The writers of Generation O (short for Obama), a new Newsweek blog that seeks to chronicle the lives of a group of young Obama supporters, want to answer that question. For the next three months, Michelle Kremer and 11 other Obama supporters, ages 19 to 34, will blog about life across mainstream America, with one twist: by tying all of their ideas and experiences to the new president and his administration, the bloggers will try to start a conversation about what it means to be young and politically active in America today. Malena Amusa, a 24-year-old writer and dancer from St. Louis sees the project as a way to preserve history as it happens. Amusa, who is traveling to India this spring to finish a book, then to Senegal to teach English, has ongoing conversations with her friends about how the Obama presidency has changed their daily lives and hopes to put some of those ideas, along with her global perspective, into her posts. She's excited because, as she puts it, "I don't have to wait [until] 15 years from now" to make sense of the world.
Henry Flores, a political-science professor at St. Mary's University, credits this younger generation's political strength to their embrace of technology. "[The Internet] exposes them to more thinking," he says, "and groups that are like-minded in different parts of the country start to come together." That's exactly what the Generation O bloggers are hoping to do. The result could be a group of young people that, like their boomer (二战后生育高峰期出生的美国人) parents, grows up with a strong sense of purpose and sheds the image of apathy (冷漠) they've inherited from Generation X (60 年代后期和70 年代出生的美国人). It's no small challenge for a blog run by a group of ordinary—if ambitious—young people, but the members of Generation O are up to the task.
注意:此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
What is the finding of a new study by CIRCLE?
A.More young voters are going to the polls than before.
B.The young generation supports traditionally liberal causes.
C.Young voters played a decisive role in Obama's election.
D.Young people in America are now more diverse ideologically.
It's been some 50 years since the physicist-turned-novelist C. P. Snow delivered his famous "Two Cultures" lecture at the University of Cambridge, in which he decried the "gulf of mutual incomprehension", the "hostility and dislike" that divided the world's "natural scientists", its chemists, engineers, physicists and biologists, from its "literary intellectuals", a group that, by Snow's reckoning, included pretty much everyone who wasn't a scientist. His critique set off a frenzy of desperation that continues to this day, particularly'in the United States, as educators, policymakers and other observers lament the Balkanization of knowledge, the scientific illiteracy of the general public and the chronic academic turf wars that are all too easily lampooned.
Yet a few scholars believe that the cultural chasm can be bridged and the sciences and the humanities united into a powerful new discipline that would apply the strengths of both mindsets, the quantitative and qualitative, to a wide array of problems. Among the most ambitious of these exercises in fusion thinking is a program under development at Binghamton University in New York called the New Humanities Initiative.
Jointly conceived by David Sloan Wilson, a professor of biology, and Leslie Heywood, a professor of English, the program is intended to build on some of the themes explored in Dr. Wilson's evolutionary studies program, which has proved enormously popular with science and nonscience majors alike, and which he describes in the recently published "Evolution for Everyone". In Dr. Wilson's view, evolutionary biology is a discipline that, to be done right, demands a crossover approach, the capacity to think in narrative and abstract terms simultaneously, so why not use it as a template for emulsifying the two cultures generally? "There are more similarities than differences between the humanities and the sciences, and some of the stereotypes have to be altered," Dr. Wilson said, "Darwin, for example, established his entire evolutionary theory on the basis of his observations of natural history, and most of that information was qualitative, not quantitative. "
As he and Dr. Heywood envision the program, courses under the New Humanities rubric would be offered campus-wide, in any number of departments, including history, literature, philosophy, sociology, law and business. The students would be introduced to basic scientific tools like statistics and experimental design and to liberal arts staples like the importance of analyzing specific texts or documents closely, identifying their animating ideas and comparing them with the texts of other immortal minds.
In the opening paragraph, the author introduces his topic by______.
A.posing a contrast
B.justifying an assumption
C.making a comparison
D.explaining a phenomenon
What did Congress and the Obama administration do for slowing global warming?
A.Collecting the evidence of climate change.
B.Taking action to limit emissions which absorb heat.
C.Recording the highest temperature in a year.
D.Negotiating a new treaty for reducing the emissions.
It can be seen from Paragraph 5 that Gladwell's book______.
A.is beginning to influence Obama's Policies
B.has become quite influential
C.has received severe criticisms
D.assumes that people just pursue maximum profits
The first year of school in America, known as kindergarten(幼儿园), usually begins between the ages of five and six. Among rich countries such a late start is very strange. President Obama believes it is an economic and social problem; his education secretary goes as far as to say that it is “morally wrong”. This statement has some support,as it is clear from research into vocabulary that youngsters from poor families enter kindergarten well behind those from rich families a disadvantage that usually lasts a lifetime. Children from households on welfare knew 525 words by the age of three, while the children of professionals had mastered 1,116.
Pre-school can help close this gap. So in a speech last month, Mr. Obama called for a partnership between the federal government and the state, to expand it to every American child. It later became known that “every” meant those who come from families with incomes of up to 200% above the poverty line-equal to an income of $47,000 for a family of four.
Some critics(评论家)say that sending children to school at the age of four does not work. The evidence suggests otherwise. For example, on March 20th new results were announced from a study of 9 to 11 year olds in New Jersey. This report found that disadvantaged children who had attended preschool had better literacy(读写能力), language, math and science skills. And two years of prekindergarten were better than one.
Some studies also follow the effects of early learning over lifetimes, such as its effect on crime rates and other factors that may eventually burden society. Critics have singled out a government scheme called Head Start, created in 1965, which provides poor households with a range of services including school-based early education.
21. The kindergarten in other rich countries usually begins()than in America.
A. earlier
B. later
C. slower
22. Which is TRUE about the vocabulary size of the two groups of kids?
A. Poor preschool kids have a larger vocabulary than rich ones.
B. Rich preschool kids have a larger vocabulary than poor ones.
C. There is no obvious difference between the two groups of kids.
23. Which of the following about the New Jersey study is TRUE?
A. There is no evidence to support the New Jersey study.
B. Two years of prekindergarten were better than one.
C. Sending children to school at the age of four is not going to help.
24. The phrase “single out” in the last paragraph means().
A. count
B. think about
C. choose
25. Which of the following is an appropriate title for this passage?
A. Secondary Education.
B. Preschool Education.
C. Poor Kids' Education.
The sometimes【11】personal rapport is a long way from the public shows of affection their predecessors staged, particularly Helmut Kohl and FranCois Mitterrand, who movingly held【12】in 1984 in a Verdun cemetery. There's been tension on【13】, too. Charles Grant, director of the London-based think tank Centre for European Reform, points out that France and Germany have been【14】on issues from how best to reflate their economies during the economic【15】to the smartest strategies for dealing with Russia.
But influential movers in France are now【16】to put the relationship back on a friendlier footing. In a recent paper French think tank Institute Montaigne【17】an ambitious agenda for the two nations,【18】that a new impetus is needed if Europe's voice is to be heard in a world【19】of big new players, such as Brazil and India, and at a time when President Obama seems fax more【20】with China and the rest of Asia than with America's traditional allies in Europe.
(1)
A.conducted
B.struck
C.intended
D.aimed