Between the last application season and the current one, Swarthmore College, a school nationally renowned for its academic rigor

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问题     Between the last application season and the current one, Swarthmore College, a school nationally renowned for its academic rigor, changed the requirements for students competing for admission into its next freshman class. It made filling out the proper forms easier.
    Swarthmore is hardly alone in its desire to eliminate obstacles for a bounty of applicants. Over the last decade, many elite colleges have adjusted their applications in ways that remove disincentives and maximize the odds that the number of students contesting to get in remains robust—or, even better, grows larger.
    In one sense, that’s a commendably egalitarian approach and a sensible attempt to be sure that no qualified candidate is missed. But there’s often a less pure motive in play. In our increasingly status-oriented society, a school’s reputation is improved by a low acceptance rate, which can even influence how U.S. News & World Report ranks it. And unless a school is shrinking the size of its student body, the only way to bring its acceptance rate down is to get its number of applicants up. So, many colleges methodically generate interest only to frustrate it. They woo applicants for the purpose of turning them down.
    And there can be other justifications for what looks like a loosening of application demands. Smith College and several other similarly prominent colleges no longer require the SAT or ACT, and Kathleen McCartney, the president of Smith College, said that that’s not a bid for more applicants. It’s a recognition that top scores on those tests correlate with high family income and may say more about an applicant’s economic advantages—including, say, private SAT tutoring—than about academic potential.
    Jim Bock, Swarthmore’s dean of admissions, said that by lightening the essay load for its current applicants, the college was less concerned about boosting its overall number of applicants than about making sure candidates of great merit didn’t miss out on Swarthmore and vice versa. He mentioned the hypothetical example of a high school student from a low-income family who works 10 or more hours a week and doesn’t have ample time to do different essays for different schools.
    But will Swarthmore’s applicants this year give quite as much thought to its suitability for them, to whether it’s the right home? I’m betting not.
    When it’s a snap for a student to apply to yet one more college and each school is simply another desirable cereal on a top shelf that he or she is determined to reach, there’s inadequate thought to a tailored match, which is what the admissions process should strive for. It’s what the measure of success should be.
What changes did Swarthmore College make in the application process?

选项 A、Lowering its requirement for admission.
B、Simplifying its application procedure.
C、Maximizing its next freshman class size.
D、Eliminating obstacles for minority applicants.

答案B

解析 第一段最后一句可知,该学校所做的改变是简化填写申请表格的流程,即B项所述。A项偷换概念,该学院降低的是申请的难度,而不是入学的标准。第二段提到大学是希望将增加申请人数的机率最大化,而不是C项所说的“将新生的规模最大化”。D项中的minority applicants“少数族裔申请者”没有在文中提到。
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