【正文】 culture when visiting Black Creek. B My wife, daughter, and I moved into our home nine years ago and we spent a lot of time and energy in the yard to get it looking like it does today. We live on a corner, higher than street level, and the entire side of the yard is surrounded by a professionally built rock wall. The front of the house though is another story because instead of a wall along the sidewalk, the rocks appear to be just thrown up onto the dirt as if someone were in a hurry to finish. We did the best we could with what we had to work with and called this area our ―rock garden‖. Whenever we had leftover flowers or plants, Denise or I would stick them out front, just to bring some color to the area. We would do all of the yard work on our own, even the tiring weedpulling. Last summer I had reached the end of the rock garden and found a tiny little plant that I could not immediately identify, I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise claimed that she didn’t either. We decided to let it continue growing until we could figure out what it was. Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the mystery plant, it appeared to be a Sunflower with a tall skinny stalk(莖，桿 ) and only one head on it. I decided to baby it along and weed around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something unusual. The Sunflower had not started where I saw the stalk begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the sun. That’s when I realized that if a tiny little Sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. Once our environment begins to see that we believe in ourselves like that little Sunflower, we can attain the same nourishment(營養(yǎng) ) and growth as well. Stand tall like the Sunflower and be proud of who and what you are and the environment will begin to support you. You will find a way to go under or around your big obstacle in order to reach your desires. 25. Why is the front of the house another story according to the author? A. The workers finished it in a hurry. B. There is a wall along the sidewalk. C. The family view it as a rock garden. D. The rocks are piled there at random. 26. The author found it unusual that_______. A. the Sunflower grew under and around a big rock B. the Sunflower had a tall stalk and only one head C. the mystery plant turned out to be a Sunflower D. a rock stood in the way of the flower’s growth 27. Which of the following best describes the Sunflower? A. Brave and stubborn. B. Confident and persistent. C. Optimistic and modest. D. Mysterious and devoted. One of our expectations about education is that it will pay off in terms of upward mobility. Historically, the relation between education and ine has been strong. But in the early 1970s, a contradiction developed between education and the economy. Our value of education and our average educational attainment（獲得） run faster than the capacity of the economy to absorb the graduates. Since the 1970s, highschool graduates have experienced a striking decrease in earnings, making them the first generation since World War Ⅱ to face a lower standard of living than their parents had. Experts have argued that this contradiction is at the heart of the problem of public education today. It is not, as business leaders claim, that the schools are failing to properly educate students, that they are turning out young people who are inadequately prepared to function in the workplace. The real problem is a shortage of economic opportunities for students who are not continuing on to college. College graduates also are having difficulty finding jobs. Even when they do, the jobs may not be consistent with their training and expectations. Part of the problem is that too many young Americans expect to have professional jobs, making disappointment and frustration unavoidable for some. Many students assumed that what was true of an individual— that the higher the education, the better the job opportunities — would also be true for an entire society. But when the numbers of bettereducated young people became too great, the economy could no longer absorb them. Another part of the problem is the assumption that greater educational attainment guarantees career advancement. In fact, employers do not routine