By almost any measure, there is a boom in Internet-based instruction. In just a few years, 34 percent of American universities h

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问题     By almost any measure, there is a boom in Internet-based instruction. In just a few years, 34 percent of American universities have begun offering some form of distance learning (DL), and among the larger schools, it’s closer to 90 percent. If you doubt the popularity of the trend, you probably haven’t heard of the University of Phoenix. It grants degrees entirely on the basis of online instruction. It enrolls 90,000 students, a statistic used to support its claim to be the largest private university in the country.
    While the kinds of instruction offered in these programs will differ, DL usually signifies a course in which the instructors post syllabi (课程大纲), reading assignments, and schedules on Websites, and students send in their assignments by e-mail. Generally speaking, face-to-face communication with an instructor is minimized or eliminated altogether.
    The attraction for students might at first seem obvious. Primarily, there’s the convenience promised by courses on the Net: you can do the work, as they say, in your pajamas (睡衣). But figures indicate that the reduced effort results in a reduced commitment to the course. While dropout rates for all freshmen at American universities is around 20 percent, the rate for online students is 35 percent. Students themselves seem to understand the weaknesses inherent in the setup. In a survey conducted for eCornell, the DL division of Cornell University, less than a third of the respondents expected the quality of the online course to be as good as the classroom course.
    Clearly, from the schools’ perspective, there’s a lot of money to be saved. Although some of the more ambitious programs require new investments in servers and networks to support collaborative software, most DL courses can run on existing or minimally upgraded (升级) systems. The more students who enroll in a course but don’t come to campus, the more the school saves on keeping the lights on in the classrooms, paying doorkeepers, and maintaining parking lots. And, while there’s evidence that instructors must work harder to run a DL course for a variety of reasons, they won’t be paid any more, and might well be paid less.

选项 A、All its courses are offered online.
B、Its online courses are of the best quality.
C、It boasts the largest number of students on campus.
D、Anyone taking its online courses is sure to get a degree.

答案A

解析 本题问“菲尼克斯大学最为显著的特征是什么?”文章第一段第四至五句指出“It grants degrees entirely on the basis of online instruction.”(菲尼克斯大学完全以网络授课为基础颁发学位。)。故[A]“它所有的课程都是在网络上提供的”正确。[B]“它的网络课程质量最佳。”文章中没有提到菲尼克斯大学网络课程的质量问题。[C]“它以校园内学生的数目最多而自豪。”文章中提到,菲尼克斯大学声称是全国人数最多的私立大学,但是由于课程是通过网络传授的,所以它的在校人数不可能是最多的。[D]“每位参加其网络授课的学生都一定会伞到学位。”文章指出,菲尼克斯大学以网络授课为基础颁发学位,这并不等于每位参加了网络授课的人都会取得学位。
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