首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When Newsweek recently asked 1 000 US citizens to t
They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When Newsweek recently asked 1 000 US citizens to t
admin
2013-07-20
36
问题
They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When Newsweek recently asked 1 000 US citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29% couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6% couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar. Don’t get us wrong: civic ignorance is nothing new. For as long as they’ve existed, Americans have been misunderstanding checks and balances and misidentifying their senators. But the world has changed. And unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more inhospitable to incurious know-nothings—like us.
To appreciate the risks involved, it’s important to understand where American ignorance comes from. Most experts agree that the relative complexity of the US political system makes it hard for Americans to keep up. In many European countries, parliaments have proportional representation, and the majority party rules without having to "share power with a lot of subnational governments," notes Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, coauthor of Winner-Take-All Politics. In contrast, we’re saddled with a nonproportional Senates a tangle of state, local, and federal bureaucracies; and near-constant elections for every imaginable office. "Nobody is competent to understand it all, which you realize every time you vote," says Michael Schudson, author of The Good Citizen. "You know you’re going to come up short, and that discourages you from learning more."
Other factors exacerbate (加重)the situation. A big one, Hacker argues, is the decentralized US education system, which is run mostly by individual states: "When you have more centrally managed curricula, you have more common knowledge and a stronger civic culture." Another hitch is our reliance on market-driven programming rather than public broadcasting, which, according to the European Journal of Communication study, "devotes more attention to public affairs and international news, and fosters greater knowledge in these areas. "
For more than two centuries, Americans have gotten away with not knowing much about the world around them. But times have changed—and they’ve changed in ways that make civic ignorance a big problem going forward. While isolationism is fine in an isolated society, we can no longer afford to mind our own business. What happens in China and India affects the autoworker in Detroit; what happens in the statehouse and the White House affects the competition in China and India. Before the Internet, brawn was enough; now the information economy demands brains instead. And where we once relied on political institutions to school the middle classes and give them leverage (影响), we now have nothing. "The issue isn’t that people in the past knew a lot more and know less now," says Hacker. "It’s that their ignorance was counterbalanced by denser political organizations."
How does US education system contribute to the worsening of the situation?
选项
A、The textbooks are not consistent in each state.
B、It has only a few centrally managed curricula.
C、The high-school history teachers are not well-trained.
D、It fails to help people have pride in the US culture.
答案
B
解析
细节辨认题。由定位句可知,Hacker认为,美国由各州独立实行的分散的教育体系是使情况更加糟糕一个因素。“如果有更多集中管理的课程,你就会拥有更多的常识,形成更强大的公民文化。”由此可见,美国教育体系只有很少的统一管理的课程,这使情况变得更加糟糕,因此答案为B)。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/77n7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Mostpeoplewouldbe【C1】______bythehighqualityofmedicine【C2】______tomostAmericans.Thereisalotofspecialization,a
Theageofgildedyouthisover.Today’sunder-thirtiesarethefirstgenerationforacenturywhocanexpectalowerlivingsta
Judgeswillnormallyinterpretcontractsstrictlyandwillusecertainprincipleswhenit______(解决意思前后矛盾、模菱两面可的问题时).
Comparisonsweredrawnbetweenthedevelopmentoftelevisioninthe20thcenturyandthediffusionofprintinginthe15thand1
Adulteducationdevelopsfastrecentlypartlybecause______.Whatissaidabouttherelationshipbetweentheseeducationorgan
ThisarticlemainlydiscussesaboutthepopularityofChineseinwesterncountries.AftertheresignationofIndonesianPreside
A、Keeptheminfamily-baseddaycarecenters.B、Letthemstaywiththeirparentsorteachers.C、Askelderlyadultstoattendthe
A、Theydidn’tcare.B、Theyhatedit.C、Theylovedit.D、Theyhavemixedfeelings.A短文谈到,一开始,大部分美国人认为白宫并没有什么特别之处,很少人见过白宫或者知道白宫是什么
A、Beingoutdoors.B、Thebadweather.C、Thedangerofdrivingatnight.D、Dealingwithdifferentpeople.C对话中男士问女士工作中有没有unpleasan
A、Theimportanceofsilentreading.B、Theinformationyieldedbybooksandnewspapers.C、Theeffectsofhealthyreading.D、Thev
随机试题
简述长期投资评估程序。
下列关于急性骨髓炎的叙述正确的是
凝血因子Ⅱ、Ⅶ、Ⅸ、Ⅹ在肝脏合成依赖于
咳嗽伴哮鸣音常见于
《建设工程质量管理条例》规定,必须实行监理的建设工程有()。
下列关于房产税的说法中,正确的有()。
色盲也能成为天文学家么?事实上,天文学家日常所分析的照片多数都是黑白的,我们在杂志和其他彩色印刷品上看到的五彩缤纷的天文照片,其实也是通过把多张望远镜拍摄的不同波段的黑白照片加工合成而来的。而且这些波段未必都在人类可见光的范围内,所以即使对于视力正常的人来
下列事件按时间顺序发生最晚的是:
在个人的职业生涯中,择业和创业并不是两个孤立的环节,两者的关系是()
已知线性方程组在方程组有解时,求出方程组的导出组的一个基础解系,并用它表示方程组的全部解。
最新回复
(
0
)