Barron模考综合写作部分文本

1、Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作Barron模考综合写作部分文本Directions:You have 20 minutes to plan, write, and revise your response to a reading passage and alecture on the same topic. First, read the passage and take notes. Then, listen to the lecture and takenotes. Finally, write your response t

2、o the writing question. Typically, a good response will require that youwrite 150-225 words.文本Test1Historically, schools in the United States have borrowed the European system of school organization, asystem that separates students into grades by chronological age. In general, children begin formals

3、chooling at the age of six in what is referred to as the first grade. For the most part, students progressthrough twelve grades; however, some students who do not meet minimum requirements for a particulargrade may be asked to repeat the year.Graded schools are divided into primary grades, intermedi

4、ate grades, and secondary grades. Primaryeducation includes grades 1 through 5 or 6, and may also provide kindergarten as a preparation for firstgrade. Referred to as elementary school, these grades are usually taught by one teacher in aself-contained classroom. Intermediate grades begin with grade

5、6 or 7 and offer three years of instruction.At this level, teams of teachers may collaborate to provide subject-based classes similar to those offeredin high school. Viewed as a preparation for high school, intermediate education is known as junior highschool. At grade 9 or 10, secondary school begi

6、ns. Classes taught by subject specialists usually lastabout fifty minutes to allow a student ten minutes to move to the next class before it begins at the top of- 1 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作the hour. At the end of twelve successful grades of instruction, students are eligible f

7、or a secondaryschool diploma, more commonly called a high school diploma.Question:Summarize the main points in the lecture, explaining how they cast doubt on the ideas in thereading passage.Test2Do computers think? It isn t a new question. In fact, Alan Turing, a British mathematician, proposed anex

8、periment to answer the question in 1950, and the test, known as the Turing Test, is still used today. Inthe experiment, a group of people are asked to interact with something in another room through acomputer terminal. They don t know whether it is another person or a computer that they are interact

9、ingwith. They can ask any questions that they want. They can type their questions onto a computer screen,or they can ask their questions by speaking into a microphone. In response, they see the answers on acomputer screen or they hear them played back by a voice synthesizer. At the end of the test,

10、the peoplehave to decide whether they have been talking to a person or to a computer. If they judge the computer tobe a person, or if they can t determine the difference, then machine has passed the Turing Test.Since 1950, a number of contests have been organized in which machines are challenged to

11、the TuringTest. In 1990, Hugh Loebner sponsored a prize to be awarded by the Cambridge Center for BehavioralStudies-a gold medal and a cash award of $100,000 to the designer of the computer that could pass theTuring Test; however, so far, no computer has passed the test.Question:Summarize the main p

12、oints in the reading passage, and then explain how the lecture castsdoubt on the ideas in the reading.Test3- 2 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作The design for the Sydney Opera House was selected from entries in an international competition held in1956. From more than 230 designs submit

13、ted by major architectural firms worldwide, the committeeselected a dramatic concept by Jorn Utzon, a Danish architect who was virtually unknown outside ofDenmark. He described his work as more like a sculpture than a building because it appeared to changeshape depending on the direction from which

14、it was viewed. He was also very committed to organicprinciples, which dictated that the structure must fit in with the environment. Situated in Bennelong Point,a promontory that stretches into the harbor, Utzon drafted the curved roofs of the opera house to look likea sailing ship at full sail on th

15、e water.Clearly, the roof is the most revolutionary part of the design, which was so far ahead of the capabilities ofengineering at the time that Utzon had to spend several years reworking the details for the construction ofthe roof sails in order to help the engineers solve the problems associated

16、with actually building them. Forexample, stabilizing the shells that rose almost 200 feet high presented a serious challenge. Prestressedconcrete was very new in building construction at the time that it was used to make the ribbed shells forthe roof. In addition, computer technology was just catchi

17、ng up with the complex structural calculationsand models that the architect needed for his vision to be realized.By 1966, a decade after the design was chosen, the opera house was not even near completion. It wasover budget, there were problems with the engineers and the contractors, and the fate of

18、 the structurewas the object of political debate; Jorn Utzon resigned from the project. Eventually completed by others,by the time that it opened in 1973, it had been under construction for 17 years. The roof alone hadrequired almost 2200 precast concrete sections, some of which weighed 15 tons, hel

19、d together by 220miles of tensioned steel cable and covered by more than a million white glazed ceramic tiles.- 3 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作Question:Referring to the main points in the reading, describe the Sydney Opera House. Then, usinginformation from both the reading and the

20、 lecture, explain why the professor classifies the building asunique.Test4The jet stream is an irregular band of wind that occurs in high altitudes at about 20,000 feet, that is,between 6 and 9 miles above the surface of the Earth. Consequently, the jet stream wanders near the topof the Earth s trop

21、osphere, and, coincidentally, that is exactly where most of the Earthoccur. It is helpful to think of the jet stream like a river of air that occurs at several different locations, butin general flows from west to east over the middle latitudes. Technically, to be called a jet stream, thewinds shoul

22、d be moving faster than 57 miles an hour, but it can have average core speeds of 190 milesper hour, and in the winter, when the jet stream is strongest, winds have been clocked at 300 miles anhour. For the most part, the winds are stronger in the winter because during the winter months thesurface te

23、mperature contrasts more with the temperature in the troposphere. To put that another way, thegreater the contrast in the temperature of the Earth and the atmosphere, the stronger the jet stream windswill blow.In general, there are two jet streams between the equator and the North Pole. The subtropi

24、cal jet streamtends to hover around the southern border of the continental United States, whereas the polar jet streamblows over Idaho and Montana. The condition that causes these two streams is the difference in thetemperature between the tropic and the arctic regions of the Earth, which tends to c

25、oncentrate in smallzones called fronts. It is along these fronts that storms tend to develop. The jet streams blow the stormsalong their path. When the jet stream is over an area, strong storms may move into it, but when the jetstream has dipped out of the area, calm, dry weather will probably be fo

26、recast. s weather patt- 4 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作Question:Describe jet streams by using the information in the reading, and provide examples of the waythat they affect air travel by drawing on the material that you heard in the lecture.Test5According to the most recent resear

27、ch on parenting, caretakers tend to use three strategies fordisciplining children. Power includes the use of physical punishment such as a spanking or the threat ofphysical punishment, but parents can also demonstrate power by taking away a privilege such as usingthe car, attending a sporting event,

28、 or, in the case of a very young child, playing with a favorite toy. Inspite of the fact that power strategies, especially severe physical punishment, can cause children to fearor even hate parents, it s surprising that powerremains the strategy used most often in discipliningchildren. It s also wor

29、th noting that children who are harshly disciplined in this way tend to be hostile,defiant, and aggressive socially. Second in popularity after power is the withholding of affection. This cantake the form of refusal to communicate with a child, threatening to abandon or reject the child, orotherwise

30、 treating children as though they were unworthy of love. Interesting enough, children disciplinedin this way appear on the surface to be very self-disciplined, even model children who are seldom introuble, but underneath, these same children are generally very nervous, insecure, and dependent onothe

31、rs to approve of and guide their evaluation of behavior. Finally, management techniques areemployed for discipline. These begin with a set of rules that are clearly expressed at an age-appropriatelevel. To enforce the rules, parents use a combination of praise and approval with explanation andreason

32、ing, always referring back to the rules.But regardless of the strategy, the behavior that has precipitated punishment should be clearlyunderstood, and the consequences should be consistent. Key to any kind of discipline is a pattern of- 5 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作consistency so

33、 that children understand the relationship between the rules, their behavior, and theconsequences.Question:Referring to the main points in the lecture, summarize the professor s views on effectivediscipline and contrast them with the options that parents tend to use, as outlined in the readingpassag

34、e.Test6The origin of life was highly speculative until a graduate student at the University of Chicago, StanleyMiller designed and conducted an empirical research project under the guidance of his graduate advisor,Harold Urey. In this classic experiment, the researchers tried to simulate the chemica

35、l evolution processthat generated life. Miller and Urey took a five-liter flask half filled with water and connected it with glasstubing to another flask into which they inserted tungsten electrodes. They then mixed methane, hydrogen,and ammonia into the water in the lower flask and heated it to ind

36、uce evaporation, while at the same timesubjecting it to continuous electrical charges that jumped across the space between the electrodes in theupper flask. The atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into thefirst flask in a continuous cycle. In this way, they

37、sought to recreate the conditions in the early atmosphereof Earth, which they speculated was probably subjected to powerful electrical storms. In about an hour,the water turned orange. At the end of the first week, they observed that almost 15 percent of the carbonwas converted into organic compound

38、s. After several weeks, the liquid in the flask clouded and thengradually turned a dark brown. When they analyzed it, Miller and Urey found that it contained a largenumber of amino acids, which form one of the basic structures of living organisms. They thenhypothesized that the amino acids that they

39、 had created in the laboratory might be typical of the chemical- 6 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作mixture of the early oceans on Earth, and further, that additional amino acids could have been added tothe mixture in the early oceans by carbon enriched meteorites or comets.When the sc

40、ientific results were popularized, the mixture became known as“ primordial soup.” However,much was still unknown about the process that caused the first cell to develop within the soup. Themolecules produced were relatively simple organic molecules, not a complete living biochemical system.Neverthel

41、ess, the experiment established that natural processes could produce the building blocks of lifewithout requiring life to synthesize them in the first place. The experiment served as inspiration for a largenumber of further investigations.Question:Summarize the main points in the reading passage, ex

42、plaining how the lecture casts doubt onthe ideas.Test7Solving a problem can be broken down into several steps. First, the problem must be identified correctly.Psychologists refer to this step asproblem representation . For many problems, figuring out whichinformation is relevant and which is extrane

43、ous can be difficult and can interfere with arriving at a goodsolution. Clearly, before a problem can be solved, it must be obvious what the problem is; however, this isnot as easy as it might seem. One obstacle to efficient problem representation isfunctional fixedness ,that is, allowing preconceiv

44、ed notions and even prejudices to color the facts. Most people tend to seeobjects and events in certain fixed ways, and by being inflexible in viewing the problem, they may beunable to notice the tools for the solution. Once the problem is identified accurately, however, the secondstep consists of c

45、onsidering the alternatives for a solution. A common way to evaluate alternatives is towrite them down and then make a list of advantages and disadvantages for each solution. Here again,people may be limited by prior experiences. Often people adoptmental sets that lead them to the same- 7 -Barron 模考

46、综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作problem-solving strategies that were successful for problems in the past. Although that can be helpfulmost of the time, sometimes a new situation requires a different strategy. In that case, the mental setmust be abandoned, and new alternatives must be explored.

47、This can be a difficult adjustment for somepeople.After the alternatives have been compared, a strategy must be selected from among them. One way toavoid becoming mired in the options is to try the best option with a view to abandoning it for another if theresults are unfavorable. This attitude allo

48、ws many people to move on expeditiously to the nextstep action. The strategy selected must be implemented and tested. If it solves the problem, no furtheraction is necessary, but if not, then an unsuccessful solution may actually lead to a more successfuloption. If the solution is still not apparent

49、, then the cycle begins again, starting with problem identification.By continuing to review the problem and repeat the problem-solving steps, the solution can be improvedupon and refined.Question:Summarize the main points in the lecture, referring to the way that they relate to the readingpassage.听力

50、脚本（ Test 顺序同上，每Test 一篇）Professor:So what are the problems associated with the graded school system? Well, for one thing, graded schoolsdon t take into account the . . . the differences in academic readiness on the part of individual learners.And by that I mean that some six-year-olds are simply not

51、socially, mentally, or even physically matureenough to begin school, but others are ready in all of those important ways by their fifth or even fourth- 8 -Barron 模考综合写作部分全部文本由 hellobaby06 & alpha3 联合制作birthdays. And uh . . . by the time that girls and boys are in their early teens, we can see that t

52、heresignificant difference in maturity, in . . . inphysical and social maturity but . . . they re still grouped togetherin intermediate grades in a graded school system.Okay, besides the obvious differences in individual readiness and maturity, the . . . the whole issue ofpromotion needs to be revie

53、wed. Grade-level requirements don t really deal with the actual learning thathas occurred, uh, in a positive way. Many research studies confirm that repeating an entire year becausesome of the material is not learned contributes to . . . to boredom, poor self-concept, and . . . andeventually to high

54、er drop-out rates. And since graded schools are using group expectations as measuredby performance on standardized tests, this is another way to evaluate the group rather than the individual.So, what happens is that individual differences in how long it takes to learn a concept or . . . or the partialachievement of a grade-level curriculum