サクシード2中学校英語から高等学校英語へ-032/45page

(2)　実際のセンター試験での活用例
それでは、図・表・グラフを含む長文問題の第4問について、パラグラフ・リーディングをどのように活用したらよいか考えていきましょう。

98年度:英語(本試験)

第4問　次の文章、図及び表を読み,下の問い(A・B)に答えよ。(配点27)
Can we get a better understanding of a situation if we create clear images of it in our mind? In order to find an answer to this question, a psychologist asked three groups of children to solve two problems, each containing some "trick". One was the alarm clock problem and the other was the high tide problem.
(a) The alarm clock problem: "At 8 p.m., John set his old-style alarm clock to wake him up at 9 o'clock the next morning. Then he slept until the alarm rang. How many hours did John sleep?" (People usually answer "Thirteen hours", because they do not realize that the alarm will ring at 9 p.m. The answer, of course, is "One hour".)
(b) The high tide problem: "A ladder with six steps was hanging from a boat above the calm sea. The distance between the surface of the sea and the lowest step was 10cm, and the distance between each step was 30cm. At high tide, the sea level rose 80cm. How many steps were above the sea at high tide?" (People tend to answer "Three steps", because they think that the boat stays where it is while the sea level rises along its sides. However, the tide lifts the boat, so the whole ladder is always above water. The answer, therefore, is "Six steps".)
The groups were each made up of 35 children aged 13-14, chosen at random. The three groups, the "Words" group, the "Picture" group and the "Imagination" group, were each given problems (a) and (b) in the following ways and were asked to solve them. The "Words" group received an envelope containing only the problems. The "Picture" group received an envelope containing the problems together with the pictures shown on the next page (Picture l and Picture 2). The "Imagination" group got an envelope containing the problems and also instructions to imagine the two situations as clearly as possible. The number of correct and incorrect answers for each question is shown in Table l and Table 2.

Picture l

Picture 2