Question

The Cost of Higher Education

       Individuals (個(gè)人) should pay for their higher education.

       A university education is of huge and direct benefit to the individual. Graduates earn more than non-graduates. Meanwhile, social mobility is ever more dependent on having a degree. However, only some people have it. So the individual, not the taxpayers, should pay for it. There are pressing calls on the resources (資源) of the government. Using taxpayers' money to help a small number of people to earn high incomes in the future is not one of them.

       Full government funding (資助) is not very good for universities. Adam Smith worked in a Scottish university whose teachers lived off student fees. He knew and looked down upon 18th-century Oxford, where the academics lived comfortably off the income received from the government. Guaranteed salaries, Smith argued, were the enemy of hard work; and when the academics were lazy and incompetent, the students were similarly lazy.

       If students have to pay for their education, they not only work harder, but also demand more from their teachers. And their teachers have to keep them satisfied. If that means taking teaching seriously, and giving less time to their own research interests, that is surely something to celebrate.

       Many people believe that higher education should be free because it is good for the economy (經(jīng)濟(jì)). Many graduates clearly do contribute to national wealth, but so do all the businesses that invest (投資) and create jobs. If you believe that the government should pay for higher education because graduates are economically productive, you should also believe that the government should pay part of business costs. Anyone promising to create jobs should receive a gift of capital from the government to invest. Therefore, it is the individual, not the government, who should pay for their university education.

1. The underlined word "them" in Paragraph 2 refers to____________

      A. taxpayers                     B. pressing calls

      C. college graduates              D. government resources

2. The author thinks that with full government funding____________

      A. teachers are less satisfied

      B. students are more demanding

      C. students will become more competent

      D. teachers will spend less time on teaching

3. The author mentions businesses in Paragraph 5 in order to ____________

      A. argue against free university education

      B. call on them to finance students' studies

C. encourage graduates to go into business

D. show their contribution to higher education

Answer 1

【小題1】B

【小題2】D

【小題3】A

解析:

【語(yǔ)篇解讀】本篇文章是一篇議論文。大學(xué)教育應(yīng)該是有償教育，而不是無(wú)償?shù)模�免費(fèi)的教育，并且舉例說(shuō)明。

【小題1】詞義猜測(cè)題。就在劃線(xiàn)的前面的there is pressing calls on the source of the government, 故后面的them 替代的是pressing calls. 故選的是B.。

【小題2】推理判斷題。文章的二，三段講的是政府的資金不足，老師的工資不足，優(yōu)秀的老師開(kāi)始偷懶，故選的是D。

【小題3】推理判斷題。文章的倒數(shù)第二段是作者對(duì)提出的觀點(diǎn)加以論證的，證明的是大學(xué)教育是有償?shù)模�而不是免費(fèi)的。