单选题
What is happening in the United States today is truly astonishing. In a society that prides itself on its preference for facts over hearsay, on its openness to research, and on its respect for "expert" opinion, parents, educators, administrators, and legislators are ignoring the facts, the research, and the expert opinion about how young children learn and how best to teach them. All across the country, educational programs intended for school-aged children are being appropriated for the education of young children. In some states (for example, New York, Connecticut, and Illinois) educational administrators are advocating that children enter school at age four. Many kindergarten programs have become full-day kindergartens, and nursery-school programs have become pre-kindergartens. Moreover, many of these kindergartens have introduced curricula, including work papers, once reserved for first-grade children. And in books addressed to parents a number of writers are encouraging parents to teach infants and young children reading, math, and science. When we instruct children in academic subjects, or in swimming, gymnastics, or ballet, at too early an age, we miseducate them; we put them at risk for short-term stress and long-term personality damage for no useful purpose. There is no evidence that such early instruction has lasting benefits, and considerable evidence that it can do lasting harm. Why, then, are we engaging in such unhealthy practices on so vast a scale? Like all social phenomena, the contemporary miseducation of large numbers of infants and young children derives from the coming together of multiple and complex social forces that both generate and justify these practices. One thing is sure: miseducation does not grow out of established knowledge about what is good pedagogy for infants and young children. Rather, the reasons must be sought in the changing values, size, structure, and style of American families, in the residue of the 1960s efforts to ensure equality of education for all groups, and in the new status, competitive, and computer pressures experienced by parents and educators in the eighties. While miseducation has always been with us — we have always had pushy parents — today it has become a societal norm. If we do not wake up to the potential danger of these harmful practices, we may do serious damage to a large segment of the next generation.
单选题
What is happening in the United States today is truly astonishing because______.
单选题
Which of the following statements is right according to the text?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析：事实细节题。[C]项是对第二段第三句中nursery—school programs have become pre-kinder一gartens的同义转述，故为答案。第二段第一句提到，全美国的学龄儿童教育项目被挪用作幼儿教育，[A]项与文义不符，故排除。第二段第一句提到，在一些州教育人员提倡孩子四岁入学，并不是全美国皆如此，故排除[B]项。第二段最后一句提到许多作者在写给父母的育儿书里鼓励家长教婴幼儿阅读、数学和科学，并不是说美国家长已经这么做了，故排除[D]项。
单选题
We should not instruct children in academic subjects, or in swimming, gymnastics, or ballet, at too early an age because______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】解析：事实细节题。根据题干中的instruct children in academic subjects…at too early an age将本题出处定位于第三段。该段提到，当我们在孩子年纪太小的时候教他们学术科目，或者游泳、体操或芭蕾时，我们对他们进行了错误的教育，故答案为[D]项。文中提到的是使孩子处于为了无用的目标受到短期压力和长期人格损害的风险之中，不是一定有这种损害，故排除[A]项。第三段第二句提到没有证据表明过早的训练能产生持久的效益，却有大量证据表明会产生持久的伤害，[B]项过于绝对，而[C]项与文义相反，均予以排除。