All it takes is a few nightly news stories showing young bodies being wheeled out of schools on gurneys to convince the world that violence in our schools is increasing. Certainly, it is shocking when a couple of adolescents open fire in a school with semiautomatic weapons. It is shocking when a sixteen-year-old in Pearl, Mississippi, stabs his mother to death and then shoots two classmates to
death and wounds several others. When adolescents are depicted on the evening news, it is often in the context of violence, particularly at schools. In fact, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, crime in the nation's schools has been decreasing since 1993. Victimization rates at schools have dropped from 48 crimes per 1,000 students to 43 crimes per 1,000 students. The fact is, only one-half of 1 percent of juveniles are arrested for violent crime in any given year today. School shootings are still extremely rare; they are not on the increase. In the 1992-1993 school year, there were fifty-five school-associated violent deaths. In the 2001-2002 school year, there were only four. Indeed, adolescents are not really killing other adolescents at an increasing rate. They rarely kill one another. Less than 3 percent of homicides in the United States involve an individual under the age of eighteen killing another person under eighteen. Nevertheless, Americans believe that juveniles are responsible for 43 percent of all homicides. In fact, they are responsible for only 9 percent. The Wall Street Journal took a poll a few years ago. Seventy-one percent of respondents believed that a killing was likely in their schools. In reality, the chances of that happening are one in a million. Perhaps as a result of a misguided perception about school violence, we are in an era of zero tolerance. Authorities seize not only weapons and illegal drugs at school, but also nail clippers, asthma inhalers, and headgear. Even though less than 1 percent of all violent incidents involving teen-agers occur on school grounds, authorities believe that zero tolerance is necessary. As a consequence, a large number of innocent schoolchildren are being accused of violating the rules. Sometimes, accusations border on the bizarre. In one case, a six-year-old was apprehended for bringing a "weapon" to school. The weapon was a plastic knife given to him by his grandmother so that he could spread peanut butter on his sandwich. The main idea of this passage is that
a. violence by youth is an ever increasing problem.
b. the media tend to distort the truth about violence by youth.
c. innocent school children are being accused of criminal behavior.
d. school violence is not as bad as most people believe.
D
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Ayer me pusieron una _______________ antitetánica.
Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).
The systematic destruction of the buffalo herds dealt the most devastating blow to the Indians. In the societies of the Plains tribes, the meat of the bison supplied food, while the hides provided shelter and clothes. Removal of these resources was calamitous, but the cultural impact was even more ruinous. Buffalo represented the continuity of nature and the renewal of life cycles. Destruction of
the buffalo ended the Indians' capacity to resist white incursions. As one Crow warrior observed after the herds had gone, "Nothing happened after that. We just lived. There were no more war parties, no capturing horses from the Piegan and the Sioux, no buffalo to hunt. There is nothing more to tell." The decline of the buffalo herds began during the 1860s when drought, disease, and erosion shrank the animals' habitat. Then an expanding eastern market for buffalo robes and such products as pemmican (dried buffalo meat, berries, and fat) spurred the intensive hunting of buffalo. As railroads penetrated the West, hunters could transport their products to customers with relative ease. The result was virtual extermination of the buffalo. More than 5 million buffalo were slaughtered during the early 1870s. Along the Arkansas River, a British traveler reported, "there was a continual line of putrescent carcasses, so that the air was rendered pestilential and offensive to the last degree." By the end of the nineteenth century, only a few buffalo remained alive. The author's claim that, "Removal of these resources was calamitous, but the cultural impact was even more ruinous." is a. inadequately supported because it lacks evidence and explanation. b. adequately supported by relevant details.
Ihr _________________ immer korrekt. (antworten)
Read the sentences and write the correct verb form in the blanks.
Which of the following statements about transition words is accurate?
a. “Meanwhile” signals addition. b. “Hence” indicates causes or consequences. c. “In addition” shows time order. d. “In one case” signals comparisons.