首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
In the college admissions wars. we parents are the true gladiators. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT prep cou
In the college admissions wars. we parents are the true gladiators. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT prep cou
admin
2010-07-19
26
问题
In the college admissions wars. we parents are the true gladiators. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT prep courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. We say our motives are selfless and sensible. A degree from Stanford or Princeton is the ticket for life. If Aaron and Nicole don’t get in, they’re forever doomed. Gosh, we’re delusional.
I’ve twice been to the wars. and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. It’s oneupmanship among parents. We see our kids’ college pedigrees as trophies attesting to how well--or how poorly--we’ve raised them. But we can’t acknowledge mat our obsession is more about us than them. So we’ve contrived various justifications that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn’t matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.
Admissions anxiety afflicts only a minority of parents. It’s true that getting into college has generally become tougher because the number of high-school graduates has grown. From 1994 to 2006, the increase is 28 percent. Still, 64 percent of freshmen attend schools where acceptance rates exceed 70 percent, and the application surge at elite schools dwarfs population growth.
We have a full blown prestige panic; we worry that there won’t be enough trophies to go around. Fearful parents prod their children to apply to more schools than ever. "The epicenters of parental anxiety used to be on the coasts: Boston, New York, Washington, Los Angeles," says Tom Parker, Amherst’s admissions dean. "But it’s radiated throughout the country."
Underlying the hysteria is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts, All that’s plausible--and mostly wrong. "We haven’t found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters," says Ernest T. Pascarella of the University of Iowa, co-author of How College Affects Students, an 827 page evaluation of hundreds of studies of the college experience. Selective schools don’t systematically employ better instructional approaches than less-selective schools, according to a study by Pascarella and George Kuh of Indiana University. Some do; some don’t. On two measures--professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams--selective schools do slightly worse.
By some studies, selective schools do enhance their graduates’ lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2 percent to 4 percent for every 100 point increase in a school’s average SAT scores. But even this ad vantage is probably a statistical fluke. A well known study by Princeton economist Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale of Mathematica Policy Research examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere. They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.
Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may signify intelligence, talent and ambition. But it’s not the only indicator and, paradoxically, its significance is declining. The reason: so many similar people go elsewhere: Getting into college isn’t life’s only competition. In the next competition--the job market, graduate school--the results may change. Old-boy networks are breaking down, Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph. D. program. High scores on the Graduate Record Exam helped explain who got in; Ivy League degrees didn’t.
So, parents, lighten up. The stakes have been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can rationalize our pushiness. America is a competitive society, our kids need to adjust to that. But too much pushiness can be destructive; The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study of students 20 years out found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.
What fires parents’ fanaticism is their self-serving desire to announce their own success. Many succumb; I did. I located my ideal school for my daughter. She got in and went elsewhere. Take that, Dad. I located the ideal school for my son. Fleck, he wouldn’t even visit the place, Pow, Dad. They both love their schools and seem amply stimulated. Foolish Dad.
Which of the following statements about selective schools is TRUE?
选项
A、Selective schools offer better instructional approaches to their students.
B、There are more essay exams in selective schools than other schools.
C、Their new teaching methods secure their graduates’ high salaries.
D、They don’t outperform other schools in terms of professors’ feedback.
答案
D
解析
细节题。由题于中的selective schools定位至第五段。该段末句指出:On two measures--professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams--selective schools do slightly worse.[D]符合文意,故为答案。[B]与此矛盾,排除。第五句提到Selective schools don’t systematically employ better instructional approaches than less-selective schools,排除[A]。[C]与第六段末句“They earned just as much as graduates from higher status schools”不符,排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/qqlO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Readersaresaidto"bark"atatextwhen______.Universityacademicsareconcernedbecause______.
Therelationshipbetweenthehomeandmarketeconomieshasgonethroughtwodistinctstages.Earlyindustrializationbeganthep
Justas【1】______isfamousforthetango,soAmerican【1】______iswell-knownforjazz,atypicalAmericaninvention
OppositiontotheVietnamWarintheUnitedStatesdevelopedimmediatelyafterthebeginningofthewar,chieflyamongtradition
SincejoiningtheEuropeanEconomicCommunityin_____,BritainhasadoptedtheCommunitysystemofagriculturalsupport.
Thousandsofteachersattheelementary,secondary,andcollegelevelscantestifythattheirstudents’writingexhibitsatende
我刚刚接到你的来信,决定用整个上午的时间来给你回信,因为我估料三言两语不能够把我要跟你讲的话讲个明白。我得承认,你所提出的要求很使我诧异,我没有料到提出这个要求的人竟会是你。请你不要以为我说的是气话。如果你一定装作听不懂我的话,那只有请你原谅我失礼了。
A、thefiercerivalryofthecurrentratings"sweep"B、TVdramas’growingtendencytotransformnewsintofictionC、writers’incr
A、hehassomementalproblemsB、heistoooldtoknowwhatheisdoingC、hewantstohaveagoodChristmasD、hehasgotintothe
Bothsyntaxandsemanticsarethebranchesoflinguistics,theformerstudiestherulesgoverningthecombinationofwordsinto
随机试题
甲公司系上市公司,该公司将2011年12月建造完工的建筑物对外出租,按照成本模式对投资性房地产进行后续计量。该建筑物的原价为3000万元.预计净残值为0,采用直线法按照10年计提折旧。2012年末公允价值为3200万元,2013年末公允价值为3300万元。
男婴,8个月。腹泻2个月。出生体重3.5kg,现体重6.8kg,血清总蛋白45g/L,白蛋白25g/L。最可能出现的体征是
在Windows中,若将当前窗口存入剪贴板中,可以按()。
国有专利资产占有单位发生( )的,应当依法进行专利资产的评估。
当前,我国“三农”问题中“以工促农、以城带乡”反映的实质是城乡之间的()。
你过去在工作中最大的压力是什么?
自治条例和单行条例的制定条件是
在数据流图中,带有箭头的线段表示的是()。
UnderethicalguidelinerecentlyadoptedbytheNationalInstitutesofHealth,humangenesaretobemanipulatedonlytocorrect
Childrenaresensitivetodisapprovalandadjusttheirbehaviour______.
最新回复
(
0
)