountability have led to the imple-mentation(施行) of high school exit examsthat are used in many states to determinewhether a student may graduate.

Earning a high school diploma(文憑)has never been more important for successlater in life. Nearly 60％ of today's jobs re-quire some training or education beyond highschool——compared to just 20％ in the 1940s.High school graduates earn higher pay， andare less likely to become dependent on publicassistance， have health problems or engagein criminal activities.

Unfortunately， many students are fail-ing the graduation competency tests. As aresult， states are lowering minimum scoresrequired to pass， offering up to five test re-takes and delaying implementation of furthertesting. At the same time， states are findingthat current high school curriculum(課程)standards are， in some cases， not challenging enough. While the performance ofAmerica's elementary school\" students isstrong compared with international aver-ages， our high school students rate near thebottom internationally.

1．The underlined word \"privileged\" inthe first paragraph probably means_____.

A．poor B．bad

C．advantaged D．honored

2．Nowadays， most jobs require

A．a high school diploma

B．knowledge learned in high schools

C．intelligence and good health

D．training or education beyond highschool

3．What can be inferred from the pas-sage?

A．Black people in America are allowedto have high school education since 1940.

B．One can easily find a job once he gota high school diploma.

C．States lower the requirements forstudents graduate from high school becauseof the high rate of failing the graduationcompetency tests.

D．The amount of students in element-ary school is larger than that in high school.

4．What is the best title of this passage?

A．High school education in America.

B．History of American high school.

C．Equal right of education.

D．Easy to find a job.

答案與解析：

1．privileged意思是享有特權的，所以只有C項advantaged意思與之最為相近。

2．由第三段“Nearly 60％of today's jobs re-quire some training or education beyond highsehool...”可知答案為D。

3．用排除法。A項意為黑人從1940年起可以進入高中，由文章第一段得知是從二十世紀六十年代才開始讓黑人人讀高中的，所以排除A；B項意思是人們有高中文憑就可以很容易地找到工作，這與文章顯然不符，排除B；D項說初中學生的人數多于高中學生的人數，文章只是將初高中分別與國際情況相比，不能由文章推斷出；只有C項正確，由于高中畢業考試通過率低，國家降低了畢業要求，可由文章第四段推斷出。

4．全文講的都是美國的高中教育，所以文章最合適的題目應該是A。