Unit 1 A

Pre-reading activities  (P. 2)

Schools are inherently conservative institutions. What goes on in classrooms has changed little over the last century. But schools can no longer avoid change in a world experiencing momentous technological revolutions.

The most important technological event of our time is that rise of the computer. In the future, education will be organized largely around computer-based technology. This technology enables individuals to educate themselves and adapt to a constantly changing job market. In addition to computer technology, other innovations – like medical, genetic and bio-technology – will also have impacts on education. The explosion of knowledge demands revolution in education, though in some respects a conservative approach may well be called for.

II Comprehension of the text  (P. 8)

1. Relatively unchanging teaching styles versus children’s access to at range of media.

2. Education will be organized largely around the computer. Computers will permit a degree of individual instruction. All students may receive a curriculum tailored to their needs, learning style, pace and record of success with earlier materials and lessons.

3. It is a blessing because it makes delivery of information instantaneous; it is a curse on the other hand, because there are no reliable ways to distinguish sense from the distorted facts and downright nonsense common on the Net.

4. New technology enables education to be more individualized. Also, the pace of technological change means that the old vocational education model of preparing people for a single lifetime job is no longer adequate.

5. Because individuals will be able to educate themselves and exhibit their competence in a simulated setting.

6. Medical technologies, biological technologies among others.

7. They will permit study of students’ brain activity and blood flow as they engage in various kinds of problem-solving or creative activities.

8. Because they may change our definitions of what will insist that these findings be applied in specific cases, while others will vigorously object to any decisions made on the basis of genetic information.

9. He believes that the explosion of knowledge calls for a revolution in education, but conservatism is not necessarily evil. With respect to the transmission of values and the teaching of certain subjects, a conservative approach may well be called for.

VI Translation (P. 10)

1. In a world full of misinformation it is a formidable challenge for the students to learn to identify the true, the beautiful, and the good.

2. Any form of mountaineering has its inherent danger. After all, it is an adventure sport.

3. The university will permit a degree of individual instruction and the students may receive a curriculum tailored to their needs, learning style and pace.

4. It is said that the understanding of the genetic basis of learning will tell us which youngsters are likely to advance quickly and which ones seem doomed to “difficult” school experiences.

5. It has been reported that in Canada literally thousands of lakes and rivers are no longer able to support fish or plants.

6. In countries with relatively high literacy rates, books play an important part in enriching people’s lives.

7. The essence of government intervention has been to limit and distort competition rather than to encourage it.

8. The great cause of reform being carried out by Chinese people is without precedent in history.

9. Practice in simulated examination conditions must not be delayed until close to the examination time.

10. People have found that the lions and wolves in the forest often hunt down live animals by cooperative efforts.

VI (10)

The Internet’s speed, vast resources, and its ability to directly communicate with others are its greatest benefits. Because the Internet uses the quickness of computers to transmit its data, information can travel at tremendous speeds. Speed is not the only benefit. The Internet uses hundreds of thousands of computers all connected to each other to store vast amounts of information. And finally, because the Internet allows individuals to have specific electronic mail addresses, people can easily communicate with one another.

XI Structured Writing  (P. 14)

Schools have to change rapidly and radically to meet the demands and expectations of innumerable special interests from the changing world. Nowadays few people will remain in the same occupation for their whole lives. Many of them will move frequently from one position and company to another. School education must enable youngsters to educate themselves and to prepare themselves for a constantly changing job market. The education that was essentially designed to make sure that individuals could carry out a single job has been seriously challenged. Besides, there is a strong demand that schools should permit a degree of individual instruction to every student. Every student should receive a curriculum designed and modified according to his own needs, his own learning style and his own learning pace. The time when all the students were working on the same materials and doing the same drills is gone forever.

XII Reading Skills  (P. 16)

1. The author tries to convey that if education is to improve, a teacher should make his/her own decisions in teaching, instead of passively following others’ opinions.

2. This is an open question but the following may serve as the key for your reference. Education in the past was essentially vocational, designed to make sure that individuals could carry out a single job throughout their lives. If all the students were trained to do the same job, schools were much like factories, producing similar “products”.

3. This is an open question but the following may serve as the key to your reference. If teachers act according to their worth, education will see the changes it has been seeking for so many decades. It is only at that time that teachers will prove themselves worthy of the name “teacher”. No other forces will produce the kinds of changes that we know are necessary.

4. The author opens the passage with a dialog between a tailor and a customer, and shows what will happen if the customer passively accepts everything form the tailor. He then compares the teacher to the passive customer, and gives an account of how the teacher’s own opinions conflict with official demands. In the end, the author concludes that if education is to improve, teachers must have freedom to make their own decisions.

XIII Comprehension of the text (P. 21)

1. It means as a teacher, one should make his own decisions in teaching, instead of passively following others.

2. It stands for the teachers inner voice, i.e., his/her opinions, ideas, etc.

3. They are optimistic, thinking that being a teacher is valuable, and they are resolved to make a difference.

4. Because they find that as teachers they are nothing more than factory workers, and the school system is barely more than a 19th-century factory where students collect basic skills on an assembly line.

5. Teachers, like factory workers, are busy accepting everything passively, therefore having no time to reflect or dream. Thus, they are unable to positively contribute to schooling’s original purpose, i.e., to nourish minds and mold dreams.

6. The author is trying to show the result of accepting everything passively – the teacher cannot stand tall and proud; and the inspectors will believe that he is crippled, and that ‘the suit is well-fitting”.

7. Because if not, they may be in trouble, or be exiled by their colleagues.

8. The tailor can be state departments, school superintendents, parents, principals or special interest groups.

9. The result is that teachers become busy and tired, and lose the ability to know what is truly important.

10. Only when the teachers act from their own voice can real improvements be made to education.

XVI Reading skills (P. 23)

1.  It is arranged according to the layout of Cambridge, as if the reader were on a walking tour.

2.  The focus is on the spirit of Cambridge University.

3.  Open

4.  Open

5.  The author first mentions the following places of interests in this order: the Cavendish Laboratory, where Francis Crick and James Dewey Watson solved the mystery of DNA; St Bene’t’s Church, the oldest building in the county; Hobson’s Conduit, which was named after the philosopher Hobson; Pembroke College, founded in 1347; Pembroke Chapel, the first classical style building in Cambridge and the first major architectural work by Sir Christopher Wren; Peterhouse, Cambridge’s first college, and Peterhouse Chapel; Sidney Sussex College, attended by Oliver Cromwell; and finally, Christ’s College, where John Milton’s and Charles Darwin’s masterpieces are on display.