The bastion of excellence in American education is being destroyed by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is,

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问题    The bastion of excellence in American education is being destroyed by state budget cuts and mounting costs. Whatever else it is, higher education is shot through with waste, lax academic standards and mediocre teaching and scholarship.
   Higher education is a bloated enterprise. Too many professors do too little teaching to too many ill-prepared students. Costs can be cut and quality improved without reducing the number of graduates. Many colleges and universities should shrink. Some should go out of business.
   Even so, our system has strengths. It boasts many top-notch schools and allows almost anyone to go to college. But mediocrity is pervasive. We push as many freshmen as possible through the door, regardless of qualifications. We create more graduate degrees of dubious worth. Does anyone believe the MBA explosion has improved management?
   You won’t hear much about this from college deans or university presidents. They created this mess and are its biggest beneficiaries. Large enrollments support large faculties. More graduate students liberate tenured faculty from undergraduate teaching to concentrate on writing and research.
   Private schools will, for better or worse, be influenced by state actions. The states need to do three things.
   First, create genuine entrance requirements. States should raising tuitions sharply and coupling the increase with generous scholarships based on merit and income. To get scholarships, students would have to pass meaningful entrance exams. Ideally, the scholarships should be available for use at in-state private schools. All schools would then compete for students on the basis of academic quality and costs. Today’ s system of general tuition subsidies provides aid to well-to-do families that don’ t need it or to unqualified students who don’ t deserve it.
   Next, states should raise faculty teaching loads. This would cut costs and reemphasize the primacy of teaching at most schools. "You can’t do more of one (research) without less of the other (teaching)," says Fairweather. "People are working hard—it’s just where they’re working."
   Finally, states should reduce or eliminate the least useful graduate programs. Journalism or communications, business and education are prime candidates. A lot of what they teach can—and should—be learned on the job. If colleges and universities did a better job of teaching undergraduates, there would be less need for graduate degrees.
   Our colleges and universities need to provide a better education to deserving students. Higher education could become a bastion of excellence, if we would only try.
The author’ s attitude towards college deans and university presidents is one of_____.

选项 A、sympathy
B、dissatisfaction
C、objectiveness
D、tolerance

答案B

解析 根据题干关键词定位到文章第四段。作者表示“你不会从学院院长或大学校长那里听到这些。就是他们制造了这些混乱,他们是最大的受益者”。由此可见,作者对这两类人的态度并不友好,所以B项“不满”更符合文意。sympathy“同情”、objectiveness“客观” 和tolerance“容忍”均不恰当。故选B。
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