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  3. Parents can easily come down with an acute case of schizophrenia from reading the contradictory reports about the state of the p

Parents can easily come down with an acute case of schizophrenia from reading the contradictory reports about the state of the p

admin2014-03-22  57
问题     Parents can easily come down with an acute case of schizophrenia 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 look primarily at such indicators as test scores, and they cheer that 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 organised 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 schools were 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 assertion of the experts who think schools are doing better is based on the______.
选项 A、test scores
B、qualification of the teachers
C、reading ability of the children
D、basic skills of the children
答案A
解析 根据题干中的the experts who think schools are doing better将本题出处定位于第2段。文章第2段详细阐述了那些认为学校质量有所提高的专家的观点，该段第1句中的looksprimarily at such indicators as test scores…表明，这些专家是因为学生的测试分数提高了，才认为学校质量有所提高，故答案为A)。该段虽然提到reading scores，但是readingability并不等同于reading scores，故可排除C)。
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