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

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?
Judging from the context, the word "pejorative"(Line 3, Para. 4)most probably means______.
选项 A、ambiguous
B、obscure
C、disapproving
D、uncommon
答案C
解析 根据题干信号词pejorative以及出处提示Line 3，Para．4可回文定位到第四段第二句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(传统的两年制大专院校已摆脱它pejorative低等大学的标签，通常被称之为“社区”大学，其是一个显然充满价值的表达，代表着高等教育最新的致力方向)，鉴于词汇推断题往往需要在问题词的上、下文中寻找线索、推断词义，考生可关注本句问题词前的shed以及后面的junior和clearly value—laden：shed(摆脱)说明其后的pejorative是消极表达，junior(低级的)与pejorative并列，再次说明pejorative是消极表达，and后面的value-laden(充满价值的)与pejorative逻辑对立，明确pejorative是“贬义的”表达，故答案为c。
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