The New York Times’ Room for Debate blog has a panel (专门小组) considering the pluses and minuses of summer homework. This has been the subject of debate in our house. Our 11th-grade daughter’s summer assignments were very challenging, to the point where I sometimes wondered if more of her time would have been better spent just riding a bicycle or swimming around a pool.

Here are some opinions from the panel:

Harris Cooper, psychologist, Duke University: “The long summer vacation disrupts the rhythm of instruction, leads to forgetting and requires time be spent reviewing old material when students return to school in the fall. My advice? Teachers, you need to be careful about what and how much summer homework you assign. Summer homework shouldn’t be expected to overcome a student’s learning deficits; that’s what summer school is for. Parents, if the assignments are clear and reasonable, support the teachers. ”

Nancy Kalish, co-author of the Case Against Homework: “Schools should rethink summer homework, and not just because it stresses out kids (and parents). The truth is, homework doesn’t accomplish what we assume it does. According to a Duke University review of more than 175 studies, there is little or no connection between homework and standardized test score or long-term achievement in primary school.”

Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University: “To the general question of whether or not schools should assign summer homework, the answer is ‘Yes.’ The reason comes not only from the brain drain of summer. It relates also to an attitude young people take toward education. They tie knowledge to the syllabus, not to themselves. They read and study to write the paper and score highly in the test, not to furnish their minds. In a word, they regard learning as a classroom thing. That’s all.”

It seems to me that summer homework is a good idea to keep the brain cells moving, but like everything else it should be given in moderation.

21. Harris Cooper seems to believe that________.

A. more summer homework causes students’ learning difficulties

B. students should go to summer school if they have no homework

C. teachers should give careful consideration to summer homework

D. parents should tell teachers how much homework their kids need

22. In the 4th paragraph, Nancy Kalish explains her idea by________.

A. making comparisons                 B. giving research findings

C. raising questions                       D. telling stories

23. Mark Bauerlein might agree that summer homework________.

A. should be based on the school’s teaching program

B. has no direct connection to students’ higher grades

C. brings more pressure to both students and their parents

D. helps students develop the right attitude toward learning

Europe’s deadly outbreak of a rare form of E. coli bacteria (大肠杆菌) has brought new attention to food safety issues. One of the problems when people get sick from food is that the simplest question is often difficult or even impossible to answer. Just what did the people eat that made them sick?

Of course, one way to avoid these medical mysteries is to keep dangerous organisms out of the food supply. This is easier said than done, but scientists keep looking for new ways.

Scientists in the United States have developed an experimental system that uses a high-tech optical scanner. The system is designed to identify the presence of contaminants(致污物) like soil or animal waste on fresh produce. These can be sources of E. coli. E. coli bacteria naturally live in the intestines (肠) of humans and many animals. Most kinds of E. coli are harmless but some can make people sick.

The new scanner can also show damage and imperfections that might make the produce unappealing to shoppers.

Scientists designed the system at a Department of Agriculture research center in Beltsville, Maryland. Moon Kim of the Agricultural Research Service led the team.

MOON KIM: “We were requested, we were asked, to develop a method to detect contamination in produce. So we started with the apple as the model sample.”

The scanner uses a high-speed camera placed over the conveyer belt that moves the produce along. As the apples move along the belt, the scanner captures images of each piece of fruit.

Moon Kim says the team hopes the system will be available before long.

MOON KIM: “We are targeting for development in commercial plants for the next several years.”

The scanner can direct a sorting machine to separate the bad apples from the good ones. The system is currently able to show the surface of only half the apple as it speeds by. The inventers hope to improve the process so it can show the whole surface.

24. What is the main topic of the text?

A. Bacteria        B. A high-tech scanner      C. A camera      D. Food safety

25. E. coli bacteria ______.

A. broke out all over the world                       B. comes from soil or animal waste

C. is extremely harmful to health              D. does not cause illness

26. The high-tech scanner ______.

A. can help to sort out different fruits

B. make the produce appeal to shoppers

C. can only capture images of the whole apple

D. can identify the presence of contaminants

27. What can be inferred from the text?

A. The scanner needs to be improved.

B. The scanner will be available in the next several years.

C. Moon Kim is unwilling to develop the scanner.

D. The scanner is connected to a sorting machine.

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28. This advertisement aims at calling on people to ________.

 A. attend full-time universities

 B. work part time to further their education

 C. improve their education at home to get better jobs

 D. earn their degrees in different ways that suit them

29. Which of the following is NOT clearly mentioned in this advertisement? 

 A. The way how you will get your degree. 

 B. Tuition price. 

 C. The hot fields you will be preparing yourself for.

 D. The length of time it will take you to get a degree.

30. What does the writer of this ad intend to say by naming General Electric, IBM, Ford, etc.?

 A. To show that their training is widely used in the country. 

 B. To show that the training program is fully supported by famous companies in the U. S.

 C. To prove the value of their training in every area.  　

 D. To show the importance of getting recognized by the most famous companies.

31. It seems to the writer that the greatest attraction for people to take their training is________.

 A. its convenience

 B. the degree’s nation-wide recognition

 C. the economic benefit it will bring about

 D. the hot fields the training will help people to enter

Scientists have devised a way to determine roughly where a person has lived using a strand (缕) of hair, a technique that could help track the movements of criminal suspects or unidentified murder victims.

The method relies on measuring how chemical variations in drinking water show up in people’s hair.

“You’re what you eat and drink, and that’s recorded in your hair,” said Thure Cerling, a geologist at the University of Utah.

While U.S diet is relatively identical, water supplies vary. The differences result from weather patterns. The chemical composition of rainfall changes slightly as rain clouds move.

Most hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water are stable, but traces of both elements are also present as heavier isotopes (同位素). The heaviest rain falls first. As a result, storms that form over the Pacific deliver heavier water to California than to Utah.

Similar patterns exist throughout the U.S. By measuring the proportion of heavier hydrogen and oxygen isotopes along a strand of hair, scientists can construct a geographic timeline. Each inch of hair corresponds to about two months.

Cerling’s team collected tap water samples from 600 cities and constructed a map of the regional differences. They checked the accuracy of the map by testing 200 hair samples collected from 65 barber shops. They were able to accurately place the hair samples in broad regions roughly corresponding to the movement of rain systems.

“It’s not good for pinpointing(精确定位),” Cerling said. “It’s good for eliminating many possibilities.”

Todd Park, a local detective, said the method has helped him learn more about an unidentified woman whose skeleton was found near Great Salt Lake.

The woman was 5 feet tall. Police recovered 26 bones, a T-shirt and several strands of hair.

When Park heard about the research, he gave the hair samples to the researchers.

Chemical testing showed that over the two years before her death, she moved about every two months.

She stayed in the Northwest, although the test could not be more specific than somewhere between eastern Oregon and western Wyoming.

“It’s still a substantial area,” Park said “But it narrows it way down for me.”

32. What is the scientists’ new discovery?  

A. One’s hair growth has to do with the amount of water they drink.

B. A person’s hair may reveal where they have lived.

C. Hair analysis accurately identifies criminal suspects.

D. The chemical composition of hair varies from person to person.

33. What does the author mean by “You’re what you eat and drink” (Line 1, Para.3)?

A. Food and drink affect one’s personality development.

B. Food and drink preferences vary with individuals.

C. Food and drink leave traces in one’s body tissues.

D. Food and drink are essential to one’s existence.

34. What did Cerling’s team produce in their research? 
A. A map showing the regional differences of tap water.  
B. A collection of hair samples from various barber shops. 
C. A method to measure the amount of water in human hair.  
D. A chart illustrating the movement of the rain system. 

35. What is the practical value of Cerling’s research?

A. It helps analyze the quality of water in different regions.

B. It helps the police determine where a crime is committed.

C. It helps the police narrow down possibilities in detective work.

D. It helps identify the drinking habits of the person under investigation.

In 1930, a young African American, Vivien T. Thomas, a professional carpenter, was hired as a lab assistant by a famous white doctor named Dr. Alfred Blalock. Although he  36 went to college, he had an enormous  37  to learn and explore the power of knowledge. Whenever Dr. Blalock left his office, young Thomas used to  38  study the medical books on the shelves of the office. 　　 

Thomas  39  a great interest in learning more and more about  40  when he started to assist Blalock during his practice of surgeries on dogs.  41  Dr. Blalock understood Thomas’s ability to help him perform a complicated surgery; he still did not  42  Thomas as a smart person because of the social  43  of prejudice towards African Americans.

Dr. Blalock wanted to  44  to believe that Thomas was just a (n)  45  by profession and a lab assistant. Employees, white or black, at the hospital could not  46  that an African American, Thomas, could run the lab. He was the  47  and thus a history maker.

In those days, the society expected that black people were  48  to be janitors (管理员). Despite this reality, Thomas’ cleverness, perseverance, and passion had  49  a need in Dr. Blalock’s mind. Thomas ran John Hopkins Hospital’s surgical (外科的) lab  50  Dr. Blalock. At the time, all other  51  employees in the hospital were janitors. Dr. Blalock and Thomas became a  52  and conducted a joint research that  53  the first heart surgery performed at John Hopkins University Hospital in 1941. 

Many years later, Thomas’s contribution was  54  and he was eventually awarded an honorary doctorate, for his creative work in the  55  procedures of modern cardiac(心脏病的) surgery. As he became Dr. Thomas, he also inspired and lifted the confidence of the future generation. He used his knowledge for the betterment of humankind.

36. A. always            B. often                       C. occasionally           D. never

37. A. chance           B. desire                     C. income                   D. success

38. A. secretly          B. publicly                  C. nervously               D. proudly

39. A. discovered     B. avoided                  C. developed              D. protected

40. A. literature         B. medicine                 C. politics                    D. history

41. A. While              B. When                     C. As                          D. Because

42. A. praise             B. reward                    C. criticize                   D. accept

43. A. benefit            B. position                   C. pressure                 D. revolution

44. A. agree             B. continue                 C. regret                     D. remember

45. A. carpenter       B. professor                C. engineer                 D. scientist

46. A. promise          B. argue                      C. explain                   D. understand

47. A. next               B. last                         C. first                        D. same

48. A. hardly            B. merely                    C. luckily                    D. mostly

49. A. created          B. searched               C. built                       D. missed

50. A. over               B. above                    C. without                   D. under

51. A. common         B. noble                     C. black                      D. poor

52. A. unit                B. team                      C. family                     D. system

53. A. led to             B. resulted from         C. accounted for        D. gave up

54. A. changed        B. followed                  C. exhibited                D. recognized

55. A. pioneering     B. surprising               C. interesting             D. worrying