The familiar sounds of an early English summer are with us once again. Millions of children sit down to SATs, GCSEs, AS-levels, A-levels and a host of lesser exams, and the argument over educational standards starts. Depending on whom you listen to, we should either be letting up on over-examined pupils by abolishing SATs, and even GCSEs, or else making exams far more rigorous.The chorus will reach a peak when GCSE and A-level results are published in August. If pass rates rise again, commentators will say that standards are falling because exams are getting easier. If pass rates drop, they will say that standards are falling because children are getting lower marks. Parents like myself try to ignore this and base our judgments on what our children are learning. But it’s not easy given how much education has changed since we were at school.Some trends are encouraging — education has been made more relevant and enthuses many children that it would have previously bored. My sons’ A-level French revision involved listening to radio debates on current affairs, whereas mine involved rereading Moliere. And among their peers, a far greater proportion stayed in education for longer.On the other hand, some aspects of schooling today are incomprehensible to my generation, such as gaps in general knowledge and the hand-holding that goes with ensuring that students leave with good grades. Even when we parents resist the temptation to help with GCSE or A-level coursework, a teacher with the child’s interests at heart may send a draft piece of work back several times with pointers to how it can be improved before the examiners see it.The debate about standards persists because there is no single objective answer to the question: “Are standards better or worse than they were a generation ago?” Each side points to indicators that favor them, in the knowledge that there is no authoritative definition, let alone a measure that has been consistently applied over the decades. But the annual soul-searching over exams is about more than student assessment. It reveals a national insecurity about whether our education system is teaching the right things. It is also fed by an anxiety about whether, in a country with a history of upholding standards by ensuring that plenty of students fail, we can attain the more modern objective of ensuring that every child leaves school with something to show for it.1.It can be concluded from Paragraph 1 that （ ）.2.Parents try to judge the educational standards by（ ）.3.To the author, the rereading of Moliere was（ ）.4.To the author’s generation, it is beyond understanding today why（ ）.5.According to the passage, with respect to educational standards in Britain, （ ）.6.In the author’s opinion, the school education in Britain has been（ ）.

A.SATs is one of the most rigorous exams mentioned B.it has been debated if children should be given exams C.few parents approve of the exam systems in England D.each year children have to face up to some new exams
问题2：
A.whether their children have passed the exams B.what knowledge their children have acquired C.what educators say about curriculum planning D.whether their children’s school scores are stable
问题3：
A.dreary B.routine C.outmoded D.arduous
问题4：
A.teachers lay great stress on helping students obtain good grades B.teachers show much concern for students’ future C.parents help little with their children’s coursework D.parents focus on their children’s general knowledge
问题5：
A.no authorities have ever made a comment B.no one has ever tried to give them a definition C.no effective ways have been taken to apply them D.no consistent yardstick has ever been used
问题6：
A.inflexible B.irresponsible C.unsuccessful D.unforgivable