2014届高考英语二轮复习阅读理解创优专练2
passage 1
shanghai, june 7（ap）-a 16-year-old girl's suicide after she was barred from a key exam draw attention to increasing worries over academic pressures, as millions of chinese students began annual college entrance tests on wednesday.
the three-day exam, viewed as important to future career and financial success, has a record 9.5 million high school students across china competing for just 2.6 million university places. for kids and parents alike, it's a difficulty that experts say causes extreme emotional distress. "pressure from study and exams is a top reason for psychological problems among chinese youth," said jin wuguan, director of the youth psychological counseling center at shanghai's ruijin hospital.
in china's increasingly success oriented, pressure-cooker cities, academic stress is seen as a rising cause of youth suicides and even murders of parents by children who are driven crazy by intolerable pressure to perform.
