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TEXT B There is a great concern in Europe and North America about declining standards of literacy in schools. In Britain, the fact that 30 percent of 16 year old have a reading age of 14 or less has helped to prompt massive educational changes. The development of literacy has far-reaching effects on general intellectual development and thus anything which impedes the development of literacy is a serious mather for us all. So the hunt is on for the cause of the decline in literacy. The search so far has forced on socioeconomic factors, or the effectiveness of "traditional" versus "modern" teaching techniques The fruitless search for the cause of the increase in illiteracy is a tragic example of file saying "They can’t see the wood for the trees". When teachers use picture books, they are simply continuing a long-established tradition that is accepted without question. And for the past two decades, illustrations in reading primers have become increasingly detailed and obtrusive, while language has become impoverished -- sometimes to the point of extinction. Amazingly, there is virtually no empirical evidence to support the use of illustrations in teaching reading. On the contrary, a great deal of empirical evidence shows that pictures interfere in a damaging way with all aspects of learning to read. Despite this, from North America to the Antipodes, the first books that many school children receive are totally without text. A teacher’s main concern is to help young beginning readers to develop not only the ability to recognize words, but the skills necessary to understand what these words mean. Even if a child is able to read aloud fluently, he or she may not be able to undersdand much of it: this is called "barking at text". The teacher’s task of improving comprehension is made harder by influences outisde the classroom. But the adverse effects of such things as television, video games, or limited language experiences at home, can be offset by experiencing "rich" language at school. Instead, it is not unusual for a book of 30 or more pages to have only one sentence full of repetitive phrases. The artwork is often marvellous, but the pictures make the language redundant, and the children have no need to imagine anything when they read such books. Looking at a picture actively prevents children younger than nine from creating a mental image, and can make it difficult for older children. In order to learn how to comprehend, they need to practise making their own meaning in response to text. They need to have their innate powers of imagination trained. As they grow older, many children turn aside from books without pictures, and it is a situation made more serious as our culture becomes more visual. It is hard to wean children off picture books when pictures have played a major part throughout their formative reading experiences, and when there is competition for their attention from so many other sources of entertainment. The least intelligent are most vulnerable, but tests show that even intelligent children are being affected. The response of educators has been to extend use of pictures in books and to simplify the language, even at senior levels. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates. Pictures are also used to help motivate children to read bacause they are beautiful and eyecatching. But motivation to read should be provided by listening to stories well read, where children imagine in response to the story. Then, as they start to read, they have this experience to help them understand the language. If we present pictures to save children the trouble of developing these creative skills, then I think we are making a great mistake. Academic journals ranging from educational research, psychology, language learning, psycholinguistics, and so on cite experiments which demonstrate how detrimental pictures are for beginner readers. Here is a brief selection: The research results of the Canadian educationalist Dalt Willows were clear and consistent pictures affected speed and accuracy and the closer the pictures were to the Words. the slower and more inaccurate the child’s reading became. She claims that when children come to a word they already know, then the pictures are unnecessary and distracting. If they do now know a word and look to the pictures which are not closely related to the meaning of the word they are trying to understand. Jay Samuels, an American psychologist, found that poor readers given no pictures learnt significantly more words than those learning to read with books with pictures. He examined the work of other researchers who reported problems with the use of pictures and who had found that a word without a picture was superior to a word plus a picture. When children were given words and pictures, those who seemed to ignore the pictures and pointed at the words than children who pointed at the pictures, but they still learnt fewer words than the children who had no illustrated stimuli at all. They youngest readers will quickly develop good reading skills if they ______.
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TEXT C Some recent historians have argued that life in the British colonies in America from approximately 1763 to 1789 was marked by internal conflicts among colonists. Inheritors of some of the viewpoins of early twentieth century Progressive historians such as Beard and Becker, these recent historians have put forward arguments that deserve evaluation. The kind of conflict most emphasized by these historians is class conflict. Yet with the Revolutionary War dominating these years, how does one distinguish class conflict within that larger conflict Certainly not by the side a person supported. Although many of these historians have accepted the earlier assumption the Loyalists represented an upper class, new evidence indicates that Loyalists, like rebels, were drawn from all socioeconomic class. (It is nonetheless probably true that a larger percentage of the well-to-de joined the Loyalists than joined the rebels.) Looking at the rebels side, we find little evidence for the contention that lower-class rebels were in conflict with upper-class rebels. Indeed, the war effort against Britain tended to suppress class conflicts. Where it did not, the disputing rebels of one or another class usually became Loyalists. Loyalism thus operated as a safety valve to remove socioeconomic discontent that existed among the rebels. Disputes occurred, of course, among those who remained on the rebel side, but the extraordinary social mobility of eighteenth-century American society (with the obvious exception of slaves) usually prevented such disputes from hardening along class lines. Social structure was in fact so fluid thought recent statistics suggest a narrowing of economic opportunity as the latter half of the century progressed -- that to talk about social classes at all requires the use of loose economic categories such as rich, poor, and middle class, or eighteenth-century designations like "the better sort". Despite these vague categories one should not claim unequivocally that hostility between recognizable classes cannot be legitimately observed. Outside of New York, however, there were very few instances of openly expressed class antagonism. Having said this, however, one must add that there is much evidence to support the further claim of recent historians that sectional conflicts were common between 1763 and 1789. The "Paxton Boys" incident and the Regulator movement arc representative examples the widespread, and justified, discontent of western settlers against colonial or state governments dominated by eastern interests. Although undertones of class conflict existed beneath such hostility, the opposition was primarily geographical. Sectional conflict -- which also existed between North and South -- deserves further investigation. In summary, historians must be careful about the kind of conflict they emphasize in eighteenth-century America. Yet those who stress the achievement of a general consensus among the colonists cannot fully understand the consensus without understanding the conflicts that had to be overcome or repressed in order to reach it. The author considers the contentions made by the recent historians discussed in the ______.passage to be ______.
ITV gets its money from ______.
Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each question. Now listen to the news. According to the news, which of the following is TRUE
TEXT D For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, chemistry was seen by many as the science of the future. The potential of chemical products for enriching society appeared to be unlimited. Increasingly, however, arid especially in the public mind, the negative aspects of chemistry have come to the fore, Disposal of chemical by-products at waste-disposal sites of limited capacity has resulted in environmental and health problems of enormous concern. The legitimate use of drugs for the medically supervised treatment of diseases has been tainted by the growing misuse of mood-altering drugs. The very word chemicals has come to be used all too frequently in a pejorative sense. There is, as a result, a danger that the pursuit and application of chemical knowledge may be seen as bearing risks that outweigh the bensfits. It is easy to underestimate the central role of chemistry in modern society, but chemical products are essential if the world’s population is to be clothed, housed, and fed. The world’s reserves of fossil fuels (e. g. oil, natural gas, and coal) will eventually be exhausted, some as soon as the 21st century, and new chemical processes and materials will provide a crucial alternative energy source. The conversion of solar energy to more concentrated, useful forms, for example, will rely heavily on discoveries in chemistry. Longterm, environmentally acceptable solutions to pollution problems are not attainable without chemical knowledge. There is much truth in the aphorism that "chemical problems require chemical solutions". Chemical inquiry will lead to a better understanding of the behaviour of both natural and synthetic materials and to the discovery of new substances that will help future generations better supply their needs and deal with their problems. Progress in chemistry can no longer be measured only in terms of economics and utility. The discovery and manufacture of new chemical goods must continue to be economically feasible but must be environmentally acceptable as well. The impact or new substances on the environment can now be assessed before large-scale production begins, and environmental compatibility has become a valued property of new materials. For example, compounds consisting of carbon fully bonded to chlorine and fluorine, called chlorofluorocarbons (or Freons), were believed to be idem for their intended use when they were first discovered. They are nontoxic, nonflammable gases and volatile liquids that are very stable. These properties led to their widespread use as solvents, refrigerants, and propellants in aerosol containers. Time has shown, however, that these compounds decompose in the upper regions of the atmosphere and that the decomposition products act to destroy stratospheric ozone. Limits have now been placed on the use of chlorofluorocarbons, but it is impossible to recover the amounts already dispersed into the atmosphere. The chlorlofluorocarbon problem illustrates how difficult it is to anticipate the overall impact that new materials can have on the environment. Chemists are working to develop methods of assessment, and prevailing chemical theory provides the working tools. Once a substance has been identified as hazardous to the existing ecological balance, it is the responsibility of chemists to locate that substance and neutralize it, limiting the damage it can do or removing it from the environment entirely. The last years of the 20th century will see many new, exciting discoveries in the processes and products of chemistry. Inevitably, the harmful effects of some substances will outweigh their benefits, and their use will have to be limited. Yet, the positive impact of chemistry on society as a whole seems beyond doubt. According to this passage, chemistry ______.
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