Harris Cooper, a social psychologist who researches education, found that doing homework makes students perform better in school as they grew older. In later grades, students who did homework performed increasingly better than students who did not. In 2006, Cooper published a study that analyzed 15 years’ worth of data on the influence of homework. He found that homework had a good influence on students as they aged.
Some parents are not happy with the decision to give up homework. “I think they should have homework. I want my daughter to have fun, but I also want her to be working towards a goal,” Daniel Tasman, the father of a second-grader at the school, said to the reporter.
“Students have to do homework in order to gain. Students have to do homework because they may not be able to understand everything in school,” Sharon Blake, a student’s grandmother told ABC news.
33. The passage is probably from a .
A. newspaper B. comedy C. cartoon D. novel
34. Jane Hsu wrote a letter to parents to explain .
A. how students should read at their own pace
B. what activities students could take at home
C. why the school gave up homework recently
D. how important the homework is for students
35. The word “dubious” in Paragraph 3 probably means “not ”.
A. clear B. public C. real D. special
36. What can we infer (推断) according to the passage?
A. Cooper found homework had a bad influence on students as they aged.
B. Some parents are worried about their children if there is no homework.
C. Some students are not happy with the decision to give up school homework.
D. Daniel Tasman wanted his daughter to have fun instead of working to a goal.
D
A 90-year-old tortoise (乌龟) is going twice its usual speed after being equipped (装备) with a set of wheels. The animal, called Mrs T, was facing a terrible future after losing her two front legs in a mouse attack while she was sleeping in winter, but her owners glued the wheels onto her shell (外壳).
“She’s going double the speed she used to,” said the owner Jude Ryder, “She uses her back legs to push herself along and seems quite happy.”
When Mrs T was sixty years old, she was bought as a pet for Dale, an 8-year-old boy. It liked running happily in Mrs Ryder’s garden in spring and summer. When winter came, Mrs T slept in the garden shelter. A mouse got in last month and chewed (咬) off both her front legs. Mrs Ryder said: “We were afraid she would be sure to die, but her new set of wheels have saved her life. She can run in the garden again and we can always find her because she leaves very strange footprints behind wherever she goes.”
Mice attacking tortoises is not uncommon around us—in 2013 Britain’s oldest tortoise died after a mouse attack. The tortoise called Thomas was 130 when he was bitten at his home in Guernsey. He spent five days on strong antibiotics (抗生素), but the wound became so infected (被感染的) that his owner had no choice but to have him put to sleep.
37. After being equipped with a set of wheels, Mrs T can move by using .
A. her back legs to push herself B. her front legs to pull herself
C. her back wheels to pull herself D. her front wheels to push herself
，我们将会及时处理。
