专业八级改错练习 第107期

One question is often risen in response to international __1__
test comparisons: Do these results really mean anything? In
the past, international testing programs have been criticized
on variety of grounds. Two allegations, in particular, have __2__
been common: first, that other nations have not tested as large
a percentage of their student population, and nevertheless their __3__
scores have been inflated; and second, that our best students are
among the world’s best, with our average brought down by a __4__
large cohort of low-achievers.
Whatever the historic validity of such concerns, they are now, __5__
if anything, reversed. Particularly in the fourth and eighth grade,
education has become universal in all of the leading nations.
Therefore, in science, the percentage of randomly selected __6__
U.S. schools and students that actually did participate at the
eighth-grade level was just 73 percent—the third-lowest of all
45 participating countries, and 11 percentage points under the __7__
United States had third-lowest overall participation rate for both __8__
grades in both subjects. Japan, Taiwan and Singapore all had
participation percentages in the 90s.
How about our best and brightest? At the fourth-grade level,
there is some real truth to the idea that the best American students __9__
are among the best in the world. Looking only at the top 5 percent
of test-takers, American fourth-graders beat the average of wealthy
nations by 13 percentage points. By the eighth grade, however, the
tables have turned, with America’s brightest students fallen to __10__
percentage points behind their foreign peers.