Section B
Directions:There are 2 passages in this section.Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements.For each of them there are four choices marked A),B),C)and D).You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.
Some people say that the study of liberal arts is a useless luxury we can not afford in hard times. Students, they argue, who do not develop salable skills will find it difficult to land a job upon graduation. But there is a problem in speaking of “salable skills”. What skills are salable? Right now, skills for making automobiles are not highly salable, but they have been for decades and might be again. Skills are another example of varying salability, as the job market fluctuates. What’s more, if one wants to build a curriculum exclusively on what is salable, one will have to make the courses very short and change them very often, in order to keep up with the rapid changes in the job market. But will not the effort be in vain? In very few things can we be sure of future salability, and in a society where people are free to study what they want, and work where they want, and invest as they want, there is no way to keep supply and demand in labor in perfect accord.
A school that devotes itself totally to salable skills, especially in a time of high unemployment, sending young men and women into the world armed with only a narrow range of skills, is also sending lambs into the lion’s den. If those people gain nothing more from their studies than supposedly salable skills, and can’t make the sale because of changes in the job market, they have been cheated. But if those skills were more than salable, if study gave them a better understanding of the world around them and greater adaptability in a changing world, they have not been cheated. They will find some kind of job soon enough. Flexibility, and ability to change and learn new things, is a valuable skill. People who have learned how to learn can learn outside of school. That is where most of us have learned to do what we do, not in school. Learning to learn is one of the highest liberal skills.
52. From the passage, we can learn that the author is in favor of .
A) teaching practical skills that can be sold in the current job market
B) a flexible curriculum that changes with the times
C) a liberal education
D) keeping a balance between the supply and demand in the labor market
53. The word “fluctuate”(Line 5,Para.1) most probably means .
A) remain steady B) change in an irregular way
C) follow a set pattern D) become worse and worse
54. According to the author, who of the following is more likely to get a job in times of high unemployment?
A) A person with the ability to learn by himself.
B) A construction worker.
C) A car repairman.
D) A person with quite a few salable skills.
55. According to the author, in developing a curriculum school should .
A) predict the salability of skills in the future job market
B) take the current job market into consideration
C) consider what skills are salable
D) focus on the ability to adapt to changes
56. We can learn from the passage that .
A) liberal arts education is being challenged now
B) schools that teach practical skills fare better during hard times
C) extracurricular activities are more important than classroom learning
D) many students feel cheated by the educational system
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