1、 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 长篇阅读 考前实战练习 练习一 The Three-Year Solution A Hartwick College, a small liberal-arts school in upstate New York, makes this offer to well-prepared students: earn your undergraduate degree in three years instead of four, and save about $43,000the amount of one years
2、tuition and fees. A number of innovative colleges are making the same offer to students anxious about saving time and money. Thats both an opportunity and a warning for the best higher-education system in the world. B The United States has almost all of the worlds best universities. A recent Chinese
3、 survey ranks 35 American universities among the top 50, eight among the top 10. Our research universities have been the key to developing the competitive advantages that help Americans produce 25% of all the worlds wealth. In 2007, 623,805 of the worlds brightest students were attracted to American
4、 universities. C Yet, there are signs of peril within American higher education. U.S. colleges have to compete in the marketplace. Students may choose among 6,000 public, private, nonprofit, for-profit, or religious institutions of higher learning. In addition, almost all of the $32 billion the fede
5、ral government provides for university research is awarded competitively. DBut many colleges and universities are stuck in the past. For instance, the idea of the fall-to-spring “school year” hasnt changed much since before the American Revolution, when we were a nation of farmers and students put t
6、heir books away to work the soil during the summer. That long summer stretch no longer makes sense. Former George Washington University president Stephen Trachtenberg estimates that a typical college uses its facilities for academic purposes a little more than half the calendar year. “While college
7、facilities sit idle, they continue to generate maintenance expenses that contribute to the high cost of running a college,” he has written. EWithin academic departments, tenure, combined with age-discrimination laws, makes faculty turnovercritical for a university to remain current in changing times
8、difficult. Instead of protecting speech and encouraging diversity and innovative thinking, the tenure system often stifles them: younger professors must win the approval of established colleagues for tenure, encouraging likemindedness and sometimes inhibiting the free flow of ideas. 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授
9、课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 F Meanwhile, tuition has soared, leaving graduating students with unprecedented loan debt. Strong campus presidents to manage these problems are becoming harder to find, and to keep. In fact, students now stay on campus almost as long as their presidents. The average amount of t
10、ime students now take to complete an undergraduate degree has stretched to six years and seven months as students interrupted by work, inconvenienced by unavailable classes, or lured by one more football season find it hard to graduate. GCongress has tried to help students with college costs through
11、 Pell Grants and other forms of tuition support. But some of their fixes have made the problem worse. The stack of congressional regulations governing federal student grants and loans now stands twice as tall as I do. Filling out these forms consumes 7% of every tuition dollar. H For all of these re
12、asons, some colleges like Hartwick are rethinking the old way of doing things and questioning decades-old assumptions about what a college degree means. For instance, why does it have to take four years to earn a diploma? This fall, 16 first-year students and four second-year students at Hartwick en
13、rolled in the schools new three-year degree program. According to the college, the plan is designed for high-ability, highly motivated students who wish to save money or to move along more rapidly toward advanced degrees. I By eliminating that extra year, three-year degree students save 25% in costs
14、. Instead of taking 30 credits a year, these students take 40. During January, Hartwick runs a four-week course during which students may earn three to four credits on or off campus, including a number of international sites. Summer courses are not required, but a student may enroll in themand pay e
15、xtra. Three-year students get first crack at course registration. There are no changes in the number of courses professors teach or in their pay. J The three-year degree isnt a new idea. Geniuses have always breezed through. Judson College, a 350-student institution in Alabama, has offered students
16、a three-year option for 40 years. Students attend “short terms” in May and June to earn the credits required for graduation. Bates College in Maine and Ball State University in Indiana are among other colleges offering three-year options. K Changes at the high-school level are also helping to make i
17、t easier for many students to earn their undergraduate degrees in less time. One of five students arrives at college today with Advanced Placement （ AP） credits amounting to a semester or 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 more of college-level work. Many universities, including large schools like
18、 the University of Texas, make it easy for these AP students to graduate faster. L For students who dont plan to stop with an undergraduate degree, the three-year plan may have an even greater appeal. Dr. John Sergent, head of Vanderbilt University Medical Schools residency program, enrolled in Vand
19、erbilts undergraduate college in 1959. He entered medical school after only three years as did four or five of his classmates. “My first year of medical school counted as my senior year, which meant I had to take three to four labs a week to get all my sciences in. I basically skipped my senior year
20、,” says Sergent. He still had time to be a student senator and meet his wife. M There are, however, drawbacks to moving through school at such a brisk pace. For one, it deprives students of the luxury of time to roam intellectually. Compressing everything into three years also leaves less time for g
21、rowing up, engaging in extracurricular activities, and studying abroad. On crowded campuses it could mean fewer opportunities to get into a prized professors class. Iowas Waldorf College has graduated several hundred students in its three-year degree programs, but is now phasing out the option. Most
22、 Waldorf students wanted the full four-year experienceacademically, socially, and athletically. And faculty members will be wary of any change that threatens the core curriculum in the name of moving students into the workforce. N Adopting a three-year option will not come easily to most schools. Th
23、ose that wish to tackle tradition and make American campuses more cost-conscious may find it easier to take Trachtenbergs advice: open campuses year-round. “You could run two complete colleges, with two complete faculties,” he says. “Thats without cutting the length of students vacations, increasing
24、 class sizes, or requiring faculty to teach more.” O Whether they experiment with three-year degrees, offer year-round classes, challenge the tenure systemor all of the aboveuniversities are slowly realizing that to stay competitive and relevant they must adapt to a rapidly changing world. P Expandi
25、ng the three-year option may be difficult, but it may be less difficult than asking Congress for additional financial help, asking legislators for more state support, or asking students for even higher tuition payments. Campuses willing to adopt convenient schedules along with more-focused, less-exp
26、ensive degrees may find that they have a competitive advantage in attracting bright, motivated students. These sorts of innovations can help American universities avoid the perils of success. 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 注意：此部分试题请在 答题卡 2 上作答。 46.The tenure system in American universities sup
27、presses creative thinking. 47. Hartwick College started three-year degree programs to cut students expenses. 48. By quoting Stephen Trachtenberg the author wants to say that college facilities could be put to more effective use. 49. It is said that the students in the new three-year degree program a
28、t Hartwick have to earn more credits each year. 50. Convenient academic schedules with more-focused, less-expensive degrees will be more attractive to bright, motivated students. 51. Judson Colleges three-year degree program has been running for several decades. 52. The three-year college program sh
29、ould be improved for students dont have much time to roam intellectually. 53. College faculty members are afraid that the pretext of moving students into the workforce might pose a threat to the core curriculum. 54. More students in high schools have Advanced Placement credits, which helps them earn
30、 undergraduate degrees in three years. 55. Universities are increasingly aware that they must adapt to a rapidly changing world in order to stay competitive and relevant. 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 答案详解 46 E 根据题干中的 tenure system定位到第五段。 该段第 2句直接点明终身职位制会压制创新思维。 A中的 suppresses对应原文中的 stifles，
31、creative thinking对应 innovative thinking。 47 A 根据题干中的 Hartwick college和 three-year degree定位到第一段首句。根据该句可知该学校为准备充分的学生提供三年获得学位的项目 ， 从而减少学生的学杂费。 48 D 根据题干中的 Stephen Trachtenberg定位到第四段引语部分。段末提到 ，华盛顿大学前任校长 Stephen Trachtenberg认为闲置的大学设施仍然会产生维护费用，这增加了大学运营成本。言外乊意是，这些设施应得到充分利用。 49 I 根据题干中的 three-year degree pr
32、ogram和 Hartwick定位到第九段。 第二句提到，这些学生每年修 40个学 分，而丌是以前的 30个学分。可见，三年制的学生每年要修更多的学分。 50. P 根据题干中的 more-focused, less-expensive degrees查找到最 后一段第二句。句中的 attracting和题干中的 attractive to对应。 51 J 根据题干中的 Judson College定位到第十段。第二句提到 ， 40年来 Judson College一直为学生提供三年制的选择 。 several decades(数十年 )不文中的40 years对应。 52 M 此题较难，信息
33、点对应 第十三段前面部分。 deprives students of the luxury of time相当亍 dont have much time。 53 M 根据题干中的 faculty members和 workforce查找到第十三段最后一句。pose a threat to是 threatens的同义改写。 54 K 根据题干中的 in high schools定位到第十一段。 该段第一 句说明高中正在发生的变化使学生更容易在更短时间内取得学位，紧接着说明原因，1/5的学生迚入大学前就有 AP学分。 55. O 根据 a rapidly changing world定位至倒数第二
34、段。 题目中的 are aware和该段中的 are realizing对应 ， that they must. changing world也不原文一致 。 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 练习二 Obamas success isnt all good news for black Americans A As Erin White watched the election results head towards victory for Barack Obama, she felt a burden lifting from her should
35、ers. “In that one second, it was a validation for my whole race,“ she recalls. B “Ive always been an achiever,“ says White, who is studying for an MBA at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “But there had always been these things in the back of my mind questioning whether I really can be
36、who I want. It was like a shadow, following me around saying you can only go so far. Now its like a barrier has been let down.“ Whites experience is what many psychologists had expected - that Obama would prove to be a powerful role model for African Americans. Some hoped his rise to prominence woul
37、d have a big impact on white Americans, too, challenging those who still harbour racist sentiments. “The traits that characterise him are very contradictory to the racial stereotypes that black people are aggressive and uneducated,“ says Ashby Plant of Florida State University. “Hes very intelligent
38、 and eloquent.“ Sting in the tail C Ashby Plant is one of a number of psychologists who seized on Obamas candidacy to test hypotheses about the power of role models. Their work is already starting to reveal how the “Obama effect“ is changing peoples views and behaviour. Perhaps surprisingly, it is n
39、ot all good news: there is a sting in the tail of the Obama effect. D But first the good news. Barack Obama really is a positive role model for African Americans, and he was making an impact even before he got to the White House. Indeed, the Obama effect can be surprisingly immediate and powerful, a
40、s Ray Friedman of Vanderbilt University and his colleagues discovered. Dramatic shift E What can explain this dramatic shift? At the start of the test, the participants had to declare their race and were told their results would be used to assess their strengths and weaknesses. This should have prim
41、ed the subjects with “stereotype threat“ an anxiety that their results will confirm negative stereotypes, which has been shown to damage the performance of African Americans. Obamas successes seemed to act as a shield against this. “We suspect they felt inspired and energised by his victory, so the
42、stereotype threat wouldnt prove a distraction,“ says Friedman. 屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 *屠皓民 版权所有 丌得用亍出版授课 Lingering racism F If the Obama effect is positive for African Americans, how is it affecting their white compatriots (同胞 )? Is the experience of having a charismatic (有魅力的 ) black president modifying
43、 lingering racist attitudes? There is no easy way to measure racism directly; instead psychologists assess what is known as “implicit bias“, using a computer-based test that measures how quickly people associate positive and negative wordssuch as “love“ or “evil“with photos of black or white faces.
44、A similar test can also measure how quickly subjects associate stereotypical traitssuch as athletic skills or mental abilitywith a particular group. G In a study that will appear in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Plants team tested 229 students during the height of the Obama fever. T
45、hey found that implicit bias has fallen by as much as 90% compared with the level found in a similar study in 2006. “Thats an unusually large drop,“ Plant says. While the team cant be sure their results are due solely to Obama, they also showed that those with the lowest bias were likely to subconsc
46、iously associate black skin colour with political words such as “government“ or “president“. This suggests that Obama was strongly on their mind, says Plant. Drop in bias H Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who runs a website that measures implicit bias using similar test
47、, has also observed a small drop in bias in the 700,000 visitors to the site since January 2007, which might be explained by Obamas rise to popularity. However, his preliminary results suggest that change will be much slower coming than Plants results suggest. Talking honestly I “People now have the
48、 opportunity of expressing support for Obama every day,“ says Daniel Effron at Stanford University in California. “Our research arouses the concern that people may now be more likely to raise negative views of African Americans.“ On the other hand, he says, it may just encourage people to talk more
49、honestly about their feelings regarding race issues, which may not be such a bad thing. J Another part of the study suggests far more is at stake than the mere expression of views. The Obama effect may have a negative side. Just one week after Obama was elected president, participants were less ready to support policies designed to address racial inequality than they had been two weeks bef
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