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  3. Nowadays, our society is being reshaped by information technologies—computers, telecommunications networks, and other digital sy

Nowadays, our society is being reshaped by information technologies—computers, telecommunications networks, and other digital sy

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问题     Nowadays, our society is being reshaped by information technologies—computers, telecommunications networks, and other digital systems. Of course, our society has gone through other periods of dramatic change before, driven by such innovations as the steam engine, railroad, telephone, and automobile. But never before have we experienced technologies that are evolving so rapidly, altering the constraints of time and space, and reshaping the way we communicate, learn, and think.
    The rapid development of digital technologies creates not only more opportunities for the society but challenges to it as well. Institutions of every stripe are grappling to respond by adapting their strategies and activities. It is no exaggeration to say that information technology is completely changing the relationship between people and knowledge.
    But ironically, at the most knowledge-based entities—the colleges and universities—the pace of transformation has been relatively modest. Although research has been transformed by information technology in many ways, and it is increasingly used for student and faculty communications, other higher-education functions have remained almost unchanged. For example, teaching largely continues to follow a classroom-centered, seat-based paradigm. However, some major technology-aided teaching experiments are emerging, and some factors suggest that digital technologies may eventually drive significant change throughout academia.
    American academia has undergone significant change before. The establishment of secular education began during the 18th century and the Land-Grant College Act of 1862 resulted in another transformation. That Act created institutions serving agriculture and industries; academia was no longer just for the wealthy but charged with providing educational opportunities to the working class as well. Around the year of 1900, the introduction of graduate education began to expand the role of the university in training students for careers both scholarly and professional.
    Higher education has already experienced significant technology-based change, even if it currently lags other sectors in some areas. We expect that the new technology will eventually impose a profound impact on university’s teaching by freeing the classroom from its physical and temporal bounds and by providing students with access to original source materials and that new learning communities driven by information technology will allow universities to better teach students how to be critical analyzers and consumers of information.
    The information society has greatly expanded the need for university-level education; lifelong learning is not only a private good for those who pursue it but also a social good in terms of our nation’s ability to maintain a vibrant democracy and support a competitive workforce.
The phrase "higher-education functions" (Line 4, Paragraph 3) probably means ______.
选项 A、increasing students’ ability
B、broaden students’ horizons
C、enriching students’ knowledge
D、the way of teaching
答案D
解析 第三段第三句举的例子“For example，teaching largely continues to follow a classroom-centered，seat—based paradigm．(例如，教学还是以教室为中心、座位为基础的范式为主。)”是对“higher-education functions”的一个解释。由这个例子可以推出，这里“higher-education functions”指的是教学方式。选项A，B和C在文中都没有出现。所以，本题选择D。
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