Furthermore, children who had been in ESL classes tested 4 higher in English and math once they exited LEP programs than those who had received native-language instruction. Of the LEP students who entered in kindergarten or the first grade, 49 percent of those who had been in ESL classes eventually read at grade level, while only 32 percent of those who had been in bilingual classes performed that well. In math, the statistics are even more impressive. Of the children who entered in kindergarten or the first grade, more than 69 percent of those who had been in ESL classes eventually performed at grade level or above, as opposed to 54 percent of those who had been in bilingual classes.

Naturally, the study provoked (激起) a barrage of criticism from the highly political and vocal bilingual lobby, which prompted the New York City Board of Education to issue a paper in November 1994 mitigating the findings of the study and ignoring the distinction between students in ESL and bilingual education programs. Rather than exit rates, this paper focuses on the achievement of LEP students during the period in which they are in bilingual or ESL classes. The authors show that although the scores of LEP students were below average on the English-language test, their scores in all areas showed improvement; they point out that in math, there were insufficient data on the progress of LEP students to draw valid conclusions.

However, a report on citywide mathematics test results in New York in the spring of 1995 deals more fully with the math scores of the 26,248 students who were examined the previous school year in Chinese, Spanish, or Haitian Creole. According to this document, only 16.6 percent of these children were performing at or above grade level in mathematics. Although this figure represents an improvement of 1.1 percent over the scores of the previous year, it discredits the argument that native-language instruction keeps performing at grade level in subject areas. Although LEP students are improving faster than the national norm, they continue to perform far below the norm.

48．This text is mainly about
A. a review of ESL, bilingual an LEP instructions.
B. A survey of new approaches to subject instructions
C. the merits of LEP education program
D. the achievements of bilingual and ESL programs.

49．From Paragraph 1 we learn that
A. ESL instruction could test students faster than LEP instruction
B. LEP students performed worse than did ESL students
C. Native-language instruction classes seemed to fail utterly.
D. The data of the longitudinal study were likely tentative

50．It can be inferred that the paper mentioned in Paragraph 4.
A. has devalued the findings of the longitudinal study
B. has dimmed the differences between students in different programs
C. focuses on the subject achievements of LEP students
D. seeks out the insufficient points in the longitudinal study.

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage:

These days we hear a lot of nonsense about the ‘great classless society’. The idea that the twentieth century is the age of the common man has become one of the great clichés of our time. The same old arguments are put forward in evidence. Here are some of them: monarchy as a system of government has been completely discredited. The monarchies that survive have been deprived of all political power. Inherited wealth has been savagely reduced by taxation and, in time, the great fortunes will disappear altogether. In a number of countries the victory has been complete. The people rule; the great millennium has become a political reality. But has it? Close examination doesn’t bear out the claim.