About the time that schools and others quite reasonably became interested in seeing to it that all children, whatever their background, were fairly treated, intelligence testing became unpopular.Some thought it was unfair to minority children. Through the past few decades such testing has gone out of fashion and many communities have indeed forbidden it.However, paradoxically, just recently a group of black parents filed a lawsuit in California claiming that the state"s ban on IQ testing discriminates against their children by denying them the opportunity to take the test. (They believed, correctly, that IQ tests are a valid method of evaluating children for special education classes.) The judge, therefore, reversed, at least partially, his original decision.And so the argument goes on and on. Does it benefit or harm children from minority groups to have their intelligence tested We have always been on the side of permitting, even facilitating, such testing. If a child of any color or group is doing poorly in school it seems to us very important to know whether it is because he or she is of low intelligence, or whether some other factor is the cause.What school and family can do to improve poor performance is influenced by its cause. It is not discriminative to evaluate either a child"s physical condition or his intellectual level.Unfortunately, intellectual level seems to be a sensitive subject, and what the law allows us to do varies from time to time. The same fluctuation back and forth occurs in areas other than intelligence. Thirty years or so ago, for instance, white families were encouraged to adopt black children. It was considered discriminative not to do so.And then the style changed and this cross-racial adopting became generally unpopular, and social agencies felt that black children should go to black families only. It is hard to say what are the best procedures. But surely good will on the part of all of us is needed.As to intelligence, in our opinion, the more we know about any child"s intellectual level, the better for the child in question. The recent legal action taken by some black parents in California aimed to ______.
A. draw public attention to IQ testing
B. put an end to special education
C. remove the state"s ban on intelligence tests
D. have their children enter white schools
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"The world"s environment is surprisingly healthy. Discuss." If that were an examination topic, most students would tear it apart, offering a long list of complaints: from local smog to global climate change, from the felling of forests to the extinction of species. The list would largely be accurate, the concern legitimate. Yet the students who should be given the highest marks would actually be those who agreed with the statement. The surprise is how good things are, not how bad.After all, the world"s population has more than tripled during this century, and world output has risen hugely, so you would expect the earth itself to have been affected. Indeed, if people lived, consumed and produced things in the same way as they did in 1900 (or 1950, or indeed 1980), the world by now would be a pretty disgusting place: smelly, dirty, toxic and dangerous.But they don"t. The reasons why they don"t, and why the environment has not been ruined, have to do with prices, technological innovation, social change and government regulation in response to popular pressure. That is why today"s environmental problems in the poor countries ought, in principle, to be solvable.Raw materials have not run out, and show no sign of doing so. Logically, one day they must: the planet is a finite place. Yet it is also very big, and man is very ingenious. What has happened is that every time a material seems to be running short, the price has risen and, in response, people have looked for new sources of supply, tried to find ways to use less of the material, or looked for a new substitute. For this reason prices for energy and for minerals have fallen in real terms during the century. The same is true for food. Prices fluctuate, in response to harvests, natural disasters and political instability; and when they rise, it takes some time before new sources of supply become available. But they always do, assisted by new farming and crop technology. The long-term trend has been downwards.It is where prices and markets do not operate properly that this benign trend begins to stumble, and the genuine problems arise. Markets cannot always keep the environment healthy. If no one owns the resource concerned, no one has an interest in conserving it or fostering it: fish is the best example of this. According to the author, most students ______.
A. believe the world"s environment is in an undesirable condition
B. agree that the environment of the world is not as bad as it is thought to be
C. get high marks for their good knowledge of the world"s environment
D. appear somewhat unconcerned about the state of the world"s environment
As part of more comprehensive compliance and ethics programs, many companies have formulated internal policies pertaining to the ethical conduct of employees.These policies can be simple exhortations in broad, highly-generalized language ( typically called a corporate ethics statement), or they can be more detailed policies, containing specific behavioral requirements (typically called corporate ethics codes).51They are generally meant to identify the company’s expectations of workers and to offer guidance on handling some of the more common ethical problems that might arise in the course of doing business.52 It is hoped that having such a policy will lead to greater ethical awareness , consistency in application, andthe avoidance of ethical disasters. 53. An increasing number of companies also requires employees to attend seminars regarding business conduct, which often include discussion of the company’s policies, specific case studies, and leEal requirements. Some companies even require their employees to sign agreements stating that they will abide by the company’s rules of conduct. Many companies are assessing the environmental factors that can lead employees to engage in unethical conduct.A competitive business environment may call for unethical behavior.Lying has become expected in fields such as trading.An example of this are the issues surrounding the unethical actions of the Saloman Brothers. Not everyone supports corporate policies that govern ethical conduct. Some claim that ethical problems are better dealt with by depending upon employees to use their own judgment. Others believe that corporate ethics policies are primarily rooted in utilitarian concerns, and that they are mainly to limit the company’s legal liability, or to curry public favor by giving the appearance of being a good corporate citizen.Ideally, the company will avoid a lawsuit because its employees will follow the rules.54 .Should a lawsuit occur, the company can claim that the problem would not have arisen if the employee had only followed the code properly. Sometimes there is disconnection between the company’s code of ethics and the company’s actual practices. 55. Thus, whether or not such conduct is explicitly sanctioned by management, at worst, this makes the policy duplicitous (搞两面派的) , and, at best, it is merely a marketing tool. Thus, whether or not such conduct is explicitly sanctioned by management, at worst, this makes the policy duplicitous (搞两面派的) , and, at best, it is merely a marketing tool.
Passage Three What exactly is a lie Is it anything we say which we know is untrue Or is it something more than that For example, suppose a friend wants to borrow some money from you, you say "I wish I could help you but I’m short of money myself." In fact, you are not short of money but your friend is in the habit of not paying his debts and you don’t want to hurt his feeling by reminding him of this.Is this really a lie Professor Jerald Jellison of the University of Southern California has made a scientific study of lying. According to him, women are better liars than men, particularly when telling a "white lie".For instance, when a woman at a party tells another woman that she likes her dress, she really thinks it looks awful. However, this is only one side of the story. Other researchers say that men are more likely to tell more serious lies, such as making a promise which they have no intention of fulfilling.This is the kind of lie politicians and businessmen are supposed to be particularly skilled at: the lie from which the liar hopes to profit or gain in some way. Research has also been done into the way people’s behavior changes in a number of small,apparently unimportant ways when they lie. It has been found that if they are sitting down at the time, they tend to move about in their chairs more than usual.To the trained observer they are saying "I wish I were somewhere else now" .They also tend to touch certain parts of the face more often, in particular the nose. One explanation of this may be that lying causes a slight increase in blood pressure.The tip of the nose is very sensitive to such changes and the increased pressure makes it itch. Another gesture which gives liars away is what the writer Desmond Morris in his book Man-watching calls "the mouth cover". He says there are several typical forms of this, such as covering part of the mouth with the fingers, touching the upper-lip or putting the hand at one side of the mouth.Such a gesture can be understood as an unconscious attempt on the part of the liar to stop himself or herself from lying. Of course, such gestures as rubbing the nose or covering the mouth or moving about in a chair cannot be taken as proof that the speaker is lying. They simply tend to occur more frequently in this situation.It is not one gesture alone that gives the liar away but a whole number of things, and in particular the context in which the lie is told. Which of the following may best betray a liar
A. The touching of the tip of one’s nose.
B. The changes of one’s behavior.
C. "The mouth cover" gesture.
D. The circumstances in which his lie is told.
About the time that schools and others quite reasonably became interested in seeing to it that all children, whatever their background, were fairly treated, intelligence testing became unpopular.Some thought it was unfair to minority children. Through the past few decades such testing has gone out of fashion and many communities have indeed forbidden it.However, paradoxically, just recently a group of black parents filed a lawsuit in California claiming that the state"s ban on IQ testing discriminates against their children by denying them the opportunity to take the test. (They believed, correctly, that IQ tests are a valid method of evaluating children for special education classes.) The judge, therefore, reversed, at least partially, his original decision.And so the argument goes on and on. Does it benefit or harm children from minority groups to have their intelligence tested We have always been on the side of permitting, even facilitating, such testing. If a child of any color or group is doing poorly in school it seems to us very important to know whether it is because he or she is of low intelligence, or whether some other factor is the cause.What school and family can do to improve poor performance is influenced by its cause. It is not discriminative to evaluate either a child"s physical condition or his intellectual level.Unfortunately, intellectual level seems to be a sensitive subject, and what the law allows us to do varies from time to time. The same fluctuation back and forth occurs in areas other than intelligence. Thirty years or so ago, for instance, white families were encouraged to adopt black children. It was considered discriminative not to do so.And then the style changed and this cross-racial adopting became generally unpopular, and social agencies felt that black children should go to black families only. It is hard to say what are the best procedures. But surely good will on the part of all of us is needed.As to intelligence, in our opinion, the more we know about any child"s intellectual level, the better for the child in question. Why did the intelligence test become unpopular in the past few decades
A. Its validity was challenged by many communities.
B. It was considered discriminative against minority children.
C. It met with strong opposition from the majority of black parents.
D. It deprived the black children of their rights to a good education.