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
For one brief moment, after years of fear and loathing, America seemed ready to make peace with the SAT. When the University of
For one brief moment, after years of fear and loathing, America seemed ready to make peace with the SAT. When the University of
admin
2011-02-11
32
问题
For one brief moment, after years of fear and loathing, America seemed ready to make peace with the SAT. When the University of California several years ago threatened to treat the test like a bad batch of cafeteria food and tell applicants not to buy it, the College Board junked the bewildering analogy questions (Warthogs are to pigs as politicians are to what?), created a writing section (including producing an essay), added tougher math questions and more reading analysis—and had everybody talking about the new-and-improved SAT.
Then the first students to take SAT: The Sequel were seen stumbling out of the testing centers as if they had just run a marathon, and all the happy talks ended. With the three hours and 45 minutes stretching to five hours with breaks and instructions, it got worse. Nobody is sure how, but moisture in some SAT answer sheets caused pencil marks to bleed or fade, producing more than 5,000 tests with the wrong scores. Even after that was fixed, several universities reported a sharp drop in their applicants’ average scores, which many attributed to exhaustion, and more colleges told applicants they would no longer have to take the SAT.
All of which stoked interest in the ACT, the SAT’s less famous and less feared rival based in lowa City, Iowa. The shorter test is now becoming a welcome alternative for many high schoolers who no longer see a need to endure the usual SAT trauma. "I think the ACT is a true player in the college-admissions game these days, "says Robyn Lady, until recently a college counselor at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Although most Jefferson students still take the SAT, the number of ACTs there has tripled in the last two years. It’s a shift that, if it continues, could change the balance of entrancetest power, since the Fairfax County, Va. ,magnet sends more kids to the Ivy League than almost any other U. S. school.
The SAT, with a maximum 2,400 points, and the ACT, with a maximum 36 points, are scored differently, but otherwise are no more different from each other than American football differs from the Canadian version. Students usually do equally well on each. The SAT’s new 25-minute essay is required, while the ACT’s essay is optional. The SAT is three hours and 45 minutes long. The comparable ACT is three hours and 25 minutes. The SAT has three sections: critical reading, math and writing. The ACT has math, science, reading and English sections, plus optional writing. The ACT with the writing test costs $ 43, more than the SAT’s $ 41.50, but the ACT is only $ 29 without the writing section.
Several high-school guidance counselors say they assume the ACT, with 1.2 million test takers in the class of 2005 compared with 1.5 million for the SAT, will eventually catch up, in part because so many educators are advising their students to try both. Wendy Andreen, counselor at Memorial Senior High School in Houston—where the SAT has been supreme—says she tells students every year they should take both tests to be safe, and many are beginning to listen, with ACTs up 18 percent since 2002. Deb Shaver, director of admissions at Smith College, says counselors are steering students to the ACT "because there is less hysteria surrounding the ACTs, and students feel less stressed about taking the test."
The mistakes made in the scoring of the October 2005 SAT by Pearson Educational Measurement, the College Board’s subcontractor, have not been forgotten, counselors say. The SAT suffered from damaging news stories as details of the errors came out bit by hit. In the end, 4, 411 students had scores reported to colleges that were lower than they actually earned and had to be corrected; 17 percent of the corrections were for more than 40 points. College Board president Gaston Caperton apologized, saying the mishap "brings humility, and humility makes us more aware, empathetic and respectful of others."
But many counselors, who often complain about the New York City-based nonprofit’s influence over their students’ futures, say they have their doubts. "I think the College Board sees this as a purely technical problem that they can solve through purely technical means, "says Scott White, a counselor at Montclair ( N. J. ) High School. "I don’t think they appreciate the damage that was done to their already shaky credibility."
The best title for the passage might be
选项
A、The Shaky Credibility.
B、Repeated Promises of Reform.
C、Can the SAT Be Made Better?
D、Can the ACT Take Down the SAT?
答案
D
解析
主旨题。开篇提到几年前人们对SAT的质疑随着大学委员会对该考试进行的改革而销声匿迹。但是在第—批考生参加新SAT考试,发现其变得更糟之后,人们开始关注ACT。近几年,ACT升温趋势明显,很多老师建议学生参加两种考试,这样更保险。最后指出2005年SAT考试出现的计分错误开始动摇人们对大学委员会的信任。可见全文主旨是探讨ACT是否能够取代SAT,故D为答案。本文只在最后提到shaky credibility,A非主旨。文章没有着重介绍SAT改革,排除B和 C。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/YfeO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
1Someconsumerresearchersdistinguishbetweenso-calledrationalmotivesandemotional(ornon-rational)motives.Inamark
1Someconsumerresearchersdistinguishbetweenso-calledrationalmotivesandemotional(ornon-rational)motives.Inamark
TherepublicanmovementhasbeengatheringmomentuminAustraliasincebecamePrimeMinisterin199
SometimesIhavethoughtitwouldbeanexcellentruletoliveeachdayasifweshoulddietomorrow.Suchanattitudewouldemp
A、Al-Qaida.B、Amilitantgroup.C、TheMuslimBrotherhood.D、Agroupofseparatists.B
Peopledonotanalyzeeveryproblemtheymeet.Sometimestheytrytorememberasolutionfromthelasttimetheyhadasimilarp
A、Americanspreparemorepointsbeforenegotiations.B、Americansaremorestraightforwardduringnegotiations.C、Brazilianspref
Intheevenings,theygotothemall.Onceaweekormore.Sometimes,theyevenleavethedinnerdishesinthesinksotheywill
Nocompanylikestobetolditiscontributingtothemoraldeclineofnation."Isthiswhatyouintendedtoaccomplishwithyou
A、Supportive.B、Contradictory.C、Neutral.D、Ambiguous.B
随机试题
一个心理健康的人,________有平常心________有进取心,并努力做到该平常则平常,该进取则进取,以成就人生。填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是()。
孙谦,字长逊,东莞莒人也。年十七为左军行参军,以治干称。父忧去职,客居历阳,躬耕以养弟妹,乡里称其敦睦。出为句容令,清慎强记,县人号为神明。泰始初,事建安王休仁,休仁以为司徒参军,言之明帝,擢为明威将军、巴东、建平二郡太守。郡居三峡,恒以威力镇之。谦将述职
(一)故画竹必先得成竹于胸中,执笔熟视,乃见其所欲画者,急起从之,振笔直遂,以追其所见,如兔起鹘落,少纵则逝矣。……夫既心识其所以然,而不能然者,内外不一,心手不相应,不学之过也。故凡有见于中,而操之不熟者,平居自视了然,而临事忽焉丧之,岂独竹乎?
正常人的血液总量约占体重的
男,18岁。自觉胸闷、气促10天,活动后加重。查体:左侧呼吸音明显减弱。胸部x线片示左侧气胸,左肺压缩40%,肋膈角可见小液平面。既往无类似病史。首选处理方法是
根据法律的规定,这四人中,可依法暂予监外执行的有()下列选项中,可以暂予监外执行的罪犯有()
工程索赔必须以()为依据。
()耐火等级建筑构件,除防火墙体外均可采用难燃烧体或燃烧体。
()指对某一客户所确定的、在一定时期内商业银行能够接受的最大信用风险暴露,与金融产品和其他维度信用风险暴露情况、风险偏好、经济配置等有关。
2008年末市区男性人口多于女性的城市有()。
最新回复
(
0
)