72 John Dunsford, leader of the association of head teachers of secondary schools, says that the academic failure of boys is a problem which had its roots in society rather than the classroom. Girls, more than boys, see education as a passport to a good job. On the other hand, according to Penny Lewis, a head teacher, young men lack confidence, which they hide with a show of bravado (逞能). They’re uncertain about their place in society. 73

Moreover, boys may learn in a different way from girls, preferring small amounts of work with immediate headlines rather than large projects stretching (延续) into the distance. And education is not seen as “cool”. 74

This is not just a problem in Britain. In a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and UNESCO, girls did better than boys at reading at the age of 15 in all 45 countries. The UK ranks ninth out of the 45 countries for reading despite the fact that pupils in the UK spend less time reading than in most other countries. 75

A. So, what has gone wrong with the boys, and what can be done about it?

B. Interestingly, the study suggested that British children read for pleasure more often than those in other countries.

C. Boys scored better in exams, so various measures were introduced to improve the performance of girls, including having single sex girl-only classes.

D. This study can offer a great help to teachers and school leaders in terms of proper education to different people.

E. Some boys grow up in families where there is no male role model to follow.

F. As one contributoe to a BBC website put it, “Girls achieve more at school because they are watching the future while the boys are watching the girls.”

解析：这是一篇说明文。首先通读文章了解文章的中心：全文分析当前在学校女生比男生表现好的原因。文章结构简单明了：首先提出问题，然后分析原因。接下来我们来逐段分析：

第一段提出问题，71空后面说“现在情况颠倒过来了：女生比男生好了”，看了这句话，我们肯定能判断前一句话的大意应该是：先前的情况是男生比女生表现好。那就从选项中去看哪个句子表达的是这个意思。快速浏览A-F选项，我们得到答案C。

第二段分析原因。段首的空格72，应该是一个承上启下的过渡句。浏览选项，我们迅速得到答案A。段尾的73空应该是一个细节句，对前一句具体说明，能够具体说明They’re uncertain about their place in society一句的只有选项E。

第三段进一步分析原因。74空应该是个细节句，详细阐明男生比女生表现差的原因。这里我们不难找到答案F。

第四段说明这种现象的普遍存在。段尾的75空是一个接续前句的细节句。浏览剩余的选项，我们很肯定地找到答案B。

【实战演练练习十三】(05 江西卷 E 篇)

Do you have any strong opinion on co-educational or single-sex schools?

A supporter of co-educational schools would probably say that schools should be like the societies they belong to .In Hong Kong, men and women mix socially on a day-to-day basis .In many fields men are even likely to have female bosses. It is, therefore, desirable that boys and girls grow up together, go to school together, and prepare themselves for a society that does not value sexual separation.

Some would go on to argue further that growing up with members of the opposite sex is important for personal development. Regular contact(接触)can remove the strange ideas about the opposite-sex and lead to more natural relationships. Single-sex conditions are seen as leading to more extreme opinions, and possibly even as encouraging homosexuality(同性恋), though there is no proof that this is the case.

Those who are against coeducation often also fix their attention on the sexual side. Some parents fear that close contact with members of the opposite sex is dangerous for teenagers. They want their children to be attentive to their studies. Such parents feel uncomfortable with modern ways and the free mixing of the sexes.

A stronger argument comes from research into school results. Girls grow up earlier than

boys ,tend to be more orderly and are likely to be better at languages. In a mixed class ,boys who might do well in a single-sex class become discouraged and take on the rule of troublemaker. Certainly in the UK this situation has greatly alarmed (惊动)the government for it to be encouraging co-educational schools to have some single-sex classes. In the UK the best schools are all single-sex, strongly suggesting that co-education is not the best answer. This may, however, not be as simple as it looks. It may simply be that the famous old schools that attract the best students happen to be single-sex, rather than that being single-sex makes them better schools.

72.In the third paragraph, by saying “though there is no proof that this is the case”, the writer means that .

A.students in single-sex schools will certainly become homosexual

B.students in co-educational schools cannot have extreme opinions

C.students in co-educational schools are likely to be homosexual

D.single-sex school conditions may or may not have effects on the students

【实战演练练习十四】(04 重庆卷 D 篇)

Have you ever had the strange feeling that you were being watched? You turned around and, sure enough, someone was looking right at you!

Parapsychologists (灵学家) say that humans have a natural ability to sense when someone is looking at them. To research whether such a “sixth sense”really exists, Robert Baker, a psychologist(心理学家)at the University of Kentucky, performed two experiments.

In the first one, Baker sat behind unknowing people in public places and stared at the backs of their heads for 5 to 15 minutes. The subjects(受试者)were eating, drinking, reading，studying, watching TV, or working at a computer. Baker made sure that the people could not tell that he was sitting behind them during those periods. Later, when he questioned the subjects, almost all of them said they had no sense that someone was staring at them.