Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension
There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the death
of Elizabeth Steinberg. Without blaming anyone in particular, neighbors,
friends, social workers, the police and newspaper editors have struggled to
define the community's responsibility to Elizabeth and to other battered
children. As the collective soul-searching continues, there is a pervading sense
that the system failed her.
The fact is, in New York State the
system couldn't have saved her. It is almost impossible to protect a child from
violent parents, especially if they are white, middle-class, well-educated and
represented by counsel.
Why does the state permit violence
against Children? There are a number of reasons. First, parental privilege is a
rationalization. In the past, the law was giving its approval to the biblical
injunction against sparing the rod. Second, while everyone agrees that the state
must act to remove children from their homes when there is danger of serious
physical or emotional harm, many child advocates believe that state intervention
in the absence of serious injury is more harmful than helpful. Third, courts and
legislatures tread carefully when their actions intrude or threaten to intrude
on a relationship protected by the Constitution. In 1923, the Supreme Court
recognized the "liberty of parent and guardian to direct the upbringing and
education of children under their control". More recently, in 1977, it upheld
the teacher's privilege to use corporal punishment against schoolchildren. Read
together, these decisions give the constitutional imprimatur to parental use of
physical force.
Under the best conditions, small children
depend utterly on their parents for survival. Under the worst, their dependency
dooms them. While it is questionable whether anyone or anything could have saved
Elizabeth Steinberg, it is plain that the law provided no protection.
To the contrary, by justifying the use of physical force against children
as an acceptable method of education and control, the law lent a measure of
plausibility and legitimacy to her parents' conduct.
More than
80 years ago, in the teeth of parental resistance and Supreme Court doctrine,
the New York State Legislature acted to eliminate child labor law. Now, the
state must act to eliminate child abuse by banning corporal punishment. To break
the vicious cycle of violence, nothing less will answer. If there is a lesson to
be drawn from the death of Elizabeth Steinberg, it is this: spare the rod and
spare the child.
In recent years, many Americans of both sexes and
various ages have become interested in improving their bodies. They have become
devoted to physical fitness. The need to exercise has almost become compulsive
with many persons who have a strong desire to be more physically fit.
By nature, Americans are enthusiastic and energetic about their hobbies
and pastimes. They apply this enthusiasm, and energy to jogging/running. As a
result, there are running clubs to join and many books and magazines to read
about running.
The desire to be physically fit is explained by
a "passion" for good health. The high rate of heart attacks in the 1960s caused
an increase on the part of the public in improving the human body.
Middle-aged men especially suffer from heart attacks. Thus, they are one
group strongly interested in more physical exercise. In fact, many doctors
encourage their patients to become more physically active, especially those who
have sedentary jobs. It is interesting to note that the rate of heart attacks
began to decrease in the 1970s and it is still decreasing.
Physical fitness currently enjoys a favored role in the United States. It is a
new "love" that many Americans have cherished. Will it last long? Only time will
tell or until another "new passion" comes along.
Some psychologists maintain that mental acts such as
thinking are not performed in the brain alone, but that one's muscles also
participate. It may be said that we think with our muscles in somewhat the
same way that we listen to music with our bodies.
You surely
are not surprised to be told that you usually listen to music not only with your
ears but with your whole body. Few people can listen to music that is more or
less familiar without moving their body or, more specifically, some part of
their body. Often when one listens to a symphonic concert on the radio, he is
tempted to direct the orchestra even though he knows there is a competent
conductor on the job.
Strange as this behavior may be, there is
a very good reason for it. One cannot derive all possible enjoyment from music
unless he participates, so to speak, in its performance. Tile listener "feels"
himself into the music with more or less pronounced motions of his
body.
The muscles of the body actually participate in the
mental process of thinking in the same way, but this participation is less
obvious because it is less pronounced.
Ocean water plays an indispensable role in
supporting life. The great ocean basins hold about 300 million cubic miles of
water. From this vast amount; about 80,000 cubic miles of water are sucking into
the atmosphere each year by evaporation and returned by precipitation and
drainage to the ocean. More than 24,000 cubic miles of rain descend annually
upon the continents. This vast amount is required to replenish the lakes and
streams, springs and water tables on which all flora and fauna are dependent.
Thus, the hydrosphere permits organism existence.
The
hydrosphere has strange characteristics because water has properties unlike
those of any other liquid. One anomaly is that water upon freezing expands by
about 9 percent, whereas most liquids contract on cooling. For this reason, ice
floats on water bodies instead of sinking to the bottom. If the ice sank, the
hydrosphere would soon be frozen solidly, except for a thin layer of surface
melt water during the summer season. Thus, all aquatic life would be destroyed
and the interchange of warm and cold currents, which moderates climate, would be
notably absent.
Another outstanding characteristic of water is
that it has a heat capacity which is the highest of all liquids and solids
except ammonia. This characteristic enables the oceans to absorb ard store vast
quantities of heat, thereby often preventing climatic extremes. In addition,
water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. It is this characteristic
which helps make oceans a great storehouse for minerals which have been washed
down from the continents. In several areas of the world these minerals are being
commercially exploited. Solar evaporation of salt is widely practiced, potash is
extracted from the Dead Sea, and Magnesium is produced from seawater along the
American Gulf Coast.
Part Ⅲ Cloze
An Ohio State University study has linked behavior
in young children 61 the type of job their mother has.
Mothers with complex occupations that are self-directed and require working with
other people 62 to have offspring with relatively low levels
of behavior problems. The opposite held 63 when the jobs were
routine, closely supervised, and dealt with things, rather than
people.
"A job that challenges and interests a mother and gives
her an opportunity to exercise judgment and solve problems clearly has
64 consequences for her children's behavior," indicates
65 professor of sociology Elizabeth Mengaghan. Occupations with more
positive conditions include management, sales, and teaching positions. Jobs that
may be related to increased child behavior problems include book keeping, food
service, and 66 line positions.
Women who
are supervised closely at work and made to 67 strict orders
may be more likely to use this same style in 68 their kids.
They may emphasize obedience to parental authority and the potential
for 69 punishment. "We believe that the choice of such a
parenting style may increase the 70 of behavior problems in
children." On the 71 hand, mothers whose jobs are less
controlled by supervisors and 72 must work closely with other
people probably rely less on physical punishment, 73
encouraging children to think about consequences of their actions
and 74 responsibility for their behavior. 75
an approach encourages youngsters to follow parental demands
76 they aren't being supervised because they have accepted parental
values as their own. Moreover, mothers whose jobs don't 77
constant supervision" 78 problem-solving skills that they
can bring to other parts of their life".
The research also
found that those who have 79 challenging and interesting jobs
provide better home environments for their children. The mothers give their
offspring more intellectual stimulation and emotional support, and
this, 80 turn, is linked to fewer behavior problem.
Part Ⅳ Translation
81. By now it's hardly news that as education has risen to the
top of the national agenda, a great wave of school reform has focused on two
related objectives: more-stringent academic standards and increasingly
rigorous accountability for both students and schools.
82.
In state after state, legislatures, governors, and state boards, supported by
business leaders, have imposed tougher requirements in math, English, science,
and other fields, together with new tests by which the performance of both
students and schools is to be judged. In some places students have already
been denied diplomas or held back in grade if they failed these tests. 83. In
some states funding for individual schools and for teachers' and principals'
salaries -- and in some, such as Virginia, the accreditation of schools -- will
depend on how well students do on tests. More than half the states now
require tests for student promotion or graduation.
But a
backlash has begun.
84. In Virginia this spring parents,
teachers, and school administrators opposed to the state's Standard of Learning
assessments, established in 1998, inspired a flurry_ of bills in the
legislature that called for revising the tests of their status as
unavoidable hurdles for promotion and graduation. One bill would also have
required that each new member of the sate board of education "take the eighth
grade Standards of Learning assessments in English, mathematics, science, and
social sciences" and that "the results of such assessments.., be publicly
reported."
85. None of the bills passed, but there's little
doubt that if the system isn't revised and the state's high failure rates don't
decrease by 2004, when the first Virginia senior may be denied diplomas, the
political pressure will intensify. Meanwhile, some parents are talking about
Massachusetts-style boycotts.