In the past, American colleges and universities were created to serve a dual purpose to advance learning and to offer a chance t

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问题     In the past, American colleges and universities were created to serve a dual purpose to advance learning and to offer a chance to become familiar with bodies of knowledge already discovered to those who wished it. To create and to impart, these were the distinctive features of American higher education prior to the most recent, disorderly decades of the twentieth century. The successful institution of higher learning had never been one whose mission could be defined in terms of providing vocational skills or as a strategy for resolving societal problems.
    Another purpose has now been assigned to the mission of American colleges and universities. Institutions of higher learning—public or private—commonly face the challenge of defining their programs in such a way as to contribute to the service of the community.
    This service role has various applications. Most common are programs to meet the demands of regional employment markets, to provide opportunities for upward social and economic mobility, to achieve racial, ethnic, or social integration, or more generally to produce "productive" as compared to "educated" graduates. Regardless of its precise definition, the idea of a service-university has won acceptance within the academic community.
    One need only be reminded of the change in language describing the two-year college to appreciate the new value currently being attached to the concept of a service-related university. The traditional two-year college has shed its pejorative "junior" college label and is generally called a " community college" , a clearly value-laden expression representing the latest commitment in higher education. Even the doctoral degree, long recognized as a required "union card" in the academic world, has come under severe criticism as the pursuit of learning for its own sake and the accumulation of knowledge without immediate application to the professor’s classroom duties. The idea of a college or university that performs a triple function—communicating knowledge to students, expanding the content of various disciplines, and interacting in a direct relationship with society—has been the most important change in higher education in recent years.
    This novel development, however, is often overlooked. Educators have always been familiar with those parts of the two-year college curriculum that have a "service" or vocational orientation. It is important to know this. But some commentaries on American postsecondary education tend to underplay the impact of the attempt of colleges and universities to relate to, if not resolve, the problems of society. What’s worse, they obscure a fundamental question posed by the service-university—what is higher education supposed to do?
Which of the following does NOT belong to the applications of the colleges’ novel role?

选项 A、Producing "educated" graduates.
B、Improving people’s social and economic status.
C、Cultivating "productive" graduates.
D、Promoting employment.

答案A

解析 根据题干信号词the applications of the colleges’novel role可回文定位到第三段首句This service role has various applications.(这种服务角色有着方方面面的应用)。本句作为本段的总述句,考生要关注紧随其后的扩展论述信息,即“新角色应用”的具体信息,故第二句是本题目的“题眼”。注:第二句出现的四个不定式短语即是具体“新角色的应用”,是对前一句“various applications”的具体分述:Most common are programs to…,to…,to…,or more generally to…(最常见的课程目的有……)。
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