Unit 78


There was a time when big-league university presidents really mattered. The New York Times covered their every move. Presidents, the real ones, sought their counsel. For Woodrow Wilson and Dwight Eisenhower, being head of Princeton and Columbia, respectively, was a stepping-stone to the White House. Today, though, the job of college president is less and less removed from that of the Avon lady (except the house calls are made to the doorsteps of wealthy alumni）.

Ruth Simmons, the newly installed president of Brown University and the first African American to lead an Ivy League school, is a throwback to the crusading campus leaders of old. She doesn't merely marshal funds; she invests them in the great educational causes of our day. With the more than $300 million she raised as president of Smith College from 1995 to 2001, Simmons established an engineering program (the first at any women's school) and added seminars focused on public speaking to purge the ubiquitous “likes”and “ums”from the campus idiom. At a meeting to discuss the future of Smith's math department, one professor timidly requested two more discussion sections for his course. Her response: “Dream bigger.”

Her own dream was born in a sharecropper's shack in East Texas where there was no money for books or toys——she and her 11 siblings each got an apple, an orange and 10 nuts for Christmas. Though she was called nigger on her walk to school, entering the classroom, she says, “was like waking up.”When Simmons won a scholarship to Dillard University, her high school teachers took up a collection so she'd have a coat. She went on to Harvard to earn a Ph. D. in Romance languages.

Simmons has made diversity her No. 1 campus crusade. She nearly doubled the enrollment of black freshmen at Smith, largely by traveling to high schools in the nation's poorest ZIP codes to recruit. Concerned with the lives of minority students once they arrive at school, she has fought to ease the racial standoffs that plague so many campuses. At Smith she turned down a request by students to have race-specific dorms. In 1993, while vice provost at Princeton, she wrote a now famous report recommending that the university establish an office of conflict resolution to defuse racial misunderstandings before they boiled over.

Her first task at Brown will be to heal one such rupture last spring after the student paper published an incendiary ad by conservative polemicist David Horowitz arguing that blacks economically benefited from slavery. “There's no safe ground for anybody in race relations, but campuses, unlike any other institution in our society, provide the opportunity to cross racial lines,”says Simmons. “And even if you're hurt, you can't walk away. You have to walk over that line.”

注（1）：本文选自Time；

注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象为 2004年真题Text 2。

1. What does the author intend to illustrate with the example of Woodrow Wilson and Dwight Eisenhower?

A) The president of the first-class university was really very important.

B) University presidents gave them some good advice.

C) The presidents of universities could easily go to the white house.

D) University presidents had more power and authority than Avon ladies.

2. What can we infer from the second paragraph?

A) Simmons was an old crusading campus leader.

B) Simmons wanted to expand her university.

C) Simmons knew well about how to invest money.

D) Simmons was a competent and ambitious president.

3. We can learn from the fourth paragraph that______.

A) Simmons greatly sympathized the black people

B) Simmons wanted to diversify her university

C) Simmons made a great effort to solve the racial problems

D) Simmons never neglected the racial problems

4. What does the author mean by saying “the job of college president is less and less removed from that of the Avon lady”（Lines 4~5, Paragraph 1）?

A) College presidents can get their position with the help of Avon ladies.

B) The job of college president and that of the Avon lady are quite similar.

C) College presidents got inspiration from the job of the Avon lady.

D) The jobs of college presidents and the Avon lady should be separated.

5. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

A) Simmons had successfully solved the racial problems.

B) Simmons owed her success to her high school teachers.

C) Simmons didn't like “likes”and “ums”in campus idioms.

D) Simmons asked her professor to be more ambitious and aggressive.





篇章剖析


本文可以说是一篇记叙文，主要记述作为校园改革派的大学校长鲁思·西蒙斯的一些轶事。文章第一段就以前的大学校长和当今的大学校长的不同之处进行了对比；第二段记述了鲁思·西蒙斯作为布朗大学的新任校长和第一个一流学校的黑人校长的一些做法；第三段描述了她的贫困家境以及求学的艰辛；第四段记述了她在以往任职的学校里的一些举措；第五段记述了她在布朗大学所要解决的首要问题。





词汇注释


big-league /ˈbigˈliːg/ adj. 一流的，最高的

removed /rɪˈmuːvd/ adj. (from）有区别的；遥远的；不同的

alumni /əˈlʌmnaɪ/ n. 〈口〉校友（alumnus的复数，可指男女）

Ivy League (美国东北部哈佛、哥伦比亚等八所名牌大学的）常春藤联合会

throwback /ˈθrəʊbæk/ n. 【生】返祖现象；〈喻〉 大倒退；逆转；（电影中的）前景重现；（小说的）倒叙

crusade /kruːˈseɪd/ n. 十字军；改革运动

of old 古时的，很久以前的

marshal /ˈmɑːʃ(ə)l/ v. 汇集 n. 元帅

purge /pɜːdʒ/ v. （使）净化，清除

ubiquitous /juːˈbɪkwɪtəs/ adj. 到处存在的，普遍存在的

sharecropper /ˈʃeəkrɒpə(r)/ n. （尤指美国西南部的）小佃农

shack /ʃæk/ n. 小室

sibling /ˈsɪblɪŋ/ n. 兄弟，姐妹，同胞，同属

ZIP code邮区代码，邮政编码（一种划分美国邮政区域的五位数号码）

recruit /rɪˈkruːt/ v. 招生；征募

standoff /ˈstændɒf, -ɔːf/ n. 避开；冷淡

provost /ˈprɒvəst; (US) prəʊ-/ n. 宪兵司令，监狱看守，教务长

boil over 因沸溢出，发怒

heal /hiːl/ v. 治愈，医治，结束

rupture /ˈrʌptʃə(r)/ n. 破裂，决裂，敌对，割裂

incendiary /ɪnˈsendɪəri/ adj. 纵火的，煽动的

polemicist /pəˈlemɪsɪst/ n. 善辩论者





难句突破


Her first task at Brown will be to heal one such rupture last spring after the student paper published an incendiary ad by conservative polemicist David Horowitz arguing that blacks economically benefited from slavery.

主体句式：Her first task will be to heal one rupture after the paper published an ad.

结构分析：本句是一个主从复合句。主句后有after引导的时间状语从句；by 意为“由…做（写）”；arguing是现在分词作状语，对polemicist David Horowitz进行补充说明；后又跟that引导的宾语从句作argue的宾语。

句子译文：去年春天，学生报上刊登了一篇由保守派辩论家戴维·霍罗威茨撰写的煽动性文章。他在文章中诡称，黑人在经济上受益于奴隶制。文章一发表，就导致了种族关系的破裂。她在布朗大学的首要任务就是要修复这一裂痕。





题目分析


1. A 细节题。文章第一段就以前的大学校长和当今的大学校长的不同之处进行了对比，There was a time when big-league university presidents really mattered是第一段前半部分的主题句，随后作者以伍德罗·威尔逊和艾森豪威尔为例，进一步说明这一观点。

2. D 推理题。第二段记述了鲁思·西蒙斯作为布朗大学的新任校长和第一个“常春藤”名校的黑人校长的一些成功的举措，其中包括如何进行资金运作，这些说明她是非常有能力的；在讨论史密斯大学数学系发展前景的会议上，她对教授说“Dream bigger”，表明她还是非常有雄心的。

3. C 主旨题。第四段记述了鲁思·西蒙斯在她以往任职的学校里为解决种族问题进行的一些努力和尝试。

4. B 语义题。文章第一段前半部分提到曾有一段时间一流大学的校长是非常重要的人物。紧接着though引导的句子进行了转折，指出校长的工作同雅芳小姐的工作差别越来越小了。这里主要考查“be removed from”的用法，其中removed是形容词，词组含义是“有区别的；遥远的；不同的”。

5. D 细节题。文中对应信息是one professor timidly requested two more discussion sections for his course. Her response: “Dream bigger.”





参考译文


曾有一段时间，一流大学的校长着实起着举足轻重的作用。《纽约时代》杂志一直关注着他们的一举一动。就连总统也向他们征求意见。伍德罗·威尔逊和艾森豪威尔曾是普林斯顿和哥伦比亚大学的校长，他们的大学校长身份是他们入主白宫的敲门砖。然而，今天大学校长的差事与雅芳小姐的工作差别越来越小了（除登门拜访有钱的校友外）。

鲁思·西蒙斯是布朗大学的新任校长，也是第一位领导“常春藤”名校的黑人校长，她继承了过去校园改革派领导人的遗风。她不单只是筹集资金，还把这些资金投入到我们伟大的教育事业之中。西蒙斯用她在1995~2001年担任史密斯学院院长期间筹集到的3亿美元的资金开设了工程学专业（开设这个专业在女子学校里尚属首次），并增设演讲研讨会，以把那些无所不在的“像”和“嗯”等废话从校园用语中清除出去。在一次讨论史密斯大学数学系发展前景的会议上，一个教授战战兢兢地提出能否给他的课再增加两次讨论。她是这样回答的：“再大胆些。”

她自己的梦想是在得克萨斯州东部的一个佃农小屋里诞生的。家里没钱买书或玩具——过圣诞节时，她和十一个兄弟姐妹每人只得到一个苹果、一个橘子和十个坚果。尽管在去上学的路上有人叫她黑鬼，但进教室时她却说：“这倒唤醒了我。”当她获得迪拉德大学的奖学金时，她的高中老师慷慨解囊，凑钱让她买一件外套。毕业后她接着上哈佛大学，攻读拉丁系语言博士学位。

西蒙斯把多样性作为校园改革的头等大事。她几乎使史密斯大学的黑人新生入学人数翻了一番。能做到这一步主要是靠她亲自到美国最贫困地区的高中去招生。少数民族学生来校后，她一直关心学生的情况，一直为缓解令很多校园十分苦恼的种族冷漠情绪而奋斗。在史密斯大学，她拒绝了学生提出的按种族分住公寓的要求。她在1993年任普林斯顿大学副教务长期间，写了一篇至今仍很著名的报告。在报告中，她建议大学成立一个专门解决种族冲突的办公室，以便在种族误解激化之前将其化解。

去年春天，学生报上刊登了一篇由保守派辩论家戴维·霍罗威茨撰写的煽动性文章。他在文章中诡称，黑人在经济上受益于奴隶制。文章一发表，就导致了种族关系的破裂。她（西蒙斯）在布朗大学的首要任务就是要修复这一裂痕。“在种族关系中，任何人都没有什么安全的地方。但是校园不同于我们社会上的其他机构，它给我们提供了跨越种族界限的机会，”西蒙斯说，“即便你受到了伤害，你也不能一走了之，你得跨越这条线。”





Unit 79


The best public higher education in the world is to be found at the University of California (UC）. This claim is backed up by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, which provides an authoritative ranking of research universities. The UC's campus at Berkeley ranks third behind two private universities, Harvard and Stanford. Several of the other ten UC sites, such as Los Angeles and San Diego, are not far behind. Californians are justifiably proud. It is therefore no small matter that this glory may be about to end. “We are in irreversible decline,”says Sandra Faber, a professor of astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz who has inadvertently become a mouthpiece for a fed-up faculty. University excellence, she says, “took decades to build. It takes a year to destroy it.”

California has been suffering serial budget crises, the latest of which was resolved last month in a rather desperate deal between the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the legislature. It contained huge cuts, including $2 billion lopped from higher education. The UC alone has lost a cumulative $813m of state funding in the last fiscal year and the current one, a cut of 20%. The second-tier California State University (Cal State), with 23 campuses the largest in the country, and the third-tier community colleges have also been clobbered.

The cuts threaten the legacy of two visionaries, Edmund “Pat”Brown, governor from 1959 to 1967, and Clark Kerr, who was in charge of the UC during those years. Kerr envisioned the state's public universities as “bait to be dangled in front of industry, with drawing power greater than low taxes or cheap labour.”In a 1960 master-plan he created the three-tiered system.

His ambition was simple. First, to educate as many young Californians as affordably as possible. The best students would go to the UC, the next lot to Cal State and the rest to community colleges with the possibility of trading up. Second, to attract academic superstars. Kerr went about this like a talent scout, and his successors have continued the practice. The UC campuses have collectively produced more Nobel laureates than any other university.

But the master-plan has been under strain for years. State spending per student in the UC system, adjusted for inflation, has fallen by 40% since 1990, says Mark Yudof, the current UC president. The Public Policy Institute of California, a non-partisan think-tank, projects that California's economy will face a shortfall of 1m college graduates by 2025, depressing the prosperity of the entire state. Public universities, which award 75% of all the state's bachelor degrees, will be largely responsible.

Academic excellence is likely to be the first victim. Both the UC and Cal State are planning to send professors and staff on leave, cram more students into classrooms and offer fewer courses. Attracting and keeping academic stars, and the research dollars that usually follow them, will become much harder. It is already happening, says Ms Faber. She recently hired three world-class assistant professors whose salaries are now at risk. Other universities have begun to get in touch with them, she says, and they will probably leave. Their best students may go with them. “We are eating our seed corn,”the professor laments.

注（1）：本文选自Economist；

注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象为2005年真题Text 1。

1. In the opening paragraph, the author introduces his topic by______.

A) explaining a phenomenon

B) justifying an assumption

C) posing a contrast

D) making a comparison

2. The statement “It takes a year to destroy it.”（Line 8, Paragraph 1) implies that______.

A) it usually takes one year to destroy university excellence

B) university excellence is much harder to build than to destroy

C) it takes a short time to destroy university excellence

D) to build university excellence is more time-consuming than to destroy it

3. Clark Kerr designed the three-tiered system for California in order to______.

A) make public higher education more available and recruit more talents

B) fulfill his job as the head of UC when Edmund “Pat”Brown was the governor

C) make public higher education more attractive than low taxes and cheap labour

D) produce as many Nobel laureates as possible

4. The statistics in Paragraph 5 help us draw a conclusion that______.

A) the Californian public universities are suffering from financial crises

B) California will soon face the embarrassing situation of talent shortage

C) due to lacking fund, the Californian public universities will have fewer graduates

D) California is going to sink in a long-term economic recession

5. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A) The UC and Cal State are forced to fire some faulty and staff.

B) The Californian higher education may lose its core competitiveness.

C) The UC and Cal State are actively fighting against the financial constraint.

D) The Californian higher education will lose all its best professors and students.





篇章剖析


本文讨论的主要问题是，经济危机给加州带来的财政限制将给加州卓越的高等教育带来久远的负面影响。第一、二段先介绍了加州大学在全世界声誉卓著，但现在可能将失去这种荣誉，原因在于加州政府预算大幅削减，其中包括教育支出；第三、四段介绍了加州教育体系创始人的办学理念；最后两段进一步分析了削减预算对加州的公立大学造成的影响，包括学生的减少及学术水准的降低。





词汇注释


astrophysics /ˌæstrəʊˈfɪzɪks/ n. 天体物理学

inadvertently /ˌɪnədˈvɜːtəntli/ adv. 无心地，非故意地

mouthpiece /ˈmaʊθpiːs/ n. 代言人；喉舌

lop /lɒp/ v. 砍，删，削减

cumulative /ˈkjuːmjulətɪv/ adj. 累积的，累加的

clobber /ˈklɒbə/ v. 痛打；击倒

legacy /ˈlegəsi/ n. 遗产；遗赠

dangle /ˈdæŋgl/ v. 悬摆，悬荡

scout /skaʊt/ n. 球探、星探等人才发掘者

laureate /ˈlɒrɪət/ n. 得奖者

partisan /ˌpɑːtɪˈzæn/ adj. 党派的

cram /kræm/ v. 填满，塞满





难句突破


The Public Policy Institute of California, a non-partisan think-tank, projects that California's economy will face a shortfall of 1m college graduates by 2025, depressing the prosperity of the entire state.

主体句式：The Public Policy Institute of California projects that…

结构分析：本句的主体句式比较简单，只不过中间夹了一个同位语a non-partisan think-tank，用来对前面提到的institute进行补充说明。that引导了一个宾语从句，该从句的主干是California's economy will face a shortfall，句子最后的depressing…部分是分词作状语，说明前面提到的问题将造成的后果。

句子译文：无党派智囊团，加州公共政策研究所预测，到2025年，加州将面临短缺100万大学毕业生的问题，这将给整个州的经济前景蒙上一层阴影。





题目分析


1. C 论证方式题。文中第一段先描述了加州大学一直以来在世界上享有盛誉，紧接着指出，现在这种荣耀可能即将结束。这其实是把加州大学的前后情况做了对比，因此C是正确答案。

2. B 语义题。引文是第一段最后桑德拉·费伯说的话，这句话前面说道“创造卓越需要几十年的时间”，下面马上指出“毁掉它却只需要一年”，这并不是说一般要毁掉大学的卓越声誉需要一年时间，因此可以首先排除A项。本题的难点在于C项和D项的从表面上看来都没有问题，关键是要理解文中对比的隐含意义，桑德拉·费伯在这里要强调的是，毁掉一所大学的卓越声誉要远远比建立这种声誉容易得多，所以B才是最佳答案。

3. A 细节题。本题主要针对文章第四段，该段第一句话就提到His ambition was simple，可见接下来要讨论他建立这个三层体系的目的，主要有两点：首先，在能力可承受的范围内，尽量为更多的加州年轻人提供受教育的机会；其次，吸引学术界的超级明星。各个选项中只有A项最好地概括了这两点。