When a guest speaker was invited to speak to 13- and 14-year-old pupils earlier this term there had been "a forest of arms" asking questions. When the same set of pupils were joined by boys from a nearby school for the next visit of a guest speaker it was the boys and not the girls asking the questions.

　　Later Mrs Hall warned that independent girls' schools would pull out of schemes to share expertise and facilities with state schools if universities discriminated against their students in their admission criteria.

　　摘要：英国专门负责学校教育质量的官员日前鼓励男女生混和的综合式学校实行男女生分班上课制，因为此举可以避免男女生互相影响，彼此分散注意力，从而有利于提高学习效率。

　　下面是单词讲解和习惯用法：

　　1. 这篇新闻里提到了一些不同的学校相关词汇。我们集中起来解释一下。如single-sex school：男校或者女校。mixed classe：男女生混和上课制。co-educational school：男女同校的学校。private secondary school私立中学，independent school：私立学校。council school或者state school都表示公立学校等等。

　　2. bulk 有大小, 体积, 大批的意思。the bulk of表示大多数。Diplomat：外交官, 有外交手腕的人, 有权谋的人。Survey意思是调查, 视察。Commission:委任, 任命。head teacher：是校长的意思。新闻中的原文是：Girls' schools are educating the bulk of the female scientists, engineers and diplomats of the future, according to a survey commissioned by head teachers of independent girls' schools.意思是说根据一项女子私立学校校长们委托所做的调查显示，人们认为女子学校更有可能培育出未来的女性科学家，工程师，和外交官。

　　3.pull out of sth在新闻中的意思是退出某事。除此之外它还有驶离车站等的意思。Discriminate：歧视,区别待遇。常见的用法有Discriminate a from b 或者Discriminate a between b区分a和b。Discriminate against sb:歧视某人。相对的偏袒某人就是:in favor of sb.比如：society still Discriminate against women and in favor of men.社会仍然歧视女性，厚待男性。

　　新闻中的原文“Later Mrs Hall warned that independent girls' schools would pull out of schemes to share expertise and facilities with state schools if universities discriminated against their students in their admission criteria.“意思是最近霍尔女士提出警告说如果综合大学对招收私立女子学校的学生存在歧视的话，她们将会退出与公立学校共享资源设备的协约。

进入英语教学论坛——版主征集中