阅读理解

Passage One:Questions are based on the following passage.

BACK in 1922, Thomas Edison predicted that “the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and, in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.” Well, we all make mistakes. But at least Edison did not squander vast quantities of public money on installing cinema screens in schools around the country.

With computers, the story has been different. Many governments have packed them into schools, convinced that their presence would improve the pace and efficiency of learning.Large numbers of studies, some more academically respectable than others, have purported to show that computers help children to learn. Now, however, a study that compares classes with computers against similar classes without them casts doubt on that view.

In the current Economic Journal, Joshua Angrist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Victor Lavy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem look at a scheme which put computers into many of Israel’s primary and middle schools in the mid-1990s. Dr. Angrist and Dr. Lavy compare the test scores for maths and Hebrew achieved by children in the fourth and eighth grades (i.e., aged about nine and 13) in schools with and without computers. They also asked the classes’ teachers how they used various teaching materials, such as Xeroxed worksheets and, of course, computer programs. The researchers found that the Israeli scheme had much less effect on teaching methods in middle schools than in elementary schools. It also found no evidence that the use of computers improved children’s test scores. In fact, it found the reverse. In the case of the math scores of fourth-graders, there was a consistently negative relationship between computer use and test scores.

The authors offer three possible explanations of why this might be. First, the introduction of computers into classrooms might have gobbled up cash that would otherwise have paid for other aspects of education. But that is unlikely in this case since the money for the programme came from the national lottery, and the study found no significant change in teaching resources, methods or training in schools that acquired computers through the scheme.

A second possibility is that the transition to using computers in instruction takes time to have an effect. Maybe, say the authors, but the schools surveyed had been using the schemed computers for a full school year. That was enough for the new computers to have had a large (and apparently malign) influence on fourth-grade maths scores. The third explanation is the simplest: that the use of computers in teaching is no better (and perhaps worse) than other teaching methods.

The bottom line says Dr. Angrist, is that “the costs are clear-cut and the benefits are murky.” The burden of proof now lies with the promoters of classroom computers. And the only reliable way to make their case is, surely, to conduct a proper study, with children randomly allocated to teachers who use computers and teachers who use other methods, including the cheapest of all: chalk and talk.

单选题

We can learn from the first paragraph that ________.

【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】

由第一段第二句“Well, we all make mistakes.”可知是对爱迪生预测的否定, 证明他的预测是错误的。 因此本题选B项。

单选题

Dr. Angrist and Dr. Lavy have done the following except ________.

【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】

从第三段第二句“Dr. Angrist and Dr. Lavy compare the test scores for maths and Hebrew achieved by children in the fourth and eighth grades (i.e., aged about nine and 13)”可知A项正确。 从第三句“They also asked the classes' teachers how they used various teaching materials”可知B项正确。 从第五句“It also found no evidence that the use of computers improved children's test scores.”可知D项正确。 因此本题选C项。

单选题

According to Dr. Angrist and Dr. Lavy, in the Israeli scheme, students didn’t make improvement in their test scores because ________.

【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】

倒数第二段最后一句“The third explanation is the simplest: that the use of computers in teaching is no better (and perhaps worse) than other teaching methods.”表明引用电脑教学不比其他教学方法好。 因此本题选D项。

单选题

It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ________.

【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】

由最后一段最后一句“And the only reliable way to make their case is, surely, to conduct a proper study...”可推知, 目前还没有真正的研究。 从最后一段第二句“The burden of proof now lies with the promoters of classroom computers.”可知提供电脑教学的有效证据应是提倡者的职责, 故B项不对。 C项在最后一段有直接陈述“the costs are clear-cut and the benefits are murky.”, 不是推测得知, 故排除。 D项文中没有将粉笔教学和电脑教学进行对比, 所以不能得出此结论。 因此本题选A项。

单选题

The author’s attitude towards governments’ packing computers in schools seems to be ________.

【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】

从第一段最后一句“But at least Edison did not squander vast quantities of public money on installing cinema screens in schools around the country.”作者感叹幸好爱迪生没有斥巨资在全国安装电影屏幕, 可以体会出作者对电脑教学是持否定态度的。 因此本题选C项。