《考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解100篇 高分版》 Unit 20 - TEXT THREE

Laden with hefty backpacks, French children filed back to school this week amid fresh agonising about the education system. Given its reputation for rigour and secular egalitarianism, and its well-regarded baccalauréat exam, this is surprising. What do the French think is wrong?
Quite a lot, to judge from a 30-page “letter to teachers” just sent by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Too many school drop-outs; not enough respect or authority in the classroom (pupils, he says, should stand up when the teacher enters); too little value placed on the teaching profession; too little art and sport in the curriculum; too much passive rote-learning; and too much “theory and abstraction”. France, the president concludes, needs “to rebuild the foundations” of its education system.
The criticisms touch all levels. A government-commissioned report reveals that two in five pupils leave primary school with “serious learning gaps” in basic reading, writing and arithmetic. One in five finish secondary school with no qualification at all. Even the baccalauréat is under attack. This year's pass rate of 83% is up from just over 60% in the early 1960s. “The bac is worth absolutely nothing,” asserts Jean-Robert Pitte, president of the Sorbonne-University of Paris IV.
The bac is not under review, but other changes have begun. Xavier Darcos, the education minister, has loosened school-catchment rules, to allow children from poor areas to get places in good schools elsewhere. He has set up an after-hours service for lower secondary schools, to supervise homework and keep kids off the streets. Mr. Sarkozy has established a commission under Michel Rocard, a former prime minister and yet another of his recruits from the left, to look into the teaching profession—and perhaps to soften up the unions before less palatable changes.
Some hard questions remain. France's rigorous system suits able pupils: half of all 15-year-olds match the standards in writing, maths and science of the very best performers in the rich-country OECD. But schools fail the weakest. The bottom 15% of French 15-year-olds rank among the OECD's worst. The main cure for struggling pupils is redoublement, the repeat of a school year. By the age of 15, 38% of French pupils have repeated a year, more than in any other OECD country. Yet an official report suggests that redoublement has no noticeable effect on a child's progress.
Mr. Darcos told Le Parisien this week that he “believed very little in the efficiency of redoublement”. But it is unclear what he would put in its place. He plans to trim teacher numbers. He hints at more streaming of pupils by ability, so that children can stay with their age group, but the unions are hostile. Mr. Sarkozy suggests another answer: less abstract teaching, which might engage less academic pupils. Mr. Sarkozy will find it hard to translate his ambitious ideas into concrete plans. His wish-list for the curriculum is daunting: more art and sport, but also more “civic education”, comparative religion, “general culture”, trips to the theatre, walks in the forest, visits to businesses. Yet French 15-year-olds already spend an average of 1,042 hours a year in the classroom—150 more than German pupils, and 282 more than English ones.
1. The president of the Sorbonne-University of Paris IV thinks the bac is worth nothing because _____.
[A] the pass rate of baccalauréat is too low now given the quality of the present education
[B] there exists serious problem in the education of baccalauréat period
[C] students can easily get the baccalauréat at present
[D] the advance of society requires people to be equipped with higher degree
2. The word “palatable” (Line 5, Paragraph 4) most probably means _____.
[A] radical
[B] moderate
[C] demanding
[D] acceptable
3. Which one of the following statements is NOT true of France's education system compared to other OECD countries?
[A] It has the highest rate of redoublement than that of the other OECD countries.
[B] It pays more attention to the academic education than that of the other OECD countries.
[C] It gives students more equal opportunity to achieve education than that of the other OECD countries.
[D] It results in students' being more polarized than that of the other OECD countries in terms of academic performance.
4. From the ideas of Mr Sarkozy to reform the education system, it can be inferred that he is _____.
[A] a leftist
[B] a rightist
[C] an idealist
[D] a reformist
5. The best title of the passage could be _____.
[A] The Reform of Education in France
[B] New Policy on Education by New President
[C] Mr. Sarkozy, the Reformist in Education
[D] The Future of France's Education