過去這一週末學生考了 2020 年 3 月的 SAT 考試。如果這是你最後一次考 SAT，恭喜你完成了一個艱難的任務！
這裡，我們整理了 2020 年 3 月 School Day SAT 考試當中的 5 篇閱讀文章，幫助學生準備未來的考試。
這些閱讀文章可以如何的幫助你？
1. 這些文章可以讓你知道你的英文程度以及準備考試的程度
首先，讀這些文章。你覺得他們讀起來很簡單還是很難？裡面有沒有很多生字，尤其是那些會影響你理解整篇文章的生字？如果有的話，雖然你可能是在美國讀書或讀國際學校、也知道 “如何讀跟寫英文”，但你還沒有足夠的生字基礎讓你 “達到下一個階段” （也就是大學的階段）。查一下這一些字，然後把它們背起來。這些生字不見得會在下一個 SAT 考試中出現，但是透過真正的 SAT 閱讀文章去認識及學習這些生字可以大大的減低考試中出現不會的生字的機率。
2. 這些文章會告訴你平時應該要讀哪些文章幫你準備閱讀考試
在我們的 Ivy-Way Reading Workbook（Ivy-Way 閱讀技巧書）的第一章節裡，我們教學生在閱讀文章之前要先讀文章最上面的開頭介紹。雖然你的 SAT 考試不會剛好考這幾篇文章，但你還是可以透過這些文章找到它們的來源，然後從來源閱讀更多相關的文章。舉例來說，如果你看第二篇文章 “The Problem with Fair Trade Coffee”，你會看到文章是來自 Stanford Social Innovation Review。閱讀更多來自 Stanford Social Innovation Review 的文章會幫助你習慣閱讀這種風格的文章。
3. 這些文章會幫助你發掘閱讀單元的技巧（如果閱讀單元對你來說不是特別簡單的話）
如果你覺得閱讀單元很簡單，或是你在做完之後還有剩幾分鐘可以檢查，那麼這個技巧可能就對你來說沒有特別大的幫助。但是，如果你覺得閱讀很難，或者你常常不夠時間做題，一個很好的技巧是先理解那一種的文章對你來說比較難，然後最後做這一篇文章。SAT 的閱讀文章包含這五種類型：
- 文學 (Literature)：1 篇經典或現代的文學文章（通常來自美國）
- 歷史 (History)：1 篇跟美國獨立/創立相關的文章，或者一篇受到美國獨立 / 創立影響的國際文章（像是美國憲法或者馬丁路德金恩 (Martin Luther King Jr.) 的演說）
- 人文 (Humanities)：1 篇經濟、心理學、社會學、或社會科學的文章
- 科學 (Sciences)：1-2 篇地理、生物、化學、或物理的文章
- 雙篇文 (Dual-Passages)：0-1 篇含有兩篇同主題的文章
舉例來說，假設你覺得跟美國獨立相關的文章是你在做連續的時候覺得最難的種類，那你在考試的時候可以考慮使用的技巧之一是把這篇文章留到最後再做。這樣一來，如果你在考試到最後時間不夠了，你還是可以從其他比較簡單文章中盡量拿分。
所有 2020 年 3 月 (美國/北美) SAT 考試閱讀文章
Passage 1
This passage is adapted from Nina Revoyr, The Age of Dreaming. ©2008 by Nina Revoyr. The narrator describes acting In silent films In the early 1900s. Moran owns the production company that employs the narrator.
It is amusing, in retrospect, to think how
primitive our efforts were in those early years. For
my first two films, all of the interiors were shot on
outdoor sets, with canvases draped over them to
soften the sun. All copies of Jamestown Junction have
long been lost, but if the film had survived, and if you
could see it, you would notice that during the office
scene the papers on my desk are disturbed by a
mysterious breeze. And in the very next scene, you
would see a shadow moving in the corner, caused by
the canvas flapping in the wind. These were the
conditions in which we shot at that time, and because
we worked without the benefit of artificial light, there
was always a rush to complete the day’s filming
before the shadows grew too deep in the afternoon.
In late May, when we endured an unexpected heat
wave, Moran had giant ice blocks delivered to the
sets, and powerful fans placed behind them to blow
the cool air in the direction or the players. If it rained,
filming would halt altogether, and we would
scramble to move all the furniture and props under
the complex’s few permanent roofs. But despite these
challenges, everyone remained in good spirits.
We were working, yes, but it felt like play, and it was
hard to comprehend the tremendous good fortune
that had suddenly befallen me.
Through the making of both films. Hanako gave
me constant guidance, which I eagerly accepted.
And I immediately discerned the difference between
myself, an untrained amateur, and a seasoned
professional who knew everything about the art of
acting. Indeed, she was perhaps the largest influence
on my development as an actor.
“There is no audience to see you,” she said one
day in Japanese, as I gestured expansively to convey
my anguish at the death of one of my fellow soldiers.
“You don’t need to project like you would in the
theater, as if you’re trying to be seen by the person in
the last row. Pretend the camera is the one man
you’re playing to.”
On another occasion when I was perhaps too
understated, Hanako approached me after Moran
called “cut.” “You’re painting a picture with your
body,” she said. “Think of pantomime. You must
express physically what you can’t with your voice.
And use your face, your eyes. You have such eyes.
They alone speak volumes.”
Moran nodded in agreement, although he
couldn’t have understood, and I adjusted my actions
accordingly. I was surprised by the extent to which
he let Hanako direct things—not only my own
performance, but also the placement of props, even
the movements of the other actors. Yet all of her
suggestions improved the films. And between her
advice and Moran’s direction, I was slowly learning
what to do. The transition from theater, which
depends on dialogue, was more difficult than I had
imagined—indeed, many stage actors, even those
who didn’t disdain the new medium or moving
pictures, did not make the change successfully.
Hanako Minatoya was one of the few who was
equally accomplished in both realms. I was learning
under her tutelage every day.
On certain days, when we weren’t in scenes,
Hanako and I would leave the sets and walk into the
hills. They were vibrant with color, with flowers
wherever one looked—blue brodiaea and lupin,
Mariposa lilacs, the wispy orange California poppies.
The beauty of that landscape, when the air was cool,
the sun glinting off the ocean, and the breeze
carrying the scent of the flowers, was so dramatic I
could hardly believe it real. And I was seeing it,
feeling it, in the company of an artist whose work I
had admired for years.
One day on our walk we were discussing a
well-known actor, and Hanako surprised me by her
reaction to his name. “He is nothing but a face for
the fan magazines,” she said dismissively. “He is not
a genuine actor.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, although I didn’t
disagree.
“it is impossible to distinguish one of his roles
from another. He is always the same, and it is
obvious why. In order to project a believable fiction,
the actor himself must have substance. You must
possess something internally to perform it externally.
He has only a fraction of the talent of an artist such
as you.”
I was, of course, deeply flattered by her
compliment, and I did not know how to respond.
Hanako continued talking of this actor and that,
without noting my reaction.
Passage 2
This passage is adapted from Giorgia Guglielmi, “Small News Outlets Influence Us More Than We Think.’ ©2017 by American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Assessing the influence of news media is tricky.
Researchers can’t peer into voting booths or people’s
living rooms, and news organizations aren’t typically
willing to have outsiders interfere with their content.
That’s why it took a team of social scientists 5 years
to get 48 U.S. news organizations to agree to run an
unusual set of experiments. Instead of simply
tracking what the outlets were publishing and
analyzing their impact on public opinion, the
researchers took an approach similar to that used in
clinical trials to evaluate the effects of new drugs.
They manipulated the type of news stories run, and
then assigned a “treatment” week when the stories
would run and a ‘control” week when they wouldn’t.
This way they could tell whether those particular
stories were having any effect on public discussion.
Most participating outlets were small, with fewer
than an estimated 200,000 pageviews per month, and
a few were midsized, like the Wisconsin-based
magazine The Progressive, which had more than
250,000 pageviews per month. The nonprofit news
organization Truthout, based in Chicago, Illinois,
represented a large outlet, with an estimated
2 million pageviews per month.
The researchers, led by Gary King of Harvard
University, asked groups of two to five of these news
outlets to write stories on broad policy areas,
including race, immigration, and climate. For
example, if the broad area was technology policy, the
specific story might be what Uber drivers think about
self-driving cars. The outlets could choose the policy
area, the stories to cover, and the type of articles to
write, such as investigative reports or opinion pieces.
However, the researchers could reject a story if it was
outside a specific policy area. (The outlets were free
to publish whatever story they wanted outside of the
experiment.)
Then, the researchers flipped a coin to decide
during which of two consecutive weeks these dusters
of stories, all on the same topic, would run. Finally,
they measured the number of tweets about both the
specific stories and the broader policy issues during
the week when the stories ran compared to the week
when they didn’t .
Twitter posts on these topics increased by nearly
63% over the week in which the stories were posted.
On average, Americans wrote more than
13,000 additional social media posts about a specific
policy area on the day the stories ran and in the
following 5 days. What’s more, the cluster of stories
swayed people’s opinion by 2.3% in the ideological
direction of opinion articles, suggesting that news
media might in some cases change people’s beliefs.
The team repeated the experiment 35 times, and
observed that stories boosted posting by men and
women alike, as well as by people living in different
U.S. regions, with different political orientations and
influence on Twitter. Removing larger outlets from
the analysis didn’t change the effect on public
conversation much, suggesting that no single large
news organization was responsible for the increase.
However, if the researchers had recruited large
mainstream outlets, the spike in discussion might
have been much bigger: When they looked at stories
published by The New York Times on little-discussed
topics, such as how (racking affects the quality of
drinking water, they found that Twitter posts about
the broader issue of water quality increased by 300%
in just 1 day.
Though excited by the study, economist Matthew
Gentzkow points out that only about 20% of
Americans use Twitter, so the results might not be
widely applicable outside social media. But to King,
Twitter users are a valuable resource to assess the
agenda-setting power of media because they
represent those people who are willing to speak up to
influence policy.
Passage 3
This passage is adapted from aim Perry and Ollli Loukda, We Taught Bees to Play Football So We Could Learn about Their Brains.’ ©2017 by The Conversation US, Inc.
Most people don’t often think about bees’
brainpower. Bees are generally regarded as tiny
unthinking machines, flying from flower to flower,
genetically preprogrammed to collect pollen and
nectar and make honey.
But bees have some impressive cognitive
capacities. Bumblebees and honeybees can count,
navigate complex environments, learn concepts, use
their uncertainty to guide their decisions, and even
display emotion-like behaviour.
Recently, bees have also been trained to solve
complex cognitive tasks such as string pulling and
cap pushing to gain rewards. But as impressive as
these tasks might be, they resemble some of the bees’
natural foraging behaviour. Our research group
wanted to test the behavioural limits of bumblebees
by tasking them with something far removed from
anything they encounter in nature.
So we’ve managed to show that bees can play
football. Sort of. We showed that they can learn to
move a small ball to a goal to gain a sugary reward.
To do this, we used a plastic model bee on the end
of a transparent stick to move a tiny ball across a
platform as a real bumblebee watched. When the ball
reached a specified location at the centre of the
platform, it opened access to rewarding sugar water.
After several observations, each real bee we tested
picked up how to solve the task and no longer
needed demonstrations.
While mastering this unnatural task was
impressive, we were curious to know how the bees
were actually learning to solve it. So we tested three
further groups of bees. One group of bees watched
another previously trained bee move the ball to the
centre. A second group of bees observed the ball
moving to the centre “by itself”(we actually used a
magnet under the platform to move the ball). And a
third group of bees did not receive any
demonstration.
The movement of the ball with the magnet was
enough for some of the bees to learn the task
significantly better than the bees who did not receive
any demonstration. But all ten bees observing
another bee move the ball to the centre solved the
task much quicker and at a higher success rate than
either of the other groups. This suggests the observer
bees picked up something important from their
fellow bees that helped them learn this unnatural
task.
The design of this experiment also allowed us to
ask a novel question in social learning experiments:
when learning from others, will bees simply copy
what they see or can they improve upon it? During
each of the observation trials, there were three balls
positioned at varying distances from the centre of the
platform, but it was always the furthest ball that was
moved during the demonstration. But during the test
trials, on their own, the observer bees almost always
moved the closest ball to the centre. This suggests
bees weren’t simply copying what they saw during
the demonstration but actually improved on the task
by using the easiest means.
Our current findings suggest with convincing
evidence that a miniature brain is not necessarily
simple, and can solve an impressively complex task.
In fact, we are not yet aware of a cognitive ability that
is specific to large brains. What’s more, neurobiology
and modelling research suggests that a very
limited number of neurons (even just a few) can
accomplish some rather complex cognitive tasks.
We have shown that bumblebees can solve a task
they’ve unlikely ever seen in their evolutionary
history. No flower has likely ever required bees to
move an object into its centre to gain access to
nectar. The fact that bees learned this unnatural and
complex task through observation alone and could
improve on what they saw, rather than simply copy
what they observed, shows an unprecedented
amount of cognitive flexibility in an animal with
such a small brain.
Passage 4
This passage is adapted from a speech delivered in 1841 by Thomas Paul to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, “Let Us Do Justice to an Unfortunate People.” Paul, a black abolitionist, waked with white abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison, who founded the American Anti-Slavery Society In 1833.
I have often asked myself, what posterity would
think of the strange contest in which the abolitionists
are engaged. Here we meet, time after time,
newspapers are printed and speeches delivered, to
prove—what? Why, that a man is a man, and that he
is the only human possessor of himself. But these
propositions are self.evident propositions, and
self-evident propositions we all know, though the
most difficult to be proved, are the most easily
understood, because they need no proof. The mind
sees their truth intuitively, without the aid of
reasoning. The attempt to prove them, therefore,
would be ridiculous, were it not for the consideration
of the amazing state of delusion and vassalage to
which prejudice reduces the mind when
unenlightened by reason.
The history of every age shows the truth of this
assertion. At one time, we see Galileo thrown into
prison by the Inquisition, because he had made some
discoveries … and forced to purchase his liberty by
retracting his opinions…. When, therefore, we see
the control which prejudice, aided by circumstances
and encouraged by self, interest, has in times past
exercised over the human mind, and the tenacity
with which it has held its deluded victims, stopping
up the avenues of improvement, clipping the wings
of genius, and retarding the progress of truth—when
we see the minds whose energies have been crippled,
and whose spheres of action have been curtailed by
its influence—when we see the tremendous power
which reformers have brought to bear against the
prevailing sins of the ages in which they lived, the
firm opposition they encountered, and the long and
arduous struggles which preceded a better state of
things—we are led, by analogical reasoning, to
believe, that the contest in which we are engaged is
not an unnatural one—that it is not so dissimilar in
its character and measures to others which have been
carried triumphantly through—that the modern
champions of freedom do not savor so much of
quixotism [impracticality] as their traducers have
represented—and that the unfortunate men, whose
cause they have espoused, have as just a claim to
humanity as their oppressors, and like them have
been created a little lower than the angels….
How was it five years ago in regard to the question
of slavery! A gloom hung over the moral atmosphere,
which nothing seemingly could dissipate, save a
miracle from God himself. All saw it, but no one
durst expose his own breast to the pitiless peltings of
the gathering storm. The pulpit and the press, instead
of being faithful to their trust, were the panders to
the general lust. But mind, like matter, must have its
legitimate scope…. There are always some spirits
who will resist such unnatural domination. And such
a spirit was found in the father of American
anti-slavery. In that dark hour, he arose to cheer us
on our gloomy pathway. The shafts of criticism, and
sarcasm, and denunciation, which rang against his
buckler [shield), told only where he stood up
unscathed, in his moral and intellectual might, and
bearing down all opposition. The result is well
known, nor does Mr. Garrison need any eulogy from
me.
The task of a reformer is far from being an
agreeable one. The hidden springs which are to be
touched by him, and set into motion, are not
discernible to common eyes; and, if they were, few
would know how to approach or dare to meddle with
them. He scatters his truths among the body politic,
and the effect is electrical. He is greeted at once with
smiles and frowns, with blessing and cursing, with
eulogy and abuse. Now he is almost stifled with the
caresses of devoted friends, and anon he is exposed
to the fury of a blood-thirsty mob. But, if it is
melancholy to see some run mad, we have the
gratification to behold others restored to their
reason. Much may depend upon accidental
circumstances for the success of the reformer, but
more depends upon himself. In him are found the
great qualities of the head and heart. For the burden
of proof is upon him, and he is to answer cavils
[petty objections] refute sophistry [falsehood], and
prove his propositions, while slanderers are
crucifying his reputation, and assassins are aiming
deadly daggers at his heart. All moral reformations
have been attended with more or less persecution;
but the American abolitionists stand preeminently
distinguished in this respect.
Passage 5
Passage 1 is adapted from ‘Free-Floating Planets May Be More Common Than Stars.” Published in 2011 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Passage 2 is adapted from Ashley Yeager, ‘Fewer Big Rogue Planets Roam the Galaxy, Recount Shows.° ©2017 by Society for Science & the Public.
Passage I
A survey scanned toward the center of the Milky
Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing
evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly
the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as
orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone
undetected until now. The planets are located at an
average approximate distance of 10,000 to
20,000 light years from Earth.
This could be just the tip of the iceberg. The team
estimates there are about twice as many free-floating
Jupiter-mass planets as stars. In addition, these
worlds are thought to be at least as common as
planets that orbit stars. This adds up to hundreds of
billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy
alone.
“Our survey is like a population census,” said
David Bennett, a coauthor of the 2011 study. “We
sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these
data, can estimate overall numbers in the galaxy.”
The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than
[with lower mass than] Jupiter and Saturn. but
theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should
be ejected from their stars more often. As a result,
they are thought to be more common than
free-floating Jupiters.
Previous observations spotted a handful of
free-floating planet-like objects within star-forming
clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But
scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form more like
stars than planets. These small, dim orbs, called
brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing balls of gas and
dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel
and shine with starlight. It is thought the smallest
brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large
planets.
On the other hand, it is likely that some planets
are ejected from their early, turbulent solar systems,
due to close gravitational encounters with other
planets or stars. Without a star to circle, these planets
would move through the galaxy as our sun and others
stars do, in stable orbits around the galaxy’s center.
The discovery of 10 free-floating Jupiters supports
the ejection scenario, though it’s possible both
mechanisms are at play.
“If free-floating planets formed like stars, then we
would have expected to see only one or two of them
in our survey instead of 10,” Bennett said. “Our
results suggest that planetary systems often become
unstable, with planets being kicked out from their
places of birth.
Passage II
In a new study, Przemek Mroz of the
Astronomical Observatory of the University of
Warsaw and colleagues estimated the number of
large, rogue planets in our galaxy using a technique
called microlensing. When an object with a mass of
a planet passes in front of a distant, background star,
the gravity of the planet acts as a gravitational
magnifying glass. It distorts and focuses the light,
giving up the planet’s existence.
Mroz and colleagues looked at 2,617 microlensing
events recorded between 2010 and 2015 and
determined which were caused by a rogue planet. For
every typical star, called main sequence stars, there
are 0.25 free-floating Jupiter-mass planets. the
analysis suggests.
The new result sharply contrasts an estimate
published in 2011, which suggested that rogue
Jupiters are almost twice as common as main
sequence stars. About 90 percent of stars in the
universe are main sequence stars, so if that estimate
were accurate, there should be a lot of free-floating
Jupiters.
“That result changed our conceptual framework
of the universe just a little bit,” says astronomer
Michael Liu of the University of Hawaii. It
challenged long-held ideas about how planets go
rogue because the known methods wouldn’t generate
enough planets to account for all the wanderers.
The 2011 result was based on a relatively small
sample of microlensing events, only 474. Since then,
infrared telescope images haven’t detected as many
free-floating planets as expected. “Over the years,
serious doubts were cast over the claims of a large
population of Jupiter-mass free-floaters,” Mroz says.
David Bennett, coauthor of the 2011 study, agrees
that the new census failed to find evidence for a large
population of Jupiter-mass rogue planets. He notes,
however, that the new data do reveal four times as
many Jupiter-mass failed stars called brown dwarfs
than predicted in the original census. So some of the
rogues that were originally classified as planets may,
in fact, be failed stars.
Liu says the latest census is much more in line
with theories of how planets form. Most rogues
should be Earth-mass or a little heavier. Those lighter
planets get tossed out of their planetary systems
much easier than behemoths like Jupiter.
2021年 3月 (美國/北美) SAT 考試閱讀題目
Ivy-Way 學生在上課的過程就會做到2021年3月以及其他的官方歷年考題。除此之外，我們也有讓學生來我們的教室或在家做模考的服務讓學生評估自己的學習進度並看到成績。如果你想預約時間來我們的教室或在家做模考，請聯繫我們！如果你想購買考題在家做，學生可以在Ivy-Way蝦皮商城、Ivy-Way臉書粉專、或 Line (ivyway) 直接購買喔！