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  3. Now online provision is transforming higher education, giving the best universities a chance to widen their catch, opening new o

Now online provision is transforming higher education, giving the best universities a chance to widen their catch, opening new o

admin2019-09-17  42
问题    Now online provision is transforming higher education, giving the best universities a chance to widen their catch, opening new opportunities for the agile, and threatening doom for the slow and average. The roots are decades old. Britain’s Open University started teaching via radio and television in 1971. MIT and others have been posting lectures on the Internet for a decade.
   But the change in 2012 has been electrifying. Two start-ups, both spawned by Stanford University, are recruiting students at an astonishing rate for "massive open online courses" or MOOCs. In January, Sebastian Thrun, a computer-science professor there, announced the launch of Udacity. It started to offer courses the next month — a nanosecond by the standards of old-style university decision-making. In April, two of Mr. Thrun’s ex-colleagues launched a rival, Coursera. At first, it offered online courses from four universities. By August, it had signed up 1 million students, now boasting over 2 million. Harvard and MIT announced they would launch edX, a non-profit venture. Other schools have joined, too.
   One spur is economic and political pressure to improve productivity in higher education. The cost per student in the U.S. has risen at almost five times the rate of inflation since 1983. For universities beset by heavy debts, smaller taxpayer subsidies and a cyclical decline in enrollment, online courses mean better tuition, higher graduation rates and lower-cost degrees. New technology also gives the innovative a chance to shine against their rivals.
   MOOCs are more than good university lectures available online. The real innovation comes from integrating academic talks with interactive coursework, such as automated tests, quizzes and even games. Real-life lectures have no pause, rewind (or fast-forward) buttons; MOOCs let students learn at their own pace, typically with short, engaging videos. The cost of the courses can be spread over huge numbers of students. MOOCs enrich education for worldwide students, especially the cash-strapped, and those dissatisfied with what their own colleges are offering. But for others, especially in poor countries, online education opens the door to yearning for opportunities.
   Some of Europe’s best schools are determinedly unruffled. Oxford says that MOOCs "will not prompt it to change anything", adding that it "does not see them as revolutionary in anything other than scale". Cambridge even says it is "nonsense" to see MOOCs as a rival; it is "not in the business of online education". Such universities are likely to continue to attract the best (and richest) applicants who want personal tuition and the whiff of research in the air. For these places, MOOCs are chiefly a marketing opportunity.
   To compete head-on with established providers, MOOCs must not just teach but also provide credible qualifications. The vast majority of Coursera, Udacity and edX offerings do not provide a degree. This may be one reason for MOOCs’ high dropout rates. Another worry is that online tests are open to cheating and plagiarism. Peer grading even if honest, may be flawed.
The phrase "peer grading" underlined in the last paragraph means______.
选项 A、the honesty of students
B、the flaws in students’ characters
C、students’ assessment of their classmates
D、students of the same age and social status
答案C
解析    词义界定。peer grading出现在最后一句“Peer grading even if honest，may be flawed”，大意是同学互评即使诚实可信，也存在瑕疵。
grading作为主语，属于动名词，其动词grade的本义为“评分”，即使不认识peer(同学，同侪)这个词，也可以根据选项判断，因为只有选项C的assessment表示“评分，评价”。【知识拓展】慕课的评分规则是每一份作业(或测试、考试试卷)由其他五位同学评分，然后取其平均分。这里有两个问题容易招致批评：作业或考试的作弊、抄袭无法有效监控；同学评分的主观性太强，成绩的客观性存疑。
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