The fact is, in New York State the system couldn’t have saved her. It is almost impossible to protect a child from violent parents, especially if they are white, middle-class, well-educated and represented by counsel.
Why does the state permit violence against children? There are a number of reasons. First, parental privilege is a rationalization. In the past, the law was giving its approval to the biblical injunction against sparing the rod.
Second, while everyone agrees that the state must act to remove children from their homes when there is danger of serious physical or emotional harm, many child advocates believe that state intervention in the absence of serious injury is more harmful than helpful.
Third, courts and legislatures tread carefully when their actions intrude or threaten to intrude on a relationship protected by the Constitution. In 1923, the Supreme Court recognized the “liberty of parent and guardian to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” More recently, in 1977, it upheld the teacher’s privilege to use corporal punishment against schoolchildren. Read together, these decisions give the constitutional imprimatur to parental use of physical force.
Under the best conditions, small children depend utterly on their parents for survival. Under the worst, their dependency dooms them. While it is questionable whether anyone or anything could have saved Elizabeth Steinberg, it is plain that the law provided no protection.
To the contrary, by justifying the use of physical force against children as an acceptable method of education and control, the law lent a measure of plausibility and legitimacy to her parents’ conduct.
More than 80 years ago, in the teeth of parental resistance and Supreme Court doctrine, the New York State Legislature acted to eliminate child labor law. Now, the state must act to eliminate child abuse by banning corporal punishment. To break the cycle of violence, nothing less will answer. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the death of Elizabeth Steinberg, it is this: spare the rod and spare the child.
51. The New York State law seems to provide least protection of a child from violent parents of
____________.
A. a family on welfare B. a poor uneducated family
C. an educated black family D. a middle-class white family
52. “Sparing the rod” (in boldface) means ____________.
A. spoiling children B. punishing children
C. not caring about children D. not beating children
53. Corporal punishment against schoolchildren is _____________.
A. taken as illegal in the New York State B. considered being in the teacher’s province C. officially approved by law
D. disapproved by school teachers
54. From the article we can infer that Elizabeth Steinberg is probably the victim of ____________.
A. teachers’ corporal punishment B. misjudgment of the court
C. parents’ ill-treatment D. street violence
55. The writer of this article thinks that banning corporal punishment will in the long run
_____________.
A. prevent violence of adults B. save more children
C. protect children from ill-treatment D. better the system
Passage 5
With its common interest in lawbreaking but its immense range of subject-matter and widely-varying methods of treatment, the crime novel could make a legitimate claim to be regarded as a separate branch of literature, or, at least, as a distinct, even though a slightly disreputable, offshoot of the traditional novel.
The detective story is probably the most respectable (at any rate in the narrow sense of the word) of the crime species. Its creation is often the relaxation of university scholars, literary economists, scientists or even poets. Disastrous deaths may occur more frequently and mysteriously than might be expected in polite society, but the world in which they happen, the village, seaside resort, college or studio, is familiar to us, if not from our own experience, at least in the newspaper or the lives of friends. The characters, though normally realized superficially, are as recognizably human and consistent as our less intimate acquaintances. A story set in a more remote African jungle or Australian bush, ancient China or gas-lit London, appeals to our interest in geography or history, and most detective story writers are conscientious in providing a reasonably true background. The elaborate, carefully-assembled plot, despised by the modern intellectual critics and creators of “significant” novels, has found refuge in the murder mystery, with its sprinkling of clues, its spicing with apparent impossibilities, all with appropriate solutions and explanations at the end. With the guilt of escapism from real life nagging gently, we secretly take delight in the unmasking of evil by a vaguely super-human detective, who sees through and dispels the cloud of suspicion which has hovered so unjustly over the innocent.
Though its villain also receives his rightful deserts, the thriller presents a less comfortable and credible world. The sequence of fist fights, revolver duels, car crashes and escapes from gas-filled cellars exhausts the reader far more than the hero, who, suffering from at least two broken ribs, one black eye, uncountable bruises and a hangover, can still chase and overpower an armed villain with the physique of a wrestler, He moves dangerously through a world of ruthless gangs, brutality, a vicious lust for power and money and, in contrast to the detective tale, with a near-omniscient arch-criminal whose defeat seems almost accidental. Perhaps we miss in the thriller the security of being safely led by our imperturbable investigator past a score of red herrings and blind avenues to a final gathering of suspects when an unchallengeable elucidation of all that has bewildered us is given and justice and goodness prevail. All that we vainly hope for from life is granted vicariously.
56. The crime novel is regarded by the author as _________________.
A. a not respectable form of the traditional novel B. not a true novel at all
C. related in some ways to the historical novel D. a distinct branch of the traditional novel
57. The creation of detective stories has its origin in _______________.
A. seeking rest from work or worries
B. solving mysterious deaths in this society C. restoring expectations in polite society D. preventing crimes
58. The characters of the detective stories are, generally speaking, _____________.
A. more profound than those of the traditional novels B. as real as life itself
C. not like human beings at all
D. not very profound but not unlikely
59. The setting of the detective stories is sometimes in a more remote place because ___________.
A. it is more real
B. our friends are familiar with it C. it pleases the readers in a way D. it needs the readers’ support
60. The writer of this passage thinks _____________.
A. what people hope for from life can finally be granted if they have confidence B. people like to feel that justice and goodness will always triumph C. they know in the real world good does not prevail over evil D. their hopes in life can only be fulfilled through fiction reading
Passage 6
Whenever we are involved in a creative type of activity that is self-rewarding, a feeling overcomes us—a feeling that we can call “flow.” When we are flowing we lose all sense of time and awareness of what is happening around us; instead, we feel that everything is going just right.
A rock dancer describes his feeling of flow like this: “If I have enough space, I feel I can radiate an energy into the atmosphere. I can dance for walls, I dance for floors. I become one with the atmosphere.” “You are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you don’t exist,” says a composer, describing how he feels when he “flows.” Players of any sport throughout the world are familiar with the feeling of flow; they enjoy their activity very much, even though they can expect little extrinsic reward. The same holds true for surgeons, cave explorers, and mountain climbers.
Flow provides a sort of physical sensation along with an altered state of being. One man put it this way: “Your body feels good and awake all over. Your energy is flowing.” People who flow feel part of this energy; that is, they are so involved in what they are doing that they do not think of themselves as being separate from their activity. They are flowing along with their enjoyment. Moreover, they concentrate intensely on their activity. They do not try to concentrate harder, however; the concentration comes automatically. A chess player compares this concentration to breathing. As they concentrate, these people feel immersed in the action, lost in the action. Their sense of time is altered and they skip meals and sleep without noticing their loss. Sizes and spaces also seem altered: successful baseball players see and hit the ball so much better because it seems larger to them. They can even distinguish the seams on a ball approaching them at 165 kilometers per hour.
It seems then that flow is a “floating action” in which the individual is aware of his actions but not aware of his awareness. A good reader is so absorbed in his book that he knows he is turning the pages to go on reading, but he does not notice he is turning these pages. The moment people think about it, flow is destroyed, so they never ask themselves questions such as “Am I doing well?” or “Did everyone see my jump?”
Finally, to flow successfully depends a great deal on the activity itself; not too difficult to produce anxiety, not too easy to bring about boredom; challenging, interesting, fun. Some good examples of flow activities are games and sports, reading, learning, working on what you enjoy, and even day-dreaming.
61. What is the main purpose of the article?
A. to illustrate the feeling of “flow”
B. to analyze the causes of a special feeling
C. to define the new psychological term “flow” D. to lead people to acquire the feeling of “flow”
62. In this article, “flow” refers to a feeling which probably results from _____________.
A. awareness B. ecstasy
C. unconsciousness D. self-rewarding
63. The word “immersed” (in boldface) is closest in meaning to _____________.
A. occupied B. engrossed C. soaked D. committed
64. What does one usually act while “flowing” in reading?
A. thinks what he is doing
B. wonders how fast he can read C. turns the pages
D. minds the page number
65. The activity which can successfully bring about “flow” is most probably ____________.
A. gripping B. difficult C. boring D. easy
Section B ( 20 minutes, 10 points)
Direction: In each of the following passages, five sentences have been removed from the original
text. They are listed from A to F and put below the passage. Choose the most suitable sentence from the list to fill in each of the blanks (numbered 66 to 75). For each passage, there is one sentence that does not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on your machine scoring Answer Sheet.
Passage 1
A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight times larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. --- 66 --- America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.
It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. --- 67 --- By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith. (Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea's LG Electronics in July.) Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America's machine tool industry was on the ropes. --- 68 ---
All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. --- 69 ---Their sometimes-sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition
from overseas.
--- 70 ---In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self-doubt has yielded to blind pride.\American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted,\Cavanagh, executive dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. “It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity,” says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as\the United States.\
A. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invested and
which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty. B. Its scientists were the world's best, its workers the most skilled. C. How things have changed!
D. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America's industrial decline. E. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the
face of foreign competition.
F. Some of the nation's largest businesses shrink in size when they appear on the government's
database of federal contractors.
Passage 2
If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work force skills, American firms have a problem. ---71--- Skill acquisition is considered an individual responsibility. Labor is simply another factor of production to be hired-rented at the lowest possible cost-much as one buys raw materials or equipment.
The lack of importance attached to human resource management can be seen in the corporate hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. ---72--- The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human resource management is central-usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm's hierarchy.
While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work forces, in fact they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. ---73---And the limited investments that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies.
As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. ---74---More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for extensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. ---75--- And in the end the skills of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can't effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.
A. If American workers for example, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible
manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United Stated.
B. The head of human resource management is one of the most important executives in the firm.