Part I

Section C

Script:

Dave: so, how have

you been?

Maria: Oh, not

bad. And you?

Dave: Oh, I'm doing okay, but school has been really busy these days,

and I haven't had time to relax.

Maria: By the way,

what's your major anyway?

Dave: Hotel

management.

Maria: Well, what

do you want to do once you graduate?

Dave: Uh... I

haven't decided for sure, but I think I'd like to work for a hotel or travel

agency in this area. How about you?

Maria: Well, when

I first started college, I wanted to major in French, but I realized I might

have a hard time finding a job using the language, so I changed majors to

computer science. With the right skills, landing a job in the computer industry shouldn't be as difficult.

Dave: So, do you

have a part-time job to support yourself through school?

Maria: Well,

fortunately for me, I received a four-year academic scholarship that pays for

all of my tuition and books.

Dave: Wow. That's

great.

Maria: Yeah. How

about you? Are you working your way through school?

Dave: Yeah. I work

three times a week at a restaurant near campus.

Part II

Text A

Script:

Exercise 1

But

something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the

world: Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects.

Every one.Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but

it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and

the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system

too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a

higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system

on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them

mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is

very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed

to, we all do. Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to

educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads.

And slightly to one side.

If you were

to visit education, as an alien, and say "What's it for, public

education?" I think you'd have to conclude -- if you look at the output,

who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all

the brownie points, who are the winners -- I think you'd have to conclude the

whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university

professors. Isn't it? They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be

one, so there. (Laughter) There's something curious about professors in my

experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They

live up there, and slightly to one side. They look upon their body as a form of

transport for their heads, you know, it’s … don't they? (Laughter) It's a way

of getting their head to meetings.

Now our

education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a

reason. The whole system was invented -- around the world, there were no public

systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being

to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas.

Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were

probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid,

things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is

that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art,

you won't be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole

world is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which

has really come to dominate our view of intelligence, because the universities

designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of

public education around the world is a protracted process of university

entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative

people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't

valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that

way.

Exercise 2

Every

education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects.At the top are

mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts.

If you were

to visit education, as an alien, and say "What's it for, public

education?" you'd have to conclude

the whole purpose of public education is to produce university professors.

Now our

education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a

reason. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism.

So the

hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for

work are at the top. And the second is

academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence,

because the universities designed the system in their image.

Exercise 3

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of

academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented -- around

the world, there were no public systems of education, really, before the 19th

century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the

hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for

work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at

school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would

never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to

be a musician; don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice -- now,

profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution. And the

second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of

intelligence, because the universities designed the system in their image. If

you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a

protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many

highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the

thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized.

And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

Text B

Script:

First question:

Which devices or products can you buy to help develop your child’s brain?

A. Baby megaphone.

B. Audio products

featuring classical music.

C. Video driven

products such as Baby Einstein featuring vibrant colors and music.

D. None of the

above.

If you guessed D,

you are correct. Not a single electronic device or commercial product has ever

been shown in randomized blinded trials to improve an infant’s or a young child’s

brain power, or even in non-randomized non-blinded trials.In fact, in a few

cases, they have actually been shown to hurt their development. Putting your

child in front of any form of television in their early years can lead to problems

in their ability to pay attention to things in their later years, like during

school. The effect is so severe the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends

that parents just keep the darn thing turned off for the first 2 years of life.

Second question:

Remember that cookie test? If you can wait 15 minutes before you eat it…the one

about impulse control? Here we go. Is a child who is willing to forgo one

cookie for the promise of getting two later more likely to:

A. Gain weight.

B. Become more

gullible later in life.

C. Not end up in

the food industry.

D. Achieve greater

academic success.

Alright, I had fun

with this one, but the surprising answer is that D is the correct response. A

child’s ability to defer gratification is an indicator of future academic

achievement. And the talent varies through the age of a child. Not

surprisingly, fourth graders tend to last longer than 4 year olds. The

effective impulse control on their academic future, part of a broader suite of

behaviors, we call executive function, isn’t trivial. It is a better predictor

of success than IQ. Children who could delay their gratification for 15 minutes

score 210 points higher on their SATs than children who lasted only 1 minute.

Third question: By

talking to your infants and toddlers like adults, (You need to use your own

words) are they more likely to

A. Act like

adults.

B. Learn language

quicker.

C. Develop more

self-respect.

D. None of the

above.

The answer: D. None

of the above. Babies aren’t adults. They learn language much better if adults

speak to them in what we call parentese—high-pitched tones delivered in sing

song voices, with stretched-out vowel sounds.(Yeeees, wish you a good baby.

Ohhhhhhhhhh, we have a good baby.) The slower, more melodic tone probably helps

infants separate sounds in the contrasting categories and the high pitch may

assist infant imitating the characteristics of speech. Babies are terrific

imitators. And with a vocal tract one quarter of the size of adults, they can

produce sounds only at those higher pitches. That’s why parentese help baby

learn language better.