【正文】 “no single intellectually coherent vision dominates . educational practice in math or science.” The reason, he said, “is because the system is deeply and fundamentally flawed.”The new analysis, released this week by the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va., is based on data collected from about 50 nations as part of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.Not only do approaches to teaching science and math vary among individual . munities, the report finds, but there appears to be little strategic focus within a school district’s curricula, its textbooks, or its teachers’ activities. This contrasts sharply with the coordinated national programs of most other countries.On average, . students study more topics within science and math than their international counterparts do. This creates an educational environment that “is a mile wide and an inch deep,” Schmidt notes.For instance, eighth graders in the United States cover about 33 topics in math versus just 19 in Japan. Among science courses, the international gap is even wider. . curricula for this age level resemble those of a small group of countries including Australia, Thailand, Iceland, and Bulgaria. Schmidt asks whether the United States wants to be classed with these nations, whose educational systems “share our pattern of splintered (支離破碎的) visions” but which are not economic leaders.The new report “couldn’t e at a better time,” says Gerald Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association in Arlington. “The new National Science Education Standards provide that focused vision,” including the call “to do less, but in greater depth.”Implementing the new science standards and their math counterparts will be the challenge, he and Schmidt agree, because the decentralized responsibility for education in the United States requires that any reforms be tailored and instituted one munity at a time.In fact, Schmidt argues, reforms such as these proposed national standards “face an almost impossible task, because even though they are intellectually coherent, each bees only one more voice in the babble (嘈雜聲).”21. According to the passage, the teaching of science and math in America is ________.A) losing its vitality graduallyB) characterized by its diversityC) going downhill in recent yearsD) focused on tapping students’ potential（B）22. The fundamental flaw of American school education is that ________.A) it attaches too much importance to intensive study of school subjectsB) it relies heavily on the initiative of individual teachersC) it sets a very low academic standard for studentsD) it lacks a coordinated national program（D）23. By saying that the . educational environment is “a mile wide and an inch deep” (Line 2, Para. 5), the author means . educational practice ________.A) scratches the surface of a wide range of topicsB) lays stress on quality at the expense of quantityC) encourages learning both in depth and in scopeD) offers an environment for prehensive education（A）24. The new National Science Education Standards are good news in that they will ________.A) solve most of the problems in school teachingB) provide depth to school science educationC) quickly dominate . educational practiceD) be able to meet the demands of the munity（B）25. Putting the new science and math standards into practice will prove difficult because ________.A) many schoolteachers challenge the acceptability of these standardsB) there is always controversy in educational circlesC) not enough educators have realized the necessity for doing soD) school districts are responsible for making their own decisions（D）Passage TwoQuestions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.I had an experience some years ago which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to officiate at two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my munity. Both had died “full of years,” as the Bible would say。 both yielded to the normal wearing out of the body after a long and full life. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence (吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.At the first home, the son of the deceased (已故的) woman said to me, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, “If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother’s going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the abrupt change of climate, was more than she could take. It’s my fault that she’s dead.”When things don’t turn out as we would like them to, it is very tempting to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Priests know that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite coursekeeping Mother at home, postponing the operation—would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?There seem to be two elements involved in our readiness to feel guilt. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.The second element is the notion that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. Psychologists speak of the infantile myth of omnipotence (萬能). A baby es to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it.