Largely for "spiritual reasons," Nancy Manos started home-schooling her children five years ago and has studiously avoided public schools ever since. Yet last week, she was enthusiastically enrolling her 8-year-old daughter, Olivia, in sign language and modern dance classes at Eagleridge Enrichment--a program run by the Mesa, Ariz., public schools and taught by district teachers. Manos still wants to handle the basics, but likes that Eagleridge offers the extras, "things I couldn't teach." One doubt, though, lingers in her mind: why would the public school system want to offer home-school families anything?

　　A big part of the answer is economics. The number of home-schooled kids nationwide has risen to as many as 1.9 million from an estimated 345,000 in 1994, and school districts that get state and local dollars per child are beginning to suffer. In Maricopa County, which includes Mesa, the number of home-schooled kids has more than doubled during that period to 7,526; at about $4,500 a child, that's nearly $34 million a year in lost revenue.

　　Not everyone's happy with these innovations. Some states have taken the opposite tack. Like about half the states, West Virginia refuses to allow home-schooled kids to play public-school sports. And in Arizona, some complain that their tax dollars are being used to create programs for families who, essentially, eschew participation in public life. "That makes my teeth grit,'' says Daphne Atkeson, whose 10-year-old son attends public school in Paradise Valley. Even some committed home-schoolers question the new programs, given their central irony: they turn home-schoolers into public-school students, says Bob Parsons, president of the Alaska Private and Home Educators Association. "We've lost about one third of our members to those programs. They're so enticing.''

　　Mesa started Eagleridge four years ago, when it saw how much money it was losing from home-schoolers--and how unprepared some students were when they re-entered the schools. Since it began, the program's enrollment has nearly doubled to 397, and last year the district moved Eagleridge to a strip mall (between a pizza joint and a laser-tag arcade). Parents typically drop off their kids once a week; because most of the children qualify as quarter-time students, the district collects $911 per child. "It's like getting a taste of what real school is like,'' says 10-year-old Chad Lucas, who's learning computer animation and creative writing.

　　Other school districts are also experimenting with novel ways to court home schoolers. The town of Galena, Alaska, (pop. 600) has just 178 students. But in 1997, its school administrators figured they could reach beyond their borders. Under the program, the district gives home-schooling families free computers and Internet service for correspondence classes. In return, the district gets $3,100 per student enrolled in the program--$9.6 million a year, which it has used partly for a new vocational school. Such alternatives just might appeal to other districts. Ernest Felty, head of Hardin County schools in southern Illinois, has 10 home-schooled pupils. That may not sound like much--except that he has a staff of 68, and at $4,500 a child, "that's probably a teacher's salary,'' Felty says. With the right robotics or art class, though, he could take the home out of home schooling.

　　1． In the opening paragraph, the author introduces his topic by

　　[A]posing a contrast

　　[B]justifying an assumption

　　[C]explaining a phenomenon

　　[D]making a comparison

　　2． The statement "That makes my teeth grit,''(Line 4, Paragraph 3) implies that

　　[A]I wanted to eat something.

　　[B]I was angry and dissatisfied.

　　[C]I was in favor of what the public school had done.

　　[D]I wanted not to bring my children to that school.

　　3． The public school system wants to offer home-school families something, because

　　[A]it does not want to lose much money from the increasing home-schoolers.
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　　[B]home-schoolers have some difficulty in getting some particular knowledge.

　　[C]home-schoolers are eager to have a taste of what a real school is like.

　　[D]it has the responsibility to help the home-schoolers.

　　4． The statistics in Paragraph two helps us draw a conclusion that

　　[A]economics is greatly influenced by so many home-schoolers.

　　[B]the number of the home-schoolers is steadily increasing.

　　[C]it is a great loss for the public school system to have so many home-schoolers.

　　[D]home-schooling has an incomparable advantage over the public school system.

　　5． What can we infer from the last paragraph?

　　[A]The tuition the home schoolers have to pay for the public school is very high.

　　[B]Public school system gains much profit from the home schoolers.

　　[C]Home schoolers do not want to receive education at home any more.

　　[D]Public school system tries to attract the home schoolers back to school.

　　答案：CBACB

　　篇章剖析

　　本文采用提出问题——分析问题的模式，指出在家受教育的人对公立学校造成的经济威胁，以及公立学校对这一现象的不同反应和做法。文中第一段以在家受教育的人为例，来说明教育中存在的在家受教育这一现象；第二段分析公立学校不愿意放弃这些人的主要原因；第三段指出有些州不同的做法；第四段具体指出Eagleridge这一做法的目的以及给在家受教育的人带来的好处；第五段指出一些公立学校的成功做法。

　　词汇注释

　　studiously [5stju:dIEslI ; (?@) 5stu:-]adv.有意地, 故意地

　　tack[tAk]行动方针；策略

　　eschew [Is5tFu:]vt.避开, 远避

　　grit [^rIt]v.咬（牙）把（牙齿）紧咬在一起

　　enticing [In`taIsIN]adj.引诱的, 迷人的

　　难句突破

　　1．Yet last week, she was enthusiastically enrolling her 8-year-old daughter, Olivia, in sign language and modern dance classes at Eagleridge Enrichment--a program run by the Mesa, Ariz., public schools and taught by district teachers.

　　主体句式：she was… enrolling her 8-year-old daughter… in sign language and modern dance classes

　　结构分析：这句话是个简单句。其中“enroll in”意为“在…方面注册,报名参加”;Olivia是daughter的同位语；a program是Eagleridge Enrichment的同位语，过去分词run和taught做定语来修饰program。

　　句子译文：然而上周，她却急切地给她八岁的女儿奥利维亚报名参加在Eagleridge Enrichment举办的手语课和现代舞蹈课的学习。

　　题目分析

　　1．答案为C，属事实细节题。文中第一段以Nancy Manos为例，来说明现在越来越多的人倾向于在家受教育这一现象。

　　2．答