Directions:In this section, you are going to read a
passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information
given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the
information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each
paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the
corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2. 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 $43,000—the amount of one year’s
tuition and fees. A number of innovative colleges are making the same offer to
students anxious about saving time and money. That’s both an opportunity and a
warning for the best higher-education system in the world.
B．The United States has almost all of the world’s best universities. A recent
Chinese 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 world’s
wealth. In 2007, 623805 of the world’s brightest students were attracted to
American universities. C．Yet, there are signs of peril (危险)
within American higher education. US 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 federal government provides for university research
is awarded competitively. D．But many colleges and universities
are stuck in the past. For instance, the idea of the fall-to-spring "school
year" hasn’t changed much since before the American Revolution, when we were a
nation of farmers and students put their 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 facilities sit idle, they continue to generate maintenance
expenses that contribute to the high cost of running a college," he has
written. E．Within academic departments, tenure (终身职位), combined
with age-discrimination laws, makes faculty turnover—critical for a university
to remain current in changing times—difficult. Instead of protecting speech and
encouraging diversity and innovative thinking, the tenure system often stifles
(压制) them: younger professors must win the approval of established colleagues
for tenure, encouraging like mindedness and sometimes inhibiting the free flow
of ideas. 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 time 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. Congress
has tried to help students with college costs through 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. G．For all of these reasons, 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 enrolled in the school’s 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. H．By eliminating that
extra year, three-year degree students save 25% in costs. 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 them--and pay extra. Three-year students
get first crack at course registration. There are no changes in the number of
courses professors teach or in their pay. I．The three-year
degree isn’t a new idea. Geniuses have always breezed through. Judson College, a
350-student institution in Alabama, has offered students 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.
J．Changes at the high-school level are also helping to make it 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 more of college-level work. Many universities, including large
schools like the University of Texas, make it easy for these AP students to
graduate faster. K．For students who don’t 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 School’s residency (住院医生)
program, enrolled in Vanderbilt’s 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," says Sergent. He still had time to be a student senator and meet
his wife. L．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 (遨游) intellectually. Compressing everything into three years also leaves
less time for growing up, engaging in extracurricular activities, and studying
abroad. On crowded campuses it could mean fewer opportunities to get into a
prized professor’s class. Iowa’s Waldorf College has graduated several hundred
students in its three-year degree programs, but is now phasing out the option.
Most Waldorf students wanted the full four-year experience—academically,
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. M．"Most high governmental officials seem to conceive
of education in this light—as a way to ensure economic competitiveness and
continued economic growth," Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, told The
Washington Post. "I strongly disagree with this approach." Another risk: the new
campus schedules might eventually produce less revenue for the institution and
longer working hours for faculty members. N．Adopting a
three-year option will not come easily to most schools. Those that wish to
tackle tradition and make American campuses more cost-conscious may find it
easier to take Trachtenberg’s advice: open campuses year-round. "You could run
two complete colleges, with two complete faculties," he says. "That’s without
cutting the length of students’ vacations, increasing class sizes, or requiring
faculty to teach more." O．Whether they experiment with
three-year degrees, offer year-round classes, challenge the tenure system—or all
of the above—universities are slowly realizing that to stay competitive and
relevant they must adapt to a rapidly changing world. Expanding 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-expensive 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. College faculty members are afraid that the pretext of moving students into the workforce might pose a threat to the core curriculum.