填空题A.Foronething,manyyoung"'vegetarians"continuetoeatthewhitemeatofdefenselesschickens(25%inthecurrentstudy)aswellasthefleshofthoseadorableanimalsknownasfish(46%),evenwhentheyarebutcheredandserveduprawassushi.AndinarecentstudyintheJournalofAdolescentHealth,researchersfoundthatthemostcommonreasonteensgaveforvegetarianismwastoloseweightorkeepfromgainingit.Adolescentvegetariansarefarmorelikelythanotherteenstodietortouseextremeandunhealthymeasurestocontroltheirweight,studiessuggest.Thereverseisalsotrue:teenswitheatingdisordersaremorelikelytopracticevegetarianismthananyotheragegroup.B.Butapproximately20%ofthevegetariansturnedouttobebinge(excessiveeatinganddrinking)eaters,comparedwithonly5%ofthosewhohadalwayseatenmeat.Similarly,25%ofcurrentvegetarians,ages15to18,and20%offormervegetariansinthesameagegroupsaidtheyhadengagedinextremeweight-controlmeasuressuchastakingdietpillsorlaxativesandforcingthemselvestovomit.Only1in10teenswhohadneverbeenvegetarianreportedsimilarbehavior.C.Beingateenagermeansexperimentingwithfoolishthingslikedyeingyourhairpurpleorcandyflippingorgoingdoor-to-doorforapoliticalparty.Parentstendtooverlookseeminglymild,earnestteenpursuits,butanewstudyintheJournaloftheAmericanDieteticAssociationsuggeststhatanothercommonteenfad,vegetarianism,isn'talwayshealthy.Instead,itseemsthatasignificantnumberofkidsexperimentwithavegetariandietasawaytomaskaneatingdisorder.D.InanotherresearchventurebyRobinson-O'BriencalledProjectEAT-II:EatingAmongTeens,theresearcherssurveyed2,516yokingMinnesotans,ages15to23.Oftherespondents,108(or4.3%)describedthemselvesascurrentlyvegetarian,another268(10.8%)saidtheywereformervegetariansandtherestwerelifelongmeateaters.Theresearchersfoundthatinonesense,thevegetarianswerehealthier:theytendedtoconsumelessthan30%oftheircaloriesasfat,whilenon-vegetariansgotmorethan30%oftheircaloriesfromfat.Notsurprisingly,thevegetarianswerealsolesslikelytobeoverweight.E.Thestudy,ledbynutritionistRamonaRobinson-O'Brien,foundthatwhileadolescentandyoungadultvegetarianswerelesslikelythanmeateaterstobeoverweightandmorelikelytoeatarelativelyhealthfuldiet,theywerealsomorelikelytobingeeat.AlthoughmostteensinRobinson-O'Brien'sstudyclaimedtoembarkonvegetarianismtobehealthierortosavetheenvironmentandtheworld'sanimals,theresearchsuggeststheymaybemoreinterestedinlosingweightthanprotectingcattleorswine.F.Thatbeingsaid,evenamongtheyoungadults,currentvegetariansreportedbingeeatingmoreoftenthantheirpeers,whichtheauthorstheorizecanbeexplainedbythefactthatvegetariansaresimplymoreawareanddisciplinedaboutwhattheyeatandare,therefore,morelikelytoreportoverindulging.Therefore,theauthorssuggestthatparentsanddoctorsshouldbeextravigilantwhenteenssuddenlybecomevegetarians.G.Thisdifferenceinextremebehaviordisappearedbetweencurrentvegetariansandlifelongmeateatersintheoldergroup,ages19to23,withabout15%ineachgroupreportingsuchweight-controltactics.Butamongformervegetarians,thatnumberjumpedto27%.Thefindingssuggestthatagematterswhenitcomestovegetarianism:teenagevegetariansaswellasyoungexperimentersmaybeathigherriskforothereatingdisorderscomparedwiththeirpeers.Butbyyoungadulthood,manystillpracticingvegetarianshavepresumablychosenitasalifestyleratherthanadietingploy,thestudysuggests.

填空题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} You are going to read a list of headings and a text about learning from argument. Choose the most suitable from the list A—F for each numbered paragraph (41—45). The first and last paragraphs of the text are not numbered. There is one extra heading which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. [A] Communication makes both party know more about each other which make an agreement. [B] The argument itself can not expand knowledge. [C] Reasonable debate plays a postive role in knowledge adrances [D] A basic common knowledge mabe contribution to the argument from which people learn something. [E] Generally, knowledge is gained by argument. [F] Learning can be interrupted by the argument. Do we learn more from people whose views we share in common than from those whose ideas contradictors? The speaker claims so, for the reason that disagreement can cause stress and inhabit learning. I concede that undue discord can impede learning. Otherwise, in my view we learn far from discourse and debate with those whose ideas we oppose than from people whose ideas are in accord with our own. 41.______ Admittedly, under some circumstances disagreement with others can be counterproductive to learning. For supporting examples, one need look no further than a television set. On today's typical television or radio talk show, disagreement usually manifests itself in meaningless rhetorical bouts and shouting matches, during which opponents vie to have their own message heard, but have little interest either in finding any common ground with or in acknowledging the merits of the opponent's viewpoint. Understandably, neither the combatants nor the viewers learn anything meaningful. In fact, these battles only serve to reinforce the predispositions and biases of all concerned. The end result is that learning is impeded. 42.______ Disagreement can also inhibit learning when two opponents disagree on fundamental assumptions needed for meaningful discourse and debate. For example, a student of paleontology learns little about the evolution of an animal species under current study by debating with an individual whose religious belief system precludes the possibility of evolution to begin with. And, economics and finance students learn little about the dynamics of a laissez-faire system by debating with a socialist whose view is that a centralized power should control all economic activity. 43.______ Aside from the foregoing two provisions, however, I fundamentally disagree with the speaker's claim. Assuming common ground between two rational and reasonable opponents willing to debate on intellectual merits, both opponents stand to gain much from that debate. Indeed it is primarily through such debate that human knowledge advances, whether at the personal, community, or global level. 44.______ At the personal level, by listening to their parents' rationale for their seemingly oppressive rules and policies, teenagers can learn how certain behaviors naturally carry certain undesirable consequences. At the same time, by listening to their teenagers concerns about autonomy and about peer pressures parents can learn the valuable lesson that effective parenting and control are two different things. At the community level, through dispassionate dialogue an environmental activist can come to understand the legitimate economic concerns of those whose jobs depend on the continued profitable operation of a factory. Conversely, the latter might stand to learn much about the potential public-health price to be paid by ensuring job growth and a low unemployment rate. Finally, at the global level , two nations with opposing political or economic interests can reach mutually beneficial agreements by striving to understand the other's legitimate concerns for its national security, its political sovereignty, the stability of its economy and currency, and so forth. 45.______ In sum, unless two opponents in a debate are each willing to play on the same field and by the same rules, I concede that disagreement can impede learning. Otherwise, reasoned discourse and debate between people with opposing viewpoints is the very foundation upon which human knowledge advances. Accordingly, on balance the speaker is fundamentally correct.

填空题A. Communication makes both parties know more about each other which make an agreement. B. The argument itself cannot expand knowledge. C. Reasonable debate plays a positive role in knowledge advances. D. A basic common knowledge made contribution to the argument from which people learn something. E. Generally, knowledge is gained by argument. F. Learning can be interrupted by the argument. G. Communication is closely associated with argument. Do we learn more from people whose views we share in common than from those whose ideas contradictors? The speaker claims so, for the reason that disagreement can cause stress and inhabit learning. I concede that undue discord can impede learning. Otherwise, in my view we learn far from discourse and debate with those whose ideas we oppose than from people whose ideas are in accord with our own. 1 Admittedly, under some circumstances disagreement with others can be counterproductive to learning. For supporting examples, one need look no further than a television set. On today"s typical television or radio talk show, disagreement usually manifests itself in meaningless rhetorical bouts and shouting matches, during which opponents vie to have their own message heard, but have little interest either in finding any common ground with or in acknowledging the merits of the opponent"s viewpoint. Understandably, neither the combatants nor the viewers learn anything meaningful. In fact, these battles only serve to reinforce the predispositions and biases of all concerned. The end result is that learning is impeded. 2 Disagreement can also inhibit learning when two opponents disagree on fundamental assumptions needed for meaningful discourse and debate. For example, a student of paleontology learns little about the evolution of an animal species under current study by debating with an individual whose religious belief system precludes the possibility of evolution to begin with. And, economics and finance students learn little about the dynamics of a laissez-faire system by debating with a socialist whose view is that a centralized power should control all economic activity. 3 Aside from the foregoing two provisions, however, I fundamentally disagree with the speaker"s claim. Assuming common ground between two rational and reasonable opponents willing to debate on intellectual merits, both opponents stand to gain much from that debate. Indeed it is primarily through such debate that human knowledge advances, whether at the personal, community, or global level. 4 At the personal level, by listening to their parents" rationale for their seemingly oppressive rules and policies, teenagers can learn how certain behaviors naturally carry certain undesirable consequences. At the same time, by listening to their teenagers concerns about autonomy and about peer pressures parents can learn the valuable lesson that effective parenting and control are two different things. At the community level, through dispassionate dialogue an environmental activist can come to understand the legitimate economic concerns of those whose jobs depend on the continued profitable operation of a factory. Conversely, the latter might stand to learn much about the potential public-health price to be paid by ensuring job growth and a low unemployment rate. Finally, at the global level, two nations with opposing political or economic interests can reach mutually beneficial agreements by striving to understand the other"s legitimate concerns for its national security, its political sovereignty, the stability of its economy and currency, and so forth. 5 In sum, unless two opponents in a debate are each willing to play on the same field and by the same rules, I concede that disagreement can impede learning. Otherwise, reasoned discourse and debate between people with opposing viewpoints is the very foundation upon which human knowledge advances. Accordingly, on balance the speaker is fundamentally correct.

填空题 A. Periodicals in initial stage B. The function of periodicals C. Newspapers and other periodicals online D. The introduction of reviews E. Features of periodicals F. The emergence of modern periodicals Periodicals refer to publications released on a regular basis that may include news, feature articles, poems, fictional stories, or other types of writing. Many periodicals also include photographs and drawings. Periodicals that are aimed at a general audience, such as weekly news roundups or monthly special-interest publications, are also called magazines. Those with a more narrow audience, such as publications of scholarly organizations, can be termed journals. While newspapers are periodicals, the term generally has come to refer to publications other than dailies. 41.__________ Historically, must periodicals have differed from newspapers in their format, publication schedule, and content. Most newspapers deal with the news of the day and are issued on pulp paper with relatively large, unbound pages. By contrast, other types of periodicals focus on more specialized material, and when they deal with news they tend to do so in the form of summaries or commentaries. For centuries these periodicals generally have been printed on finer paper than newspapers, with smaller bound pages, and issued at intervals longer than a day (weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, or even annually) . 42.__________ In the 1990s, with the growth of the Internet, publishers began to release newspapers and other periodicals online. This development blurred the line between the two forms because the general format and design of online newspapers and periodicals are similar, and the publication schedules of both forms became more flexible. For example, many newspaper publishers update their online versions throughout the day, and some online periodicals do the same. Despite these technological changes, the two forms differing emphasis in choice of content remains a distinguishing factor. 43.__________ The earliest periodicals include the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (Edifying Monthly Discussions, 1663-1668 ), the French Journal des Scavans (1665; subsequently titled Journal des Savants), and the English Philosophical Transactions (1665) of the Royal Society of London. These were essentially collections of summaries (later essays) on developments in art, literature, philosophy, and science. 44.__________ The first periodical of the modern general type, devoted to a miscellany of reading entertainment, was the English publication The Gentleman's Magazine (1731—1907)-the first instance of the use of the word magazine to denote a forum for entertaining reading. It contained reports of political debates, essays, stories, and poems and was widely influential. It served as the model for the first true American periodicals, General Magazine and Historical Chronicle and American Magazine. Both of these periodicals first appeared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in January 1741 as rival publications; neither lasted more than a few months, however. The former was founded by the American statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin and the latter by the American printer Andrew Bradford. Monthly or quarterly reviews, usually partisan in politics, and with articles contributed by eminent authors and politicians, were introduced in Britain early in the 19th century. Of these, two became outstanding. The Edinburgh Review (1802-1929), founded in support of the Whig Party, was one of the most influential critical journals of its day and numbered among its contributors-the English writers Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and William Hazlitt. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1817-1981), a Tory publication, was early in its career noted for its serialization of Scottish fiction and its satirical commentaries on Scottish affairs. One of the most important serious periodicals in the United States in the 19th century was the North American Review (1815-1940; revived in 1964). Editors during its kong and illustrious career included such literary figures as James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, and Henry Adams; contributors included Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Mark Twain. Among the European equivalents of such periodicals were the French Revue des Deux Mondes and the German Literarisches Wochenblatt.

填空题As companies continue to cut costs, the days of frequent promotions are a distant memory. So are the days of endless opportunities to show off your skills. Layoff survivors, faced with fewer options are finding themselves in career purgatory—there"s no way up and no way out. After talking to career coaches, managers, recruiters, and psychologists, Fortune put together eight tips to help workers break free from the inertia. 41. Avoid taking cover Don"t hide out behind your computer. "You should really work to increase or maintain the visibility that you have," says David Opton, founder and CEO of career management firm ExecuNet. Build a circle of allies Fortify your current relationships and work on making new ones, both within and outside the office. "Allies will be helpful in terms of letting you know information, like if there"s a job possibility that comes up," says Dee Soder, founder of the CEO Perspective Group. Who you know can make a big difference, especially in difficult times. 42. Load up on new tools This is the perfect time to acquire new expertise. (If the boss can"t pay, do it on your own.) 43. Look beyond your job description People don"t get promotions just because they do their jobs well; they get promotions because they take initiative. Lauren Doliva, a partner at recruiting firm Heidrick identify your weaknesses and work on them; find better ways to harness your strengths. For nontangible skills— leadership, management, communication—coaches recommend hiring a coach. A client of Soder"s was put into a new management role, but didn"t feel like she had what it took to oversee a bigger team. She went out and hired a coach who helped her learn how to interact with top executives as well as how to run a bigger territory. She has since been promoted again. Taking responsibility for your own success is something everyone should do, regardless of external factors. Otherwise you"re heading straight for burnout. 45. Adjust your attitude Don"t panic. Even though the economy is in a recession, your career is not coming to an end. How you look at the situation will have a big impact on whether you stay stuck or move ahead. "One can choose to say there is no opportunity or one can choose to look for it," says Doliva. In fact, many coaches believe that being stuck is just a state of mind. [A] Let people know when you accomplish something or when you put in the extra effort to get a project done early. Without being cheesy, make sure that you"re giving off the right vibes by keeping a positive attitude, avoiding emotional outbursts, and appearing calm and organized. And don"t forget to look the part. Many didn"t get promotions because of their professional presence—grooming, clothes, and body language. [B] When someone brought up the VP of operations, who was the obvious candidate for the job, the CEO rejected him outright. "He said no because the VP only does what"s expected," says Doliva. "The CEO didn"t see him as someone who would take the risks and the time to do the job better. " Now is not the time for complacency, even if you"re not gunning for a spot in the executive suite. Coaches suggest that employees come in early, stay late, and take on extra projects. Little things can make a big difference. [C] Brush up on computer skills, audit a class, or get a certificate or degree in your field—and when jobs do open up, you"ll be ready. [D] "What you don"t want to do is start getting depressed", adds Melissa Karz, founder of Kadima Coaching. "Be what you want to attract." It might be helpful to hunt for motivation in other places. "Now is the time to start taking a look at how fulfilling your life is outside of work," says Lois Frankel, president of Corporate Coaching International. Find exciting activities to replenish yourself with—and then bring that positive spirit into the office. [E] Amid all of the layoffs, you"ve managed to keep your job—but the chances of moving up are slim to none. Nobody above you is going to leave now, and there"s no money for special projects to prove yourself. You"re stuck. Here"s how to avoid fading into the woodwork. [F] Speak up in meetings, join task forces; and volunteer for difficult projects that co-workers aren"t willing to tackle.

填空题The U.S. space agency, NASA, is planning to launch a satellite that scientists hope will answer fundamental questions about the origin and destiny of our universe. (41) __________. The prevailing theory of the universe's origin, the "Big Bang" theory, says all matter and energy were once compressed into a tiny point. The density and resulting temperature were so enormous that, about 13-to-15-billion years ago by current estimates, a mighty explosion flung the matter hurtling outward in all directions. (42) __________.They also ask, is the expansion accelerating? Will the universe collapse? What is its shape? Scientists will seek explanations with NASA's new Microwave Anisotropy Probe, abbreviated as MAP. (43) __________."MAP will take the ultimate baby picture, an image of the infant universe taken in the fossil light that is still present from the Big Bang," he says. "This glow, this radiation, is the oldest light in the universe. Imprinted on this background, physicists knew, would be the secrets of the Big Bang itself." This background radiation is the light and heat that the early cosmic soup of matter emitted. Once roiling hot, it has cooled over the eons to just a few degrees above absolute zero. It was once thought to be distributed evenly. But in 1992, a highly sensitive NASA satellite named COBE detected nearly imperceptible variations in temperature as tiny as 30- millionths of a degree. (44) __________."These patterns result from tiny concentrations that were in the very early universe that were the seeds that grew to become the stars and the galaxies that we see today," he says. "The tiny patterns in the light hold the keys for understanding the history, the content, the shape, and the ultimate fate of our universe." (45) __________. Princeton University scientist David Spergel says MAP Will give us a much more accurate matter count than we have now. "Right now, we want to measure something like the matter-density of the universe," he says. "Today, we can estimate that to a factor of two. That's pretty good. What we want to do is be able to measure it to about the three-percent level, which is what MAP will be capable of doing." To do its job, the $145 million MAP spacecraft will settle into an orbit 1. 5 million kilometers from the Earth. This is where the Earth's and Sun's gravitational pull are equal, and well past the range of the Earth's own obscuring microwave radiation. While the older COBE satellite measured just a small part of the sky, Chalrles Bennett says MAP will scan the entire sky at 1,000 times better resolution. "The patterns that MAP measures are extremely difficult to measure," he says, "MAP will be measuring millionths of a degree temperature accuracies, and that's hard to do. That's like measuring the difference between two cups of sand to the accuracy of a single grain of sand."[A] The principal NASA scientist for the New MAP spacecraft, Charles Bennett, says the heat patterns represent slight differences in the density of the young universe, where denser regions evolved into the present web of structures.[B] NASA says the first results from the MAP mission will be ready in about 18 months after launch.[C] The spacecraft will orbit the Earth seeking answers from an extremely faint glow of microwaves that have existed since the beginning of time.[D] Scientists are trying to learn how it clumped together to produce stars, clusters of stars called galaxies, and clusters of galaxies.[E] Astronomers are reporting evidence that points to a massive star-eating black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.[F] One of those keys is the amount of matter and its density. More matter with a higher density me, fins mole gravitational pull, suggesting a slowing of the universe's expansion, and perhaps even its collapse.[G] The head of NASA's Evolution of the Universe program, Alan Bunner, says MAP will measure what is thought a remnant of the Big Bang--an afterglow of microwaves bathing the universe that was emitted by the ancient cosmic matter.

填空题The first two stages in the development of civilized man were probably the invention of primitive weapons and the discovery of fire, although nobody knows exactly when he acquired the use of the latter. 41) ______ Animals have a few cries that serve as signals, but even the highest apes have not been found able to pronounce words, even with the most intensive professional instruction. The superior brain of man is apparently a necessity for the mastering of speech. When man became sufficiently intelligent, we must suppose that he gradually increased the number of cries for different purposes. It was a great day when he discovered that speech could be used for narrative. There are those who think that in this respect picture language preceded oral language. A man could draw a picture on the wall of his cave to show in which direction he had gone, or what prey he hoped to catch. 42) ______ Two important stages came not so long before the dawn of written history. The first was the domestication of animals; the second was agriculture. Agriculture made possible an immense increase in the number of the human species in the regions where it could be successfully practiced. 43) ______ 44) ______ These inventions and discoveries--fire, speech, weapons domestic animals, agriculture, and writing--made the existence of civilized communities possible. From about 3000 B. C. until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution less than two hundred years ago there was no technical advance comparable to these. During this long period man had time to become accustomed to his technique, and to develop the beliefs and political organizations appropriate to it. There was, of course, an immense extension in the area of civilized life. At first it had been confined to the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Indus, but at the end of the period in question it covered much the greatest part of the inhabitable globe. I do not mean to suggest that there was no technical progress during the time. 45) ______ [A] Probably picture language and oral language developed side by side. I am inclined to think that language has been the most important single factor in the development of man. [B] Another fundamental technical advance was writing, which, like spoken language, developed out of pictures, but as soon as it had reached a certain stage, it was possible to keep records and transmit information to people who were not present when the information was given. [C] With the development of civilization, primitive people who lived in caves at that time badly needed a language, which would help them to communicate with one another. [D] The origin of language is also obscure. No doubt it began very gradually. [E] In fact, there was progress--there were even two inventions of very great importance, namely, gunpowder and the mariner"s compass—but neither of these can be compared in their revolutionary power to such things as speech and writing and agriculture. [F] These were, at first, only those in which nature fertilized the soil after each harvest. Agriculture met with violent resistance from the pastoral nomads, but the agricultural way of life prevailed in the end because of the physical comforts it provided. [G] But industry was a step in human progress to which subsequently there was nothing comparable until our own machine age.

填空题A. There is nothing more disappointing than arriving at an airport overseas to discover that your baggage has been left behind. At best you will have to put up with wearing the clothes you stand up in for hours or days, until the airline reunites you with your luggage. At worst, you may be in a different climate zone, thousand of miles from home and forced to wear wholly unsuitable clothes. B. Even efficient transfer airports, such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Singapore and Zurich have their bad days. The risk of baggage being lost when changing planes is higher than average at certain airports. Even the United States has problems— Miarni airport is well known for luggage going missing when transatlantic passengers make immediate connections for destinations in Latin America. C. In normal circumstances the system works well. But extra security checks at airports and problems with air traffic combine to cause delayed flights. All this can cause the baggage system to fail. Then there is the possibility of human error, or an accident in which the destination label is torn off. D. The system works like this. Airlines insist on exaggerated check-in times (which require passengers to report to the airport as given time before departure) designed to allow sufficient time for baggage to pass through the airport and be loaded on to the plane. Minimum connecting times (MCTs) are the shortest time it takes to transfer between two flights. These, too, are exaggerated to allow for baggage transfers. E. Although airlines rarely reveal how many cases they lose, it is a fact of life that sooner or later regular travelers will be parted from their luggage. Even the best airlines slip up from time to time, and it is impossible for any carrier to guarantee that a passenger"s checked luggage will go on the same flight, particularly when a journey calls for one or more changes of aircraft. F. These problems can become severe at large transfer airports, known as "hubs", because of the large number of bags that are processed. Last year, for example, London"s Heathrow airport handled more than 41 million passengers, of whom nine million were changing planes. British Airways alone handled two million transfer passengers at Heathrow, with most making the one-mile transfer between Terminal 1 (for Domestic and European flights) and Terminal 4 (for long-distance flights). G. You should choose direct flights whenever possible and check in well before the official time. If a change of plane is unavoidable, or makes your flight less expensive, then try to fly the same airline throughout. Try to allow more connecting time by taking an earlier flight to the transfer airport, and make sure you label your luggage inside and out with your home and holiday addresses. Don"t forget to include the flight numbers. If, after all this, your luggage still goes missing, you must contact the appropriate airline official in the baggage hall and complete a property irregularity report (PIR). This must be done before leaving the airport. Order: A→41→42→43→44→45→G

填空题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. Given all the roiling debates about how America's children should be taught, it may come as a surprise to learn that students spend less than 15% of their time in school. While there's no doubt that school is important, a clutch of recent studies reminds us that parents are even more so. A study published earlier this month by researchers at North Carolina State University, Brigham Young University and the University of California-Irvine, for example, finds that parental involvement-checking homework, attending school meetings and events, discussing school activities at home-has a more powerful influence on students' academic performance than anything about the school the students attend. {{U}} 1 {{/U}}______ So parents matter-a point made clear by decades of research showing that a major part of the academic advantage held by children from affluent families comes from the "concerted cultivation of children" as compared to the more laissez-faire (let children do what they want) style of parenting common in working-class families. But this research also reveals something else: that parents, of all backgrounds, don't need to buy expensive educational toys or digital devices for their kids in order to give them an edge. {{U}} 2 {{/U}}______ But not just any talk. Although well-known research by psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley has shown that professional parents talk more to their children than less-affluent parents-a lot more, resulting in a 30 million "word gap" by the time children reach age three-more recent research is refining our sense of exactly what kinds of talk at home foster children's success at school. For example, a study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health and published in the journal Pediatrics found that two-way adult-child conversations were six times as potent in promoting language development as interludes in which the adult did all the talking. {{U}} 3 {{/U}}______ The content of parents' conversations with kids matters, too. Children who hear talk about counting and numbers at home start school with much more extensive mathematical knowledge. {{U}} 4 {{/U}}______ While the conversations parents have with their children change as kids grow older, the effect of these exchanges on academic achievement remains strong. And again, the way mothers and fathers talk to their middle-school students makes a difference. Research by Nancy Hill, a professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, finds that parents play an important role in what Hill calls "academic socialization"—setting expectations and making connections between current behavior and future goals (going to college, getting a good job). {{U}} 5 {{/U}}______ A. As they grow older, this feeling helps middle- and upper-class kids develop into assertive advocates for their own interests, while working-class students tend to avoid asking for help or arguing their own case with teachers. B. They don't need to drive their offspring to enrichment classes or test-prep courses. What they need to do with their children is much simpler: talk. C. Engaging in these sorts of conversations, Hill reports, has a greater impact on educational accomplishment than volunteering at a child's school or going to PTA (parent-teacher association) meetings, or even taking children to libraries and museums. D. And a third study concludes that schools would have to increase their spending by more than $1,000 per pupil in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement (not likely in this stretched economic era). E. Engaging in this reciprocal back-and-forth gives children a chance to try out language for themselves, and also gives them the sense that their thoughts and opinions matter. F. Another study, published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, reports that the effort put forth by parents has a bigger impact on their children's educational achievement than the effort expended by either teachers or the students themselves. G. Psychologist Susan Levine, who led the study on number words, has found that the amount of talk young children hear about the spatial properties of the physical world-how big or small or round or sharp objects are-predicts kids' problem-solving abilities as they prepare to enter kindergarten.