To most of us, school means classes, teachers, schedules, grades and tests. But for the children at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, school is very different.

Firstly, there are no lessons. All the children, aged between 4 and 19, do whatever they want. There are no teachers, only “staff members”. The idea behind this is that you do not need to make children learn, because children want to learn anyway. “You do not need to say to a three-year-old, ‘Go explore your environment.’ You can’t stop them!”says Daniel Greenberg, a founder of the school. “But if you make children do what you want all day… they will lose all taste of learning.” At Sudbury Valley School, you will find children talking, reading, painting, cooking, working on computers, studying French, playing the piano, climbing trees, or just running around. Two boys spent three years just fishing!
The other way that Sudbury Valley School is different is that the children can decide the rules. Every week, there is a school meeting where both children and staff have one vote (投票)each—even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend the school money, and even which staff they want and do not want anymore.
When the school first opened in 1968, people said it would never work. But today, the school has 200 students, and 80% of its students go on to college. Even the two boys who went fishing all the time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician and the other is a computer scientist.
【小題1】What's special about the school?

A．There is nobody but students there.

B．All the students are of the same age.

C．There are no classes for the students.

D．There are no rules in the school.

【小題2】What do the students do in the school?

A．They learn everything there from the staff members.

B．They grow up there without learning anything.

C．They spend all the time with their parents.

D．They do whatever they are interested in.

【小題3】The school seems to believe that children________.

A．learn best when they are doing what they want

B．a(chǎn)re too young to learn anything by themselves

C．can look after themselves without any help

D．can't go to college without any hard work

【小題4】The last paragraph wants to tell us that_         .

A．the writer doesn't like the idea of the school

B．the school is quite successful in its work

C．most of the parents don't believe in the school

D．younger students learn better there than older ones

【小題5】The underlined word career in the last paragraph most probably means_.
A. family   B. money    C. lifestyle   d. job

To most of us, school means classes, teachers, schedules, grades and tests. But for the children at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, school is very different.
Firstly, there are no lessons. All the children, aged between 4 and 19, do whatever they want. There are no teachers, only “staff members”. The idea behind this is that you do not need to make children learn, because children want to learn anyway. “You do not need to say to a three-year-old, ‘Go explore your environment.’ You can’t stop them!”says Daniel Greenberg, a founder of the school. “But if you make children do what you want all day… they will lose all taste of learning.” At Sudbury Valley School, you will find children talking, reading, painting, cooking, working on computers, studying French, playing the piano, climbing trees, or just running around. Two boys spent three years just fishing!
The other way that Sudbury Valley School is different is that the children can decide the rules. Every week, there is a school meeting where both children and staff have one vote (投票)each—even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend the school money, and even which staff they want and do not want anymore.
When the school first opened in 1968, people said it would never work. But today, the school has 200 students, and 80% of its students go on to college. Even the two boys who went fishing all the time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician and the other is a computer scientist.
【小題1】What's special about the school?

A．There is nobody but students there.

B．All the students are of the same age.

C．There are no classes for the students.

D．There are no rules in the school.

【小題2】What do the students do in the school?

A．They learn everything there from the staff members.

B．They grow up there without learning anything.

C．They spend all the time with their parents.

D．They do whatever they are interested in.

【小題3】The school seems to believe that children________.

A．learn best when they are doing what they want

B．a(chǎn)re too young to learn anything by themselves

C．can look after themselves without any help

D．can't go to college without any hard work

【小題4】The last paragraph wants to tell us that_         .

A．the writer doesn't like the idea of the school

B．the school is quite successful in its work

C．most of the parents don't believe in the school

D．younger students learn better there than older ones

【小題5】The underlined word career in the last paragraph most probably means_.
A. family   B. money    C. lifestyle   d. job

To most of us, school means classes, teachers, schedules, grades and tests. But for the children at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, school is very different.

Firstly, there are no lessons. All the children, aged between 4 and 19, do whatever they want. There are no teachers, only “staff members”. The idea behind this is that you do not need to make children learn, because children want to learn anyway. “You do not need to say to a three-year-old, ‘Go explore your environment.’ You can’t stop them!”says Daniel Greenberg, a founder of the school. “But if you make children do what you want all day… they will lose all taste of learning.” At Sudbury Valley School, you will find children talking, reading, painting, cooking, working on computers, studying French, playing the piano, climbing trees, or just running around. Two boys spent three years just fishing!
The other way that Sudbury Valley School is different is that the children can decide the rules. Every week, there is a school meeting where both children and staff have one vote (投票)each—even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend the school money, and even which staff they want and do not want anymore.
When the school first opened in 1968, people said it would never work. But today, the school has 200 students, and 80% of its students go on to college. Even the two boys who went fishing all the time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician and the other is a computer scientist.
【小題1】What's special about the school?

A．There is nobody but students there.

B．All the students are of the same age.

C．There are no classes for the students.

D．There are no rules in the school.

【小題2】What do the students do in the school?

A．They learn everything there from the staff members.

B．They grow up there without learning anything.

C．They spend all the time with their parents.

D．They do whatever they are interested in.

【小題3】The school seems to believe that children________.

A．learn best when they are doing what they want

B．a(chǎn)re too young to learn anything by themselves

C．can look after themselves without any help

D．can't go to college without any hard work

【小題4】The last paragraph wants to tell us that_         .

A．the writer doesn't like the idea of the school

B．the school is quite successful in its work

C．most of the parents don't believe in the school

D．younger students learn better there than older ones

【小題5】The underlined word career in the last paragraph most probably means_.
A. family   B. money    C. lifestyle   d. job

To err is human. To blame（責(zé)備） the other guy is even more human.
Common sense is not all that common.
Why tell the truth when you can come up with a good excuse?
These three popular misquotes（戲謔的引語(yǔ)）are meant to be jokes, and yet they tell us a lot about human nature. To err, or to make mistakes, is indeed a part of being human, but it seems that most people don’t want to accept the responsibility for the problem. Perhaps it is the natural thing to do. The original quote about human nature went like this: “To err is human, to forgive, divine（神圣的）.” This saying mirrors an ideal: People should be forgiving of others’ mistakes. Instead, we tend to do the opposite – find someone else to pass the blame on to. However, taking responsibility for something that went wrong is a mark of great maturity（成熟）.
Common sense is what we call clear thought. Having common sense means having a good general plan that will make things work well, and it also means staying with the plan. Common sense tells you that you take an umbrella out into a rainstorm, but you leave the umbrella home when you hear a weather forecast for sunshine. Common sense does not seem to be common for large companies, because there are so many things going on that one person cannot be in charge of everything. People say that in a large company, “the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.”
And what is wrong with a society that thinks that making up a good excuse is like creating a work of art? One of the common problems with making excuses is that people, especially young people, get the idea that it’s okay not to be totally honest all the time. There is a corollary（直接推論）to that: if a good excuse is “good” even if it isn’t honest, then where is the place of the truth?
【小題1】Which of the following is NOT based on common sense?

A．A secretary works to a timetable.

B．A company’s next move follows a good plan.

C．A girl goes out with an umbrella in stormy weather.

D．A man tries to manage everything in a large company.

【小題2】What can we infer from the last paragraph according to the writer?

A．A good excuse is the same as honesty.

B．Inventing a good excuse needs creative ideas.

C．Unpleasant truth is better than a good excuse.

D．Making a good excuse is sometimes a better idea.

【小題3】What would be the best title for this passage?

A．A Mirror of Human Nature

B．To Blame or to Forgive

C．A Mark of Maturity

D．Truth or Excuse