2014年6月CET-4冲刺试题及答案(第三套)_第4页

　　Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished sentences. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice.

　　Passage One

　　Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.

　　“My early physics education was very strange,” says theoretical physicist Lee Smolin. Strange, but effective. Now, Smolin worries that the best and brightest students are turning to other disciplines because basic physics courses are stodgy. “In every other area, students are being exposed to things that are intellectually challenging and exciting because they are new,” he says. “The fact that we teach 300-year-old physics as introductory physics is just shameful.”

　　In the late 1970s, the United States dominated both Europe and Asia in sheer numbers of science and engineering doctorates, but it has trailed both regions since the late 1990s. One positive trend: The number of women and minorities receiving Ph.D.’s in science and engineering is on the rise.

　　There is plenty of shame to go around in America’s science classrooms, and creative solutions are definitely in order. The number of science and engineering doctorates awarded at American universities has dropped since the late 1990s, while foreign schools have more than picked up the slack. “We need another Sputnik,” says Cindy Workosky, a science teacher. “There was so much enthusiasm and focus on science education during those days ...”

　　Association president Anne Tweed says there are hopeful trends. “We’re also starting to see much more innovative research questions being asked in the lower grades,” says Tweed. “Students are inserting genes into bacteria as part of a 9th- or 10th-grade biology curriculum. Students can clone plant materials. It’s really amazing.”

　　And someday, Smolin hopes, physics education, regarded by many as the foundation upon which all other science education should be laid, will reflect our latest concept of ultimate reality. Even high school students, he says, could grasp — and be excited by — the fundamentals of simple quantum (量子) mechanical systems such as qubits (量子位), the two-state units of quantum information that scientists hope will someday be manipulated (操作) by quantum computers. “In the 21st century, we regard quantum mechanics as the truest thing we have,” he says, so it is only sensible that the most fundamental system be taught first. “It does not require any more skill or intelligence to learn this way, and it’s the best way to get and keep the kids we really want, the ones who are real thinkers and who are creative.”

　　21. What does the underlined word in the first paragraph most probably mean?

　　A) Uninteresting and difficult.

　　B) Strange and effective.

　　C) Heavy and sticky.

　　D) Dull and useless.

　　22. What do we know about the United States’ science education?

　　A) It dominated the world for almost 20 years.

　　B) The number of science students was the smallest in the late 1970s.

　　C) The number of female doctors majoring in science is increasing.

　　D) It is not as advanced as it is in Europe and Asia.

　　23. The underlined sentence in the third paragraph can be completed by ____________.

　　A) and we just don’t have that now

　　B) though not so much

　　C) and we just cannot get enough enthusiasm

　　D) though we don’t have another Sputnik

　　24. What do Anne Tweed’s words mean in the fourth paragraph?

　　A) Physics education is the foundation of all science education.

　　B) Biology is far more interesting than other science subjects.

　　C) Students can carry out amazing research on their own.

　　D) Younger students are becoming interested in science.

　　25. According to Smolin, the most fundamental system should be taught first to ___________.

　　A) keep the students’ interest in science high

　　B) make the students interested and creative

　　C) improve the students’ skills and intelligence

　　D) give the students what they really want