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Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Recession Fuels Shift from Private to Public Schools A. When the family budget started feeling the recession’s pinch last year, Angela Allyn and her photographer husband, Matt Dinnerstein, pulled their three kids out of Chicago-area private schools and enroled them in Evanston, Ill., public schools. It has been a challenging transition: Maya, 16, now a high school sophomore, "doesn’t like crowds—and her high school is as big as a small college," her mother says. Though Maya is learning a lot in the "amazing" science program, she’s also hoping to leave the crowds behind by doubling up on coursework, graduating by the end of junior year "and then going and doing interesting things", Allyn says. Her younger children face their own challenges, from bullying (恃强凌弱) to sheer boredom. B. The transition also has been an education for Maya’s parents, who say they had "no choice" in the struggling economy but to switch to public schools. They’re saving about $20,000 a year in tuition, but like many former private-school families, they’re coming face-to-face with larger class sizes and the public school bureaucracy as they push to get services for their children. "We ask a lot of questions—we follow up on things," says Allyn, a former professional dancer who’s the cultural arts coordinator for the city of Evanston. "We contact the school board...We’ll challenge teachers, we’ll challenge coordinators. My kids are mortified (使受辱) because they don’t want to be singled out." C. It’s too early to tell whether the recession has had a profound effect on public schools’ educational mission. But parents and educators across the nation say it’s already bringing subtle changes to the culture of many public schools as some families seek the personal attention they received from private schools. D. Private-school parents typically find that the structure of public schools takes some getting used to. In most states, funding for public schools is calculated on a per-student basis, based on average student counts during the first few weeks of the school year. If a student drops out after 40 days, the funding that student generated stays with the school—even if he or she does not return to that campus. Private schools, on the other hand, risk losing tuition payments once a student leaves. "Private schools tend to treat you more like a customer than the public schools," Allyn says. Public schools are "going to get their tax dollars whether or not you as a parent are upset. If you’re in a private school and you yank your kid out, that’s a lot of money walking out the (private school’s) door." E. Enrolment figures for the current school year won’t be available until next year, but the US Department of Education’s latest estimate finds that in the last three years, public school enrolment grew by nearly a half-million students, or about 1%, while private school enrolment dropped by about 146,000, or 2.5%. Government projections find that private schools could lose an additional 28,000 students this year, while public schools should gain 246,000. A boost for public schools F. Stories about how the troubled economy is hurting public schools are plentiful these days: Many schools are cutting teaching positions and programs. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the USA’s second-largest, laid off 2,000 teachers last spring and may need to lay off 5,000 more employees—including 1,500 teachers—next fall. G. But could the recession benefit public schools in the end by bringing in new clients "In a way, it’s a good thing for public schools," says New York University education professor Pedro Noguera. "I would say it’s a good time for public schools to pitch the value they bring to middle-c/ass parents." He’s starting to see the effects on the public system in New York City as affluent (富裕的) parents in parts of Brooklyn switch their children from private to public schools and in the process push the public schools to improve. "College-educated parents are not going to subject their kids to second-class education," he says. So their influx (大量涌入) "absolutely has a huge impact," whether it’s by volunteering in classrooms or campaigning for more funding. H. Most years, public schools rarely see more than a few new students as families come and go. Last fall at Thomas Johnson Elementary-Middle School in Baltimore, 60 new students showed up—about half of those from private schools, including a nearby Catholic school that closed in the spring because of shrinking enrolment. Among the new students: first-grader Miles Donovan, who attended preschool at the recently shuttered Catholic Community school. At first, Miles’ mother, jazz pianist Sandy Asirvatham, says she and her husband were stunned by the difference. Knowing the front office I. Several parents at Johnson and surrounding schools in the Federal Hill section of Baltimore—once a blue-collar community that now attracts young professional families—say they sense a "critical mass" of families that’s beginning to change the character of neighbourhood schools. J. Miles Donovan attended kindergarten at another area public school, which invited students to take entrance exams for a gifted programme. It accepted only 15 students per grade. Parents complained when their kids didn’t get a slot, so the programme was expanded to accommodate more kids—and other parents complained because it got too big. A few families stuck with the programme, others pulled out—and a few left the school altogether, Asirvatham says. K. "You come with a certain sense of, ’This is my school, it should be working for me,’" she says of parents whose kids have been in private schools. "I’ve heard parents say, ’That principal is my employee. I pay her salary.’" It’s only natural that private-school parents would think that way, says Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, DC-based Centre for Education Reform, which advocates for parental choice in education. "In a private school, you don’t want to lose customers." L. Allen has a few friends and colleagues who have moved their kids to public schools—and like conscientious (尽责的) private-school parents, they "know everything about the curriculum and what’s expected of their child," she says. "They investigated how the teachers grade and how you best approach them, whether they like parents or are a little bit scared. They go out of their way to understand all of the offerings in a way that your public-school parent traditionally doesn’t." M. Allyn, in Evanston, Ili., agrees. "Those of us who have seen other options are not as likely to accept the PR," she says. "They’ll tell me, ’It can’t be done, it can’t be done,’ and I don’t understand why it can’t be done, because the private schools managed to do it." She says friends are still talking about how to get their kids into public schools with programs that suit their kids’ needs and interests—much as they talked about private schools in years past. A few have gotten "so frustrated with their public school experience"—dealing with standardised testing and school bureaucracies—that they’re considering home schooling. N. Noguera says schools must take the opportunity to keep these families in the fold. O. "Public schools play such an important role for our democracy as the only institution that serves all children," he says. "If you lose the people who have the power of choice because they have the resources and the information and the time to make a difference, it becomes a system that only serves people who have no other option. And that’s a problem." Unlike public schools, the tuition for private schools is lost once the student drops out of school.
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Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown University in Rhode Island. For the rest of the decade she apparently juggled (同时做) both roles (as well as several other directorships) without attracting much criticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms Simmons was under fire from students and alumni for having sat on Goldman’s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked By February Ms Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said. Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful yet less biased advisers on a firm’s board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive’s proposals. Leaders from other fields are frequently in demand: former presidents or Cabinet members, retired CEOs, and yes, university presidents. If the sky, and the share price, is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises. The researchers from the Ohio State University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the researchers concentrated on those "surprise" disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increases by nearly 20%. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms. The obvious conclusion might be that outside directors, with inside knowledge of tricky times ahead, prefer to save their own reputations, rather than those of the company they are serving. But although a correlation between them leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinking ship. Often they "trade up", leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms. But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives, such as increasing pay, says Dr Fahlenbrach. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms Simmons, once again very popular on campus. What can be inferred from the last paragraph
Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown University in Rhode Island. For the rest of the decade she apparently juggled (同时做) both roles (as well as several other directorships) without attracting much criticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms Simmons was under fire from students and alumni for having sat on Goldman’s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked By February Ms Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said. Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful yet less biased advisers on a firm’s board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive’s proposals. Leaders from other fields are frequently in demand: former presidents or Cabinet members, retired CEOs, and yes, university presidents. If the sky, and the share price, is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises. The researchers from the Ohio State University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the researchers concentrated on those "surprise" disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increases by nearly 20%. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms. The obvious conclusion might be that outside directors, with inside knowledge of tricky times ahead, prefer to save their own reputations, rather than those of the company they are serving. But although a correlation between them leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinking ship. Often they "trade up", leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms. But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives, such as increasing pay, says Dr Fahlenbrach. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms Simmons, once again very popular on campus. According to Paragraph 4, when trouble looms for a small firm, ______.
Europe, where the so-called population explosion got under way in the 18th century, is once again playing a pioneering role in demographic (人口的) development. The continent has the lowest fertility rate and the most elderly population in the world, and this population will soon start to shrink. All this makes it a front runner in a demographic trend that sooner or later will reach most of the world. Pioneers have to advance through difficult terrain. Economists are already worrying about the problem of how social security systems will cope when the post-war baby boomers start collecting their pensions in 2015. In hyper-ageing countries like Italy and Germany, where 1 in 7 people will be over 80 in 2050, it is unclear how a shrinking group of young people can generate the wealth needed to support the growing group of elderly citizens. Europe’s economic competitiveness could fall behind younger and growing populations in other world regions. On the face of it, fewer people seem like good news for the environment. The population of Germany, Europe’s most populous country, will shrink by at least 8 million by 2050 and this trend is set to be replicated in many of its neighbours. Remote rural areas, mainly in central and eastern Europe, might become depopulated over time. This should benefit biodiversity as displaced plant and animal species recolonise their old terrain. Given that the world population is still growing by about 200,000 people a day, and the ecological footprint of the human race already lies beyond the limits of sustainability, fewer European mega-consumers will be a blessing for the health of the planet. But look a little deeper, and the picture becomes more complicated. Decreasing population does not necessarily promise environmental benefits. The cost per head of population for infrastructure such as sewage systems (污水管道系统) or electricity supply increases when population numbers go down, making clean water and non-polluting energy even more expensive than they are today. So can Europe overcome its demographic and ecological challenges at the same time The solution might be found in a rarely discussed concept: demographic sustainability. High population growth, such as that now taking place in many African countries, is not sustainable. But very low fertility rates are unsustainable too. It will be hard for countries with persistently low fertility to remain competitive, creative and wealthy enough to keep ahead of their country’s environmental challenges. What is needed is a middle ground. A demographically sustainable Europe needs to have a stable or slowly shrinking population as the existing infrastructure operates most efficiently when the number of inhabitants remains fairly constant. What would it take to achieve this At present, the average fertility rate in Europe is 1.5 children per woman, and in countries below this line there is an urgent need for family policies to encourage women to have more children. Countries with fertility rates above 1.8, including France, the UK and Sweden, do not need further pro-birth policies as immigrations will fill the demographic gap. From the economics perspective, what essential effect may the change of the population structure have on Europe’s countries
Europe, where the so-called population explosion got under way in the 18th century, is once again playing a pioneering role in demographic (人口的) development. The continent has the lowest fertility rate and the most elderly population in the world, and this population will soon start to shrink. All this makes it a front runner in a demographic trend that sooner or later will reach most of the world. Pioneers have to advance through difficult terrain. Economists are already worrying about the problem of how social security systems will cope when the post-war baby boomers start collecting their pensions in 2015. In hyper-ageing countries like Italy and Germany, where 1 in 7 people will be over 80 in 2050, it is unclear how a shrinking group of young people can generate the wealth needed to support the growing group of elderly citizens. Europe’s economic competitiveness could fall behind younger and growing populations in other world regions. On the face of it, fewer people seem like good news for the environment. The population of Germany, Europe’s most populous country, will shrink by at least 8 million by 2050 and this trend is set to be replicated in many of its neighbours. Remote rural areas, mainly in central and eastern Europe, might become depopulated over time. This should benefit biodiversity as displaced plant and animal species recolonise their old terrain. Given that the world population is still growing by about 200,000 people a day, and the ecological footprint of the human race already lies beyond the limits of sustainability, fewer European mega-consumers will be a blessing for the health of the planet. But look a little deeper, and the picture becomes more complicated. Decreasing population does not necessarily promise environmental benefits. The cost per head of population for infrastructure such as sewage systems (污水管道系统) or electricity supply increases when population numbers go down, making clean water and non-polluting energy even more expensive than they are today. So can Europe overcome its demographic and ecological challenges at the same time The solution might be found in a rarely discussed concept: demographic sustainability. High population growth, such as that now taking place in many African countries, is not sustainable. But very low fertility rates are unsustainable too. It will be hard for countries with persistently low fertility to remain competitive, creative and wealthy enough to keep ahead of their country’s environmental challenges. What is needed is a middle ground. A demographically sustainable Europe needs to have a stable or slowly shrinking population as the existing infrastructure operates most efficiently when the number of inhabitants remains fairly constant. What would it take to achieve this At present, the average fertility rate in Europe is 1.5 children per woman, and in countries below this line there is an urgent need for family policies to encourage women to have more children. Countries with fertility rates above 1.8, including France, the UK and Sweden, do not need further pro-birth policies as immigrations will fill the demographic gap. According to the passage, the decreasing of population seems to benefit the environment in that
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