When U. S. News started the college and university rankings 25 years ago, no one imagined that these lists would become what som

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问题     When U. S. News started the college and university rankings 25 years ago, no one imagined that these lists would become what some consider to be the 800-pound gorilla of American higher education, important enough to be the subject of doctoral dissertations, academic papers and conferences, endless debate, and constant media coverage. What began with little fanfare" has spawned imitation college rankings in at least 21 countries or regions, including Canada, China, Britain, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, and Taiwan.
    Today, it’s hard to imagine there ever was a void of information to help people make direct comparisons between colleges, but such was the case in 1983 when we first ventured into the field. The editors back then, led by Marvin L. Stone, thought the project was worth attempting because a college education is one of the most important — and most costly — investments that people ever make. So the magazine designed a survey and sent it out to 1, 308 college presidents to get their opinions of which schools offered the best education. The winners: Stanford (National Universities) and Amherst (National Liberal Arts Colleges).
    That academic-reputation-only method was repeated in 1985 and 1987. In 1988, we started to use statistical data as part of the ranking methodology, evaluating those numbers along with the results of the survey. In 1997, in another pioneering step, the America’s Best Colleges rankings made the leap online at usnews. com. The online version, viewed by millions, has substantially more information and extended rankings than there is room for in the magazine.
    Of course, we’ve changed the ranking formula over the years to reflect changes in the world of higher education. In general, the biggest shift has been the move toward evaluating colleges less by the quality of the students they attract (inputs) and more by the success the school has in graduating those students (outputs). We operate under the guiding principle that the methodology should be altered only if the change will better help our readers compare schools as they’re making decisions about where to apply and enroll.
    Based on the success of the college rankings, we decided to expand the process to other levels of education. The America’s Best Graduate Schools rankings debuted in 1990 with annual listings of medical, engineering, law, business, and education schools.
    Our newest education ranking is America’s Best High Schools, first published in the fall of 2007. It identified the 100 best public schools out of more than 18,000 across the nation. Just as when we embarked on college rankings, setting up the process wasn’t easy, but it’s already proved to have enormous weight with our readers.
Which of the following is the biggest shift of the ranking formula?

选项 A、Evaluating colleges by using statistical data as part of the ranking methodology.
B、Evaluating colleges by using the online version in the ranking as a pioneering step.
C、Evaluating colleges less by the diligence of the students the school attracts.
D、Evaluating colleges more by the success the school achieves in graduating students.

答案D

解析 事实细节题。从第四段第二句可知,最大的转变是,较少地通过它们吸引的学生质量(输入层面)来评估,更多地从学校输出大学生的成功度上来评估,因此[D]正确;[A]和[B]在第三段中提及,但不是排名最大的转变;从文中相应文字可知,“较少地通过它们吸引的学生质量(输入层面)来评估”,而不是“较少地通过它们所吸引学生的勤奋程度来评估”,因此[C]错误。
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