To Journalists, three of anything makes a trend. So after three school shootings in six days, speculation about an epidemic of violence in American classrooms was inevitable, and wrong. Violence in schools has fallen by half since the mid-1990s; children are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered outside the school walls than within them.
On September 27th a 53-year-old petty criminal, Duane Morrison, walked into a school in Bailey, Colorado, with two guns. He took six girls hostage, molested some of them, and killed one before committing suicide as police stormed the room.
And on September 29th a boy brought two guns into his school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin. Prosecutors say that 15-year-old Eric Hainstock may have planned to kill several people. But staff acted quickly when they saw him with a shotgun, calling the police and putting the school into "lock-down". The head teacher, who confronted him in a corridor, was the only one killed.
October 2nd a 32-year-old milk-truck driver, Charles Roberts, entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined the girls up, tied their feet and, after an hour, shot them, killing at least five. He killed himself as police broke into the classroom.
What to make of such horrors Some experts see the Colorado and Pennsylvania cases as an extreme manifestation of a culture of violence against women. Both killers appeared to have a sexual motive, and both let all the boys in the classroom go free. But it is hard to infer from such unusual examples, and one must note that violence against women is less than half what it was in 1995.
Other experts see all three cases as symptomatic of a change in the way men commit suicide. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, told a radio audience "men are deciding to take their lives, "and they’re not going alone anymore. They’re taking people down with them." True, but not very often.
Gun-control enthusiasts think school massacres show the need for tighter restrictions. It is too easy, they say, for criminals such as Mr. Morrison and juveniles such as Mr. Hainstock to obtain guns. Gun enthusiasts draw the opposite conclusion: that if more teachers carried concealed handguns, they could shoot potential child-killers before they kill.
George Bush has now called for a conference on school violence. Will it unearth anything new, or valuable After the Columbine massacre in 1999, the FBI produced a report on school shooters. It concluded that it was impossible to draw up a useful profile of a potential shooter because "a great many adolescents who will never commit violent acts will show some of the behaviours on any checklist of warning signs./
Gun enthusiasts believe that ______.
A:teachers should carry guns to protect themselves. B:gun carriers should be punished if they attempt to kill children. C:it is too difficult for the teachers to obtain guns. D:children should be protected by their teachers who carry guns.
The period of adolescence, i.e., the period between childhood and adulthood, may be long or short, depending on social expectations and on society’s definition as to what constitutes maturity and adulthood. In primitive societies adolescence is frequently a relatively short period of time, while in industrial societies with patterns of prolonged education coupled with laws against child labor, the period of adolescence is much longer and may include most of the second decade of one’s life. Furthermore, the length of the adolescent period and the definition of adulthood status may change in a given society as social and economic conditions change. Examples of this type of change are the disappearance of the frontier in the latter part of the nineteenth century in the United States, and more universally, the industrialization of an agricultural society.
In modern society, ceremonies for adolescence have lost their formal recognition and symbolic significance and there no longer is agreement as to what constitutes initiation ceremonies. Social ones have been replaced by a sequence of steps that lead to increased recognition and social status. For example, grade school graduation, high school graduation and college graduation constitute such a sequence, and while each step implies certain behavioral changes and social recognition, the significance of each depends on the socio-economic status and the educational ambition of the individual. Ceremonies for adolescence have also been replaced by legal definitions of status roles, rights, privileges and responsibilities. It is during the nine years from the twelfth birthday to the twenty-first that the protective and restrictive aspects of childhood and minor status are removed and adult privileges and responsibilities axe granted. The twelve-year-old is no longer considered a child and has to pay full fare for train, airplane, theater and movie tickets. Basically, the individual at this age loses childhood privileges without gaining significant adult rights. At the age of sixteen the adolescent is granted certain adult rights which increases his social status by providing him with more freedom and choices. He now can obtain a driver’s license: he can leave public schools; and he can work without the restrictions of child labor laws. At the age of eighteen the law provides adult responsibilities as well as rights: the young man can now be a soldier, but he also can marry without parental permission. At the age of twenty-one the individual obtains his full legal rights as an adult. He now can vote, he can buy liquor, he can enter into financial contracts, and he is entitled to run for public office. No additional basic rights are acquired as a function of age after majority status has been attained. None of these legal provisions determine at what point adulthood has been reached but they do point to the prolonged period of adolescence.
Starting from 22, ______.
A:one will obtain more basic rights B:the older one becomes, the more basic rights he will have C:one won’t get more basic rights than when he is 21 D:one will enjoy more rights granted by society
Times are tough for the hundreds of English-language colleges that cluster along the south coast of England. Reforms to the student-visa system that are (1) to help cut immigration are limiting the inflow of foreigners (2) in them. But language entrepreneurs are finding (3) ways to meet the rising demand for tuition.
Students who visit English City, a language-teaching program, can chat to passers by (4) they wander through the streets, meet their tutors in virtual cafes and order snacks. Shiv Rajendran, who founded LanguageLab, a London-based start-up that (5) English City, says business is booming, though from a (6) base.
Online language instructors are benefiting from recent changes to the immigration regime. Schools that (7) students from outside the European Union must now demonstrate their trustworthiness to the borders agency. (8) , students can no longer obtain a general visa that (9) their time at both language school and university. (10) , Tony Millns of English UK, a lobby group, (11) that 40,000 fewer language students will come this year, leaving Britain £600m (12) off.
Another response to this (13) among some adventurous English-language colleges has been to set up shop abroad. The London School of English has established campuses in Georgia and Qatar and is (14) elsewhere.
Still, some students who might have come to Britain will probably (15) instead for a conventional course in America or Australia. And reforms among English-language teachers in Britain won’t (16) the impact of the visa changes on the broader economy. Colleges that are opening international branches will charge fees, but most of the income will remain (17) . Online educators are recruiting tutors in other time (18) so that classes can be taught (19) the clock. English is more popular than (20) , but the country of its birth is ill-placed to profit.
A:obtain B:recruit C:acquire D:win
Text 2
The period of adolescence, i.e., the
period between childhood and adulthood, may be long or short, depending on
social expectations and on society’s definition as to what constitutes maturity
and adulthood. In primitive societies adolescence is frequently a relatively
short period of time, while in industrial societies with patterns of prolonged
education coupled with laws against child labor, the period of adolescence is
much longer and may include most of the second decade of one’s life.
Furthermore, the length of the adolescent period and the definition of adulthood
status may change in a given society as social and economic conditions change.
Examples of this type of change are the disappearance of the frontier in the
latter part of the nineteenth century in the United States, and more
universally, the industrialization of an agricultural society. In modern society, ceremonies for adolescence have lost their formal recognition and symbolic significance and there no longer is agreement as to what constitutes initiation ceremonies. Social ones have been replaced by a sequence of steps that lead to increased recognition and social status. For example, grade school graduation, high school graduation and college graduation constitute such a sequence, and while each step implies certain behavioral changes and social recognition, the significance of each depends on the socio-economic status and the educational ambition of the individual. Ceremonies for adolescence have also been replaced by legal definitions of status roles, rights, privileges and responsibilities. It is during the nine years from the twelfth birthday to the twenty-first that the protective and restrictive aspects of childhood and minor status are removed and adult privileges and responsibilities axe granted. The twelve-year-old is no longer considered a child and has to pay full fare for train, airplane, theater and movie tickets. Basically, the individual at this age loses childhood privileges without gaining significant adult rights. At the age of sixteen the adolescent is granted certain adult rights which increases his social status by providing him with more freedom and choices. He now can obtain a driver’s license: he can leave public schools; and he can work without the restrictions of child labor laws. At the age of eighteen the law provides adult responsibilities as well as rights: the young man can now be a soldier, but he also can marry without parental permission. At the age of twenty-one the individual obtains his full legal rights as an adult. He now can vote, he can buy liquor, he can enter into financial contracts, and he is entitled to run for public office. No additional basic rights are acquired as a function of age after majority status has been attained. None of these legal provisions determine at what point adulthood has been reached but they do point to the prolonged period of adolescence. |
A:one will obtain more basic rights B:the older one becomes, the more basic rights he will have C:one won’t get more basic rights than when he is 21 D:one will enjoy more rights granted by society
To Journalists, three of anything makes a trend. So after three school shootings in six days, speculation about an epidemic of violence in American classrooms was inevitable, and wrong. Violence in schools has fallen by half since the mid-1990s; children are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered outside the school walls than within them.
On September 27th a 53-year-old petty criminal, Duane Morrison, walked into a school in Bailey, Colorado, with two guns. He took six girls hostage, molested some of them, and killed one before committing suicide as police stormed the room.
And on September 29th a boy brought two guns into his school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin. Prosecutors say that 15-year-old Eric Hainstock may have planned to kill several people. But staff acted quickly when they saw him with a shotgun, calling the police and putting the school into "lock-down". The head teacher, who confronted him in a corridor, was the only one killed.
October 2nd a 32-year-old milk-truck driver, Charles Roberts, entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined the girls up, tied their feet and, after an hour, shot them, killing at least five. He killed himself as police broke into the classroom.
What to make of such horrors Some experts see the Colorado and Pennsylvania cases as an extreme manifestation of a culture of violence against women. Both killers appeared to have a sexual motive, and both let all the boys in the classroom go free. But it is hard to infer from such unusual examples, and one must note that violence against women is less than half what it was in 1995.
Other experts see all three cases as symptomatic of a change in the way men commit suicide. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, told a radio audience "men are deciding to take their lives, "and they’re not going alone anymore. They’re taking people down with them." True, but not very often.
Gun-control enthusiasts think school massacres show the need for tighter restrictions. It is too easy, they say, for criminals such as Mr. Morrison and juveniles such as Mr. Hainstock to obtain guns. Gun enthusiasts draw the opposite conclusion: that if more teachers carried concealed handguns, they could shoot potential child-killers before they kill.
George Bush has now called for a conference on school violence. Will it unearth anything new, or valuable After the Columbine massacre in 1999, the FBI produced a report on school shooters. It concluded that it was impossible to draw up a useful profile of a potential shooter because "a great many adolescents who will never commit violent acts will show some of the behaviours on any checklist of warning signs."
A:teachers should carry guns to protect themselves. B:gun carriers should be punished if they attempt to kill children. C:it is too difficult for the teachers to obtain guns. D:children should be protected by their teachers who carry guns.
Time spent in a bookshop can be most enjoyable, whether you are a book-lover or merely there to buy a book as a present. You may even have entered the shop just to find shelter from a sudden shower.Whatever the reason, you can soon become totally unaware of your surroundings. You soon bury yourself in some book or other, and usually it is only much later that you realize you have spent too much time there and must dash off to keep some forgotten appointment.
This opportunity to escape the realities of everyday life is the main attraction of a book shop. A music shop is very much like a bookshop. You can wander round such places to your heart’s content. If it is a good shop, no assistant will approach you with the greeting, "Can I help you" You needn’t buy anything you don’t want. In a bookshop an assistant should remain in the background until you have finished browsing (浏览). Then, and only then, are his services necessary.
Once, a medical student had to read a textbook which was far too expensive for him to buy. He couldn’t obtain it from the library and the only copy he could find was in a certain bookshop. Every afternoon, therefore, he would go along to the shop and read a little of the book at a time. One day, however, he was disappointed to find the book missing from its usual place. He was about to leave, when he noticed the owner of the shop beckoning (招呼) to him. Expecting to be told off, he went towards him. To his surprise, the owner pointed to the book, which was put away in a comer. "I put it there in case anyone was tempted to buy it!" he said, and left the delighted student to continue his reading.
A:nobody takes any notice of you B:the assistant greets you in a friendly way C:you can always obtain the books you need D:you feel that you are in a music shop
Time spent in a bookshop can be most enjoyable, whether you are a book-lover or merely there to buy a book as a present. You may even have entered the shop just to find shelter from a sudden shower.Whatever the reason, you can soon become totally unaware of your surroundings. You soon bury yourself in some book or other, and usually it is only much later that you realize you have spent too much time there and must dash off to keep some forgotten appointment.
This opportunity to escape the realities of everyday life is the main attraction of a book shop. A music shop is very much like a bookshop. You can wander round such places to your heart’s content. If it is a good shop, no assistant will approach you with the greeting, "Can I help you" You needn’t buy anything you don’t want. In a bookshop an assistant should remain in the background until you have finished browsing (浏览). Then, and only then, are his services necessary.
Once, a medical student had to read a textbook which was far too expensive for him to buy. He couldn’t obtain it from the library and the only copy he could find was in a certain bookshop. Every afternoon, therefore, he would go along to the shop and read a little of the book at a time. One day, however, he was disappointed to find the book missing from its usual place. He was about to leave, when he noticed the owner of the shop beckoning (招呼) to him. Expecting to be told off, he went towards him. To his surprise, the owner pointed to the book, which was put away in a comer. "I put it there in case anyone was tempted to buy it!" he said, and left the delighted student to continue his reading.
A:nobody takes any notice of you B:the assistant greets you in a friendly way C:you can always obtain the books you need D:you feel that you are in a music shop
He always manages to obtain what he wants.
A:realize B:get C:imagine D:express
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