2026年教师资格证《高中英语》预测试卷二

Passage 1
A closer observer of the small screen once called it a " vast wasteland of violence， sadism and murder，private eyes， gangsters and more violence--and cartoons." That is how Newton Minow， a US television regulator，described it in 1961.
Since then television language has become more colourful， violence more explicit and sex more prevalent.Lady Chatterley's Lover has moved from the banned book shelf to a classic BBC serial.
Concern over such changing standards has shaped our view of television and masked its broader influence in developing countries.
To illustrate its effects， Kenny cites the case of Brazil.When television there began to show a steady diet of local soaps in the 1970s， Brazilian women typically had five or more children and were trapped in ;poverty.As the popularity of the soaps grew， birth rates fell.
According to researchers，72% of the leading female characters in the main soaps had no children and only 7% had more than one.One study calculated that such soaps had the same effect on fertility rates as keeping girls in school for five years more than normal.It is not just birth rates that are affected.Kenny notes:"Kids who watch TV out of school， according to a World Bank survey of young people in the shanty towns of Fortaleza in Brazil，are considerably less likely to consume drugs."
Television appears to have more power to reduce youth drug use than the strictures of an educated mother and Brazilian soaps presenting educated urban women running their own businesses are thought to be compelling role models.
Television can also improve health.In Ghana a soap opera line that warned mothers they were feeding their children " more than just rice" if they did not wash their hands after defecating was followed by a seemingly permanent improvement in personal hygiene.
Why do such changes happen？ Simple，says Kenny: soap operas，whether local versions of Ugly Betty or vintage imports of Baywatch， open up new horizons."Some hours could he better spout planting trees， helping old ladies across the road or playing cricket，" he said."But watching TV exposes people to new ideas and different people.With that will come greater opportunity， growing equality and a better understanding of the world.Not bad."

Passage 2
In the college-admissions wars， we parents are the true fighters.We're pushing our kids to get good grades， take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice.I've twice been to the wars， and as I survey the battlefield， something different is happening.We see our kids' college background as a prize demonstrating how well we've raised them.But we can't acknowledge that our obsession is more about us than them.So we've contrived various justifications that turn out to be half-truths， prejudices or myths.It actually doesn't matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.
We have a full-blown prestige panic; we worry that there won't be enough prizes to go around.Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever.Underlying the hysteria is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be highly valuable.Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts.All that is plausible but mostly wrong.We haven't found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters.Selective schools don't systematically employ better instructional approaches than less selective schools.On two measures--professors' feedback and the number of essay exams--selective schools do slightly worse.
By some studies， selective schools do enhance their graduates' lifetime earnings.The gain is reckoned at 2-4% for every 100-point increase in a school's average SAT scores.But even this advantage is probably a statistical fluke.A well-known study examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere.They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.
Kids count more than their colleges.Getting into Yale may signify intelligence， talent and ambition.But it's not the only indicator and， paradoxically， its significance is declining.The reason: so many similar people go elsewhere.Getting into college is not life's only competition.Old-boy networks are breaking down.Princeton economist Alan Krneger studied admissions to one top Ph.D.program.High scores on the GRE helped explain who got in; degrees of famous universities didn't.
So， parents， lighten up.The stakes have been vastly exaggerated.Up to a point， we can rationalize our pushiness.America is a competitive society; our kids need to adjust to that.But too much pushiness can be destructive.The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment.One study found that， other things being equal， graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction.They may have been so conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.