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

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, 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.(Of course, that perspective is even more relevant today when the price of an undergraduate education at some private universities hovers in the $200,000 range.)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.
    Higher education’s response. It helps to have this principle to focus on when the inevitable criticisms of the rankings and their influence arise. Chief among the criticisms is the idea that it is impossible to reduce the experience that any given college has to offer to a number on a list. A fair enough observation, but one that does little to help the student who will have to choose just one to attend. Another criticism of the rankings is that they often substitute as a sort of performance evaluation measure for the school and its employees. U. S. News is keenly aware that the higher education community is also a major audience and consumer of our rankings. We understand how seriously academics, administrators, and governing boards study and analyze our rankings and how they use them in various ways, including benchmarking, alumni fundraising, and advertising to attract students.
From the second paragraph we can know that
选项 A、in 1983, it was still unknown whether there was a void of information to help people make direct comparisons between colleges.
B、the editors led by Marvin L. Stone doubted about the value of attempting the project of college rankings.
C、the survey designed by the magazine was to get the opinions of which is the most important in college rankings.
D、Amherst(National Liberal Arts Colleges)was one of the winners in the survey.
答案D
解析 事实细节题。由题干提示定位至第二段。由该段第一句可知，今天人们难以想象是否有一些信息能帮助人们在大学之间直接作比较，而在1983年，这一情况是肯定的，而不是在1983年人们觉得难以想象，因此[A]错误；从第二段第二句The editors back then，led by Maryin L．Stone，thought the project was worth attempting…可知，编辑们认为这一项目是值得的，而不是持怀疑态度，因此[B]错误；从第二段第三句可知，该杂志设计的调查是为了得到哪所学校提供了最好的教育观点，而非在大学排名中什么是最重要的这一问题的观点，因此[C]错误；从第二段最后一句Thewinners：Stanford(National Universities)and Amherst(National Liberal Arts Colleges)．可知，阿默斯特(国立文学院)是本次调查中的获胜者之一，因此[D]正确。
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