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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  38
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 passage implies that online courses are______.
选项 A、transforming higher education
B、creating new opportunities for the best
C、bringing some problems to the rest of students
D、helping improve traditional classroom instruction
答案A
解析    主旨大意。本文开宗明义指出“Now online provision is transforming higher education”。尽管始于1971年，但2012年发生了巨变，因为大规模招生开始了。第三段“One spur is economic and political pressure to improve productivity in higher education”分析了慕课蓬勃发展的原因。第四段剖析了慕课相对于传统教育的优势，即学习者可以互动和自主学习。第五段提到欧洲顶尖大学对慕课不屑一顾。最后一段指出慕课要与传统教育竞争，必须获得更多学位授予资格。综上，选项A较准确地概括了原意。【知识拓展】尽管题干用了imply(暗示、蕴含)这个词，但实际上所指内容在原文中是明示的。一般而言，用了imply的题需要做一定的逻辑或语义推理才能捕捉原文深层含义，常见的方式有例证、正话反说、反话正说、归纳、演绎等。
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