阅读理解 The methods of testing a person's knowledge and ability remain as primitive as ever they were. After all these years, educationists have still failed to device anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing memory, or the skill of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell you nothing about a person's true ability and aptitude.
As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none. That is because so much depends on them. They are markers of success or of failure in our society. Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror, or after a sleepless night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do. The moment a child begins school, he enters a world of vicious competition where success and failure are clearly defined and measured.
A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorize. They lower the standards of teaching, for they deprive the teacher of all freedoms. Teachers themselves are often judged by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects. The most successful candidates are not always the best educated; they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.
The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word carries weight. After a judge' s decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner' s. There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways of assessing a person ' s true abilities.
Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis. The best comment on the system is this illiterate message recently scrawled on a wall: I were a teenage drop-out and now I am a teenage millionaire.

单选题 6.The author's attitude towards examinations is______.

单选题 7.What is the meaning of the underlined sentence in the second paragraph?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】根据题干关键词定位到文章第二段第一句。该句中的second to none为固定搭配，意为“不亚于任何事物”，整句话可理解为“考试最能让学生产生焦虑的情绪”。故A项“考试给学生带来巨大的压力”符合题意。B项“焦虑者对考试非常重视”、C项“考试的制造者更有可能焦虑”和D项“考试是最重要的事情”均不符合题意，故本题选A。

单选题 8.According to the author, the most important aspect of a good education is______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】根据题干关键词定位到文章第三段第一句。该句指出“良好的教育应该培养学生独立思考的能力”。B项“训练学生独立思考”是该句的同义替换，故正确。A项“鼓励学生广泛阅读”，即教学生如何备考，是途径，而非目的，故排除。C项“教学生如何应付考试”和D项“掌握自己的命运”属于作者不赞成的方面，而非作者的观点，故本题选B。

单选题 9.Why does the author mention the court?

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】根据题干关键词定位到文章倒数第二段末尾。其表明：审判官判决之后，你仍有上诉的权利。然而批改试卷人给分后，学生没有上诉的权利。所以法庭在这里被提及的目的是引出考试的弊端并与考试做出比较，故B项“用做比较”正确。A项“举个例子”、C项“表明教师的发展取决于考试的结果”和D项“表明法庭的结果更有效”均不符合题意，故本题选B。

单选题 10.The main idea of this passage is______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】总览全文可知，文章第一段指出考试是测试记忆力的好方法，但是测试只能检测出一个人在巨大的压力下快速工作的技巧和方法，却测不出一个人真正的能力和水平。接着分析了考试是学生焦虑情绪的原因，即考试造成了教学上的应试教育，考试让老师或者测试人的压力和学生一样大，所以文章的主旨是为了论述考试产生的负面影响。A项“考试对教育产生不利影响”是原文的同义替换，故正确。B项“考试是无效的”、C项“考试对一些机构来说有利可图”和D项“考试是学生的负担”都不符合题意，故本题选A。