Throughout the nation’s more than 15,000 school districts, widely differing approaches to teaching science and math have emerged. Though there can be strength in diversity, a new international analysis suggests that this variability has instead contributed to lackluster (平淡的) achievement scores by U.S. children relative to their peers in other developed countries.
　　Indeed, concludes William H. Schmidt of Michigan State University, who led the new analysis, “no single intellectually coherent vision dominates U.S. 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 U.S. communities, 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, U.S. 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. U.S. 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 (支离破碎的) visions” but which are not economic leaders.
　　The new report “couldn’t come 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 community 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 becomes only one more voice in the babble (嘈杂声).”

　　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 community. 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 course-keeping 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 (万能). A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that infantile notion that our wishes cause things to happen.

　　“I’ve never met a human worth cloning,” says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from his lab at Texas A&M University. “It’s a stupid endeavor.” That’s an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two cows and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might succeed in cloning Missy this spring—or perhaps not for another 5 years. It seems the reproductive system of man’s best friend is one of the mysteries of modern science.
　　Westhusin’s experience with cloning animals leaves him upset by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on the Missy project, using hundreds upon hundreds of dog’s eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos (胚胎) carrying Missy’s DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate (代孕的) mother. The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses (胎) may be acceptable when you’re dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. “Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous,” he says.
　　Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997, Westhusin’s phone has been ringing with people calling in hopes of duplicating their cats and dogs, cattle and horses. “A lot of people want to clone pets, especially if the price is right,” says Westhusin. Cost is no obstacle for Missy’s mysterious billionaire owner; he’s put up $3.7 million so far to fund A&M’s research.
　　Contrary to some media reports, Missy is not dead. The owner wants a twin to carry on Missy’s fine qualities after she does die. The prototype is, by all accounts, athletic, good-natured and supersmart. Missy’s master does not expect an exact copy of her. He knows her clone may not have her temperament. In a statement of purpose, Missy’s owner and the A&M team say they are “both looking forward to studying the ways that her clones differ from Missy.”
　　Besides cloning a great dog, the project may contribute insight into the old question of nature vs, nurture. It could also lead to the cloning of special rescue dogs and many endangered animals.
　　However, Westhusin is cautious about his work. He knows that even if he gets a dog pregnant, the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at birth by other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems~ “Why would you ever want to clone humans,Westhusin asks, “when we’re not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?”

　　Frustrated with delays in Sacramento, Bay Area officials said Thursday they planned to take matters into their own hands to regulate the region’s growing pile of electronic trash.
　　A San Jose councilwoman and a San Francisco supervisor said they would propose local initiatives aimed at controlling electronic waste if the California law-making body fails to act on two bills stalled in the Assembly. They are among a growing number of California cities and counties that have expressed the same intention.
　　Environmentalists and local governments are increasingly concerned about the toxic hazard posed by old electronic devices and the cost of safely recycling those products. An estimated 6 million televisions and computers are stocked in California homes, and an additional 6,000 to 7,000 computers become outdated every day. The machines contain high levels of lead and other hazardous substances, and are already banned from California landfills (垃圾填埋场).
　　Legislation by Senator Byron Sher would require consumers to pay a recycling fee of up to $30 on every new machine containing a cathode (阴极) ray tube. Used in almost all video monitors and televisions, those devices contain four to eight pounds of lead each. The fees would go toward setting up recycling programs, providing grants to non-profit agencies that reuse the tubes and rewarding manufacturers that encourage recycling.
　　A separate bill by Los Angeles-area Senator Gloria Romero would require high-tech manufacturers to develop programs to recycle so-called e-waste.
　　If passed, the measures would put California at the forefront of national efforts to manage the refuse of the electronic age.
　　But high-tech groups, including the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and the American Electronics Association, oppose the measures, arguing that fees of up to $30 will drive consumers to online, out-of-state retailers.
　　“What really needs to occur is consumer education. Most consumers are unaware they’re not supposed to throw computers in the trash,” said Roxanne Gould, vice president of government relations for the electronics association.
　　Computer recycling should be a local effort and part of residential waste collection programs, she added.
　　Recycling electronic waste is a dangerous and specialized matter, and environmentalists maintain the state must support recycling efforts and ensure that the job isn’t contracted to unscrupulous (毫无顾忌的) junk dealers who send the toxic parts overseas.
　　“The graveyard of the high-tech revolution is ending up in rural China,” said Ted Smith, director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. His group is pushing for an amendment to Sher’s bill that would prevent the export of e-waste.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) says its ten-year campaign to remove leprosy  (麻风病)  as a world health problem has been successful. Doctor Brundtland, head of the WHO, says a number of leprosy cases around the world has.(S1)been cut of ninety percent during the past ten years. She says. (S2)efforts are continuing to complete end the disease. (S3)
    Leprosy is caused by bacteria spread through liquid from the nose and mouth. The disease mainly effects the skin and (S4) nerves. However, if leprosy is not treated it can cause permanent damage for the skin, nerves, eyes, arms or legs. (S5)
    In 1999, an international campaign began to end leprosy. The WHO, governments of countries most affected by the disease, and several other groups are part of the campaign. This alliance guarantees that all leprosy patients, even they (S6) are poor, have a right to the most modern treatment.
    Doctor Brundtland says leprosy is no longer a disease that requires life-long treatments by medical experts. Instead, patients can take that is called a multi-drug therapy. This (S7) modern treatment will cure leprosy in 6 to 12 months, depend on the form of the disease. The treatment combines (S8) several drugs taken daily or once a month. The WHO has given multi-drug therapy to patients freely for the last five (S9) years. The members of the alliance against leprosy plan to target the countries which still threatened by leprosy. Among (S10) the estimated 600,000 victims around the world, the WHO believes about 70% are in India. The disease also remains a problem in Africa and South America.

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an open letter on behalf of the student union asking people to give help to a student who is seriously ill. You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below: 
(1) 对病人的简单介绍：目前的病情和家庭情况
(2) 目前的困难：无法继续承担医疗费用，需要护理
(3) 希望捐助，联系方式

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