内部文件，版权追溯
内部文件，版权追溯
(2018·扬州一模)
Competition is an ideology(意识形态) that spreads all over our society and misleads our thinking.But it means no profits for anybody，no meaningful differentiation，and a struggle for survival.We advocate competition，see it as necessary，and set its laws；and as a result，we trap ourselves within it—the more we compete，the less we gain.
Our educational system both drives and reflects our craze for competition.Grades alone are precise measurement of each student’s competitiveness；pupils with the highest marks receive status and credits.And it gets worse as students rise to higher levels of the tournament.Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce competition with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking.For the privilege of being turning into conformists(顺从者)，students (or their families) pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in rapidly rising tuition.Why are we doing this to ourselves?
I wish I had asked myself when I was younger.My path was so tracked that in my 8th-grade yearbook，one of my friends predicted—accurately—that four years later I would enter Stanford.And I enrolled at Stanford Law School，where I competed even harder for the standard badges(徽章) of success.The highest prize in a law student’s world is unambiguous：the Supreme Court clerkship.I was so close to winning this last competition.If only I got the clerkship，I thought，I would be set for life.But I didn’t.At the time，I was frustrated.
In 2004，after I had built and sold PayPal，I ran into an old friend who had helped me prepare for my failed clerkship applications.We hadn’t spoken in nearly a decade.His first words to me were not “Hi Peter” or “How are you doing？” But rather，“So，aren’t you glad you didn’t get that clerkship？” Because if I hadn’t lost that last competition，we both knew that I never would have left the track laid down since middle school.Had I actually clerked on the Supreme Court，I probably would have spent my entire career taking depositions or drafting other people’s business deals instead of creating anything new.It’s hard to say how much would be different，but the opportunity costs were enormous.
Looking back at my ambition to become a lawyer，it looks less like a plan for the future and more like an excuse for the present.It was a way to explain to anyone who would ask—to my parents，to my peers，and most of all to myself—that there was no need to worry.I was perfectly on track.But it turned out that my biggest problem was taking the track without thinking really hard about where it was going.
1．Students compete at school because .
A．they are assessed by grades
B．they are under peer pressure
C．they want to find a secure job
D．the tuition increases quickly
答案 C
解析 细节理解题。根据第二段第四句“Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce competition with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking.”可知，学生在学校竞争是为了以后找到一份稳定的工作。
2．We can learn from Paragraph 3 that the writer .
A．didn’t have a clear plan for future
B．did badly in study in the 8th grade
C．wasn’t a capable student in college
D．didn’t want to obtain the clerkship
答案 A
解析 推理判断题。根据第三段第一句“I wish I had asked myself when I was younger.”可知，作者很后悔当初没有弄清楚为什么要这样做，由此可知当时他对未来缺乏清晰的规划。
3．The underlined sentence “the opportunity costs were enormous” (in Paragraph 4) shows the writer .
A．is unsure whether his choice is correct
B．regrets failing clerkship applications
C．is happy about not getting the clerkship
D．thinks he could have had a better career
答案 C
解析 句意理解题。根据第四段中的“Had I actually clerked on the Supreme Court，I probably would...It’s hard to say how much would be different，but the opportunity costs were enormous.”可知，作者对于没有成为最高法院的职员是感到高兴的。
4．The writer shares his life story mainly to argue that .
A．people shouldn’t support competition
B．grades cannot reflect students’ ability
C．failure can be a good thing sometimes
D．we shouldn’t follow other people blindly
答案 D
解析 写作意图题。根据最后一段最后一句“But it turned out that my biggest problem was taking the track without thinking really hard about where it was going.”可知，作者分享这个故事的目的是告诉人们不要盲目地跟随他人，而应该有自己的目标和计划。
一、题型解读
记叙文、说明文和议论文中可能会考查句意猜测题。要求考生用合适的语句解释一个具有概括性的句子或格言谚语。设问形式常有：
1．The underlined sentence in the last paragraph means “ ”．
2．Which of the following best explains the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?
二、解题技巧——“意义吻合”定句意
例如：【感悟体会】中第3题：
第一步：速读文章，并标出文章中与画线句子相关的句子
(1)Had I actually clerked on the Supreme Court，I probably would have spent my entire career taking depositions or drafting other people’s business deals instead of creating anything new.
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