单选题 In the United States, elementary education begins at the age of six. At this stage nearly all the teachers are women, mostly married. The atmosphere is usually very friendly, and the teachers have now accepted the idea that the important thing is to make the children happy and interested. The old authoritarian (要绝对服从的) methods of education were discredited (不被认可) rather a long time ago—so much so that many people now think that they have gone too far in the direction of trying to make children happy and interested rather than giving them actual instruction.
The social education of young children tries to make them accept the idea that human beings in a society need to work together for their common good. So the emphasis is on cooperation rather than competition throughout most of this process. This may seem curious, in view of the fact that American society is highly competitive; however, the need for making people sociable in this sense has come to be regarded as one of the functions of education. Most Americans do grow up with competitive ideas, and obviously quite a few as criminals, but it is not fair to say that the educational system fails. It probably does succeed in making most people sociable and ready to help one another both in material ways and through kindness and friendliness.

单选题 According to the passage, the U. S. elementary education is supposed to make children ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。文章第一段第三句谈到老师们都认可让孩子们开心、有兴趣很重要；第二段前两句又提到社会性教育强调的是合作而不是竞争。因此D最符合题意。

单选题 Some Americans complain about elementary schools because they think ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。答案在第一段最后一句：“...many people now think that they have gone too far in the direction of trying to make children happy and interested rather than giving them actual instruction.”(许多人认为在使孩子们开心、有兴趣方面做得太多，却没给他们实际的指导。)注意选项D里的little表示“几乎没有”。

单选题 The author"s attitude towards American education can be best described as ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 推理判断题。题目要求判断作者对美国教育持何种态度。选项分别为favorable(赞许的)，negative(否定的)，tolerant(容忍的)，unfriendly(不友好的)。答案在第二段最后：“it is not fair to say that the educational system fails. It probably does succeed in making most people sociable and ready to help one another...”(说这种教育制度失败是不公平的。它或许的确成功地使大部分人对人友善并乐于助人。)由此可见，作者对美国教育持赞赏态度。