单选题 Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recent years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on this educational ritual. Unfortunately, L. A. Unified has produced an inflexible policy which mandates that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student' s academic grade.
This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot complete on their own or that they cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children.
District administrators say that homework will still be a part of schooling; teachers are allowed to assign as much of it as they want. But with homework counting for no more than 10% of their grades, students can easily skip half their homework and see very little difference on their report cards. Some students might do well on state tests without completing their homework, but what about the students who performed well on the tests and did their homework? It is quite possible that the homework helped. Yet rather than empowering teachers to find what works best for their students, the policy imposes a fiat, across-the-board rule.
At the same time, the policy addresses none of the truly thorny questions about homework. If the district finds homework to be unimportant to its students' academic achievement, it should move to reduce or eliminate the assignments, not make them count for almost nothing. Conversely, if homework matters, it should account for a significant portion of the grade. Meanwhile, this policy does nothing to ensure that the homework students receive is meaningful or appropriate to their age and the subject, or that teachers are not assigning more than they are willing to review and correct.
The homework rules should be put on hold while the school board ,which is responsible for setting educational policy, looks into the matter and conducts public hearings. It is not too late for L. A. Unified to do homework right.

单选题 It is implied in Paragraph 1 that nowadays homework ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。文章首句指出，家庭作业从来就没有受到学生甚至家长的真正欢迎，特别是到了最近几年，家庭作业还遭到了人们的鄙视。由此可知，目前家庭作业正受到更多的批 评，故A项“正在受到更多的批评”为正确答案。题干中的nowadays对应原文中的in recent years，A项则是对it has been particularly scorned的同义改写。
单选题 L. A. Unified has made the rule about homework mainly because poor students ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】细节题。根据题干中的信号词poor students定位到第二段首句，该句指出，这项政策的制定是为了解决贫困家庭的学生在完成家庭作业中可能遇到的困难，也就是说，制定该政策主要是因为贫困学生完成家庭作业可能存在困难，故C项“在完成家庭作业方面可能有困难”为正确答案。poor students对应文中的students from impoverished or chaotic homes.
单选题 According to Paragraph 3, one problem with the policy is that it may ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】细节题。文章第三段第二句指出，由于家庭作业在成绩中所占比例不超过10%，学生就能轻易逃避一半的家庭作业，而成绩单上也看不出什么差别。“家庭作业在成绩中所占比例不超过10%”是洛杉矶联合学区制定的家庭作业政策的内容。从中可以看出，有了这项政策，既然成绩单上不会有区别，学生就会选择少做一半的家庭作业，因此D项“降低学生做作业的意愿”为正确答案。
单选题 As mentioned in Paragraph 4,a key question unanswered about homework is whether ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。第四段第一句指出“这项政策没有处理家庭作业真正棘手的问题”，后面用两个if对其中一个问题进行了说明：“如果该学区认为家庭作业对于孩子的学业是不重要的，就应该减少或者取消家庭作业，而不是让它们在成绩中所占比例无足轻重。相反，如果家庭作业很重要，它就应该在成绩中占有较大的比重”。由此可知，这项政策到目前为止还未对家庭作业对于学生的学业是否有重要作用给出确定答案，故B项“对学校教育很重要”为正确答案。
单选题 A suitable title for this text could be ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】主旨题。文章首段通过指出家庭作业的弊病以及美国各学区对此做出的努力，引出L. A. Unified针对家庭作业所制定的政策。接着第二、三和四段分析了这项政策的缺陷，末段指出L. A. unified应该调整该政策。全文围绕L. A. Unified针对家庭作业制定的政策展开，主要讨论这项政策的缺点。因此A项“一项针对家庭作业的错误政策”最适合充当文章的标题。approach本意是“接近，靠近；方法”，它引申出来就是“政策，策略”的意思，与文章中的policy内涵一致。