2. 外语
  3. Parents can easily come down with an acute case of schizophrenia (精神分裂症) from reading the contradictory reports about the state

Parents can easily come down with an acute case of schizophrenia (精神分裂症) from reading the contradictory reports about the state

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问题     Parents can easily come down with an acute case of schizophrenia (精神分裂症) from reading the contradictory reports about the state of the public schools. One set of experts asserts that the schools are better than they have been for years. Others say that the schools are in terrible shape and are responsible for every national problem from urban poverty to the trade deficit.
    One group of experts looks primarily at such indicators as test scores, and they cheer what they see: all the indicators—reading scores, minimum competency test results, the scholastic aptitude test scores—are up, some by substantial margins. Students are required to take more academic courses-more mathematics and science, along with greater stress on basic skills, including knowledge of computers. More than 40 state legislatures have mandated such changes.
    But in the eyes of another set of school reformers such changes are at best superficial and at worst counterproductive. These experts say that merely toughening requirements without either improving the quality of instruction or even more important, changing the way schools are organized and children are taught makes the schools worse rather than better. They challenge the nature of the tests, mostly multiple choice or true or false, by which children’s progress is measured; they charge that raising the test scores by drilling pupils to come up with the right answers does not improve knowledge, understanding and the capacity to think logically and independently. In addition, these critics fear that the get-tough approach to school reform will cause more of the youngsters at the bottom to give up and drop out. This, they say, may improve national scores but drain even further the nation’s pool of educated people.
    The way to cut through the confusion is to understand the different yardsticks used by different observers.
    Compared with what schools used to be like "in the good old days", with lots of drill and uniform requirements, and the expectation that many youngsters who could not make it would drop out and find their way into unskilled jobs—by those yardsticks the schools have measurably improved in recent years.
    But by the yardsticks of those experts who believe that the old school was deficient in teaching the skills needed in the modern world, today’s schools have not become better. These educators believe that rigid new mandates may actually have made the schools worse.
The word "yardstick" (Line 3, Para. 5) most possibly means "______".
选项 A、measuring standard
B、method of school reform
C、judgment
D、logic thinking
答案A
解析 根据文章第5段“学校要求学生进行大量的训练以及穿制服，不能胜任学习任务的年轻人可以辍学去从事无特殊技能要求的工作”被用来作为说明学校进步与否的依据，也就是说被当作一种衡量标准。故答案为A。C“判断；评价”有一定干扰性，但是破折号之前的内容并不是有关判断、评价，因此可以排除。
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