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 his 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 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 vey 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 flat, 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.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 文章首段首句指出“家庭作业一直不受学生甚至家长的欢迎，但近几年来它受到了特别的嘲讽”。后面谈及洛杉矶联合学区针对家庭作业所制定的政策。该题题干问的是“根据文章首段，目前家庭作业……”，关键词是家庭作业，因此答案从首句就能判断出来。题干的nowadays对应原文中的in recent years，所选答案则是对“it has been particularly scorned”的同义改写，故答案选A。