Parents send their children to school with the best intentions, believing that formal education
is what kids need to become productive, happy adults. Many parents do have qualms about
how well schools are performing, but the conventional wisdom is that these issues can be
resolved with more money, better teachers, more challenging curricula, or more rigorous
tests. But what if the real problem is school itself? The unfortunate fact is that one of our
most cherished institutions is, by its very nature, failing our children, and our society.
Children are required to be in school, where their freedom is greatly restricted, far more than
most adults would tolerate in their workspaces. In recent decades, we have been compelling
them to spend ever more time in this kind of setting, and there is strong evidence that this is
causing psychological damage to many of them. And as scientists have investigated how
child naturally learn, they have realized that kids do so most deeply and fully, and with
greatest enthusiasm, in conditions that are almost opposite of those of school.
Compulsory education has been a fixture of our culture now for several generations.
President Obama and Secretary of Education, Ame Duncan are so enamored of it that they
want even longer school days and years. Most people assume that the basic design of today’s
schools emerged from scientific evidence about how children learn. But nothing could be
further than the truth.
Schools as we know them today are a product of history, not of research. The blueprint for
them was developed during the Protestant Reformation, when schools were created to teach
children to read the Bible, to believe the Scripture without questioning it, and to obey
authority figures without questioning them. When school was taken over by the state, made
compulsory, and directed toward secular ends, the basic structure and methods are remained
unchanged. Subsequent attempts at reform have failed because they have not altered basic
blueprint. The top-down, teach-and test method, in which learning is motivated by a system
of rewards and punishment rather than by curiosity or by any real desire to know, is well
designed for indoctrination and obedience training but not much else. It is no wonder that
many of the world’s entrepreneurs and innovators either left schools early (like Thomas
Edison) or said they hated school and learned despite it, not because of it (like Albert
Einstein).
(Adapted from http:/[Link]/advice/parenting/American-school-system. Accessed
February 12, 2014)
1. What is the topic of the text above?
(A) Parents' expectation on reformation in American school system
(B) Doubts on effectiveness of American school system
(C) Restriction on children’s freedom at the US school
(D) Regulations for American children to stay longer at school
(E) Absence of a research-based school system in the USA
2. What is the purpose of the text?
(A) To discuss if the American school system is truly effective to educate children
(B) To remind American parents that the formal school is basically a product of culture
(C) To tell the readers that formal schools in the USA have been constantly developed for
a long time
(D) To review how compulsory education in the USA has met parents’ expectation
(E) To describe how American children learn at school and in real-life settings
3. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word “qualm” (line 2)?
(A) Remarks
(B) Requests
(C) Doubts
(D) Views
(E) Beliefs
Ecotourism is defined as ‘purposeful travel that creates an understanding of cultural and
natural history, while safeguarding the integrity of the ecosystem and producing economic
benefits that encourage conservations’. The definition recognizes that that ecotourism is
important educational tools. Real life exposure to a natural situation in the accompaniment of
an experienced guide leads a greater increase in knowledge than real life exposure without a
guide, or exposure to a knowledgeable guide in an artificial setting.
More than 50 years ago, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget studied the development of human
cognitive capability and its dynamic relationship with the physical world. He viewed
cognitive development as an interaction between physical maturation of the brain
environmentally induced changes in learning. He observed that, as children grow, they
proceed through a series of increasingly abstract thinking styles. Piaget demonstrated that a
primary motivation for learning is resolution of cognitive conflicts, which he described as
‘disequilibrium’.
Borrowing upon principles of cognitive psychology, my colleagues and I have developed an
interpretive model for presenting information about marine mammals and their ocean
environment during whale-watch excursions in Hawaii and Australia. The model has more
recently been extended to include snorkeling excursions to coral reef near Maui, Hawaii.
Its application can be examined in the context of a typical 2.5 h commercial whale-watch trip
aboard a Pacific Whale Foundation passenger vessel to observe humpback whales in Hawaii.
Each whale-watch trip is a different venture, controlled by such variable factors as the
number and type of passengers, weather conditions, what the whales choose to do (or not to
do, as the case may be), the type of vessel, and the experience of the captain. Nonetheless, it
is possible to view the trip as a structured experience, and to guide participants through an
educational sequence that has very clear goals and objectives that can be monitored and
evaluated over time.
(Adapted from Ocean & Coastal Management 20, pp, 267-282)
4. What is the topic of the text?
(A) Definition of ecotourism
(B) Learning through excursion
(C) Ecotourism as learning resources
(D) Influences of environment in learning induction
(E) Learning controlled by environmental variables
5. Paragraph 4 implies that….
(A) an education is for fun
(B) the guide is the instructor
(C) the captain organizes the trip
(D) learning is through experiencing
(E) Participants are evaluated at the end of the trip
6. The text mentions all of the following, EXCEPT ….
(A) additional important benefits of ecotourism
(B) impact of ecotourism on environment understanding
(C) excursions because of various independent variables
(D) brain and environment interaction influencing cognitive growth
(E) the interpretive model covering both waters and terrestrial excursion
7. The purpose of the text is to ….
(A) describe the development of an interpretive model of ecotourism
(B) explains the influence of Piaget’s cognitive theory of learning on ecotourism
(C) show that ecotourism can be interpreted contextually as excursions
(D) discuss the relevance of a learning theory with ecotourism as an education
(E) define ecotourism from theories of learning and their application
8. The word ‘its’ (paragraph 4, line 1) refers to….
(A) interpretive model
(B) extended model
(C) marine mammal trip
(D) whale-watch program
(E) environment-based model
9. Which of the following can best replace the word ‘venture’ (paragraph 4, line 3)?
(A) effort
(B) course
(C) activity
(D) pleasure
(E) experience
Population growth occurs because there are currently three births of every death. In the past,
the crude birth rates were only slightly higher than crude death rates, but with improvements
in medicine and economic growth, the death rate fell more than birth rates. Much of the
world’s population growth is occurring in less-developed countries, which are unable to
support such growth. The causal effect between poverty and population growth can be looked
at in two ways. First, population growth causes poverty as the limited resources are depleted
and there are too many people for the available goods, resulting in poverty. The other view is
that poverty causes high population growth because lack of education, lack of health care,
and lack of a reasonable standard of living cause high population growth. Also, parents
believe that having many children will ensure that several of them will survive to take care of
them in their old age. Culture in which children are a form of security encourage high
population growth, as children reach reproductive age and have large families.
Much of the growth is happening disproportionately in urban areas. Cities are
environmentally harmful because they import many resources for the people that live there,
and they export their wastes. They also have an impact on the local and regional meteorology
and are centers for social problems such as a crime, homelessness, and unemployment to
name a few. Cities do offer many amenities such as cultural opportunities, jobs, and
education. There are some goods environmental aspects to cities, such as the promotion of
efficiency in transportation, housing, utilities; the provisions of necessary goods and services;
and the accommodation of large numbers of people within a relatively small space. The
biggest problem with cities is that people want the benefits of a city while still living in the
country. This leads to urban sprawl and suburbia.
(Adapted from http:/[Link]//201103304817. Accessed February 22,
2014)
10. It can be inferred from the text that ….
(A) life qualities of cities is worse than that of suburbans
(B) poverty in a country is linked to its rapid birth rates
(C) the less developed a country is the worse its economic growth is
(D) less developed countries tend to show a higher rate of population growth
(E) the more children have, the better their economy will be
11. The writer organizes the ideas in the text by ….
(A) showing the causes of population growth and their effect
(B) defining population growth followed with several examples
(C) arguing against population growth, followed with a case in urban places
(D) describing a historical account of population growth in the past and the present
(E) comparing effects of population growth in countries of different development
12. Which of the following is true according to the text?
(A) High population growth results in a problem where cities cannot provide enough jobs.
(B) Parents now tend to have few children in less-developed and developed countries.
(C) Large families are tolerated in less-developed countries due to their predominant belief.
(D) Economic growth gives little contribution to population growth.
(E) In the past there were three births for every death I less-developed countries.
13. The purpose of the text is to….
(A) show negative impacts of population growth
(B) describe factors contributing to poverty in cities
(C) analyze causes of economic growth to population
(D) compare population growth in the past and the present
(E) discuss population problems in urban areas of developing countries
14. In which lines does the author assume people’s expectation of village life with city
convenience?
(A) 5-7
(B) 9-11
(C) 13-15
(D) 15-18
(E) 20-22
15. The pronoun “they” (paragraph 2, line 2) refers to….
(A) people
(B) areas
(C) resources
(D) cities
(E) families
KUNCI JAWABAN:
1. B
2. A
3. C
4. C
5. D
6. E
7. E
8. B
9. E
10. D
11. A
12. C
13. A
14. E
15. D
