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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

admin2015-03-25  91
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.
The biggest shift of the ranking formula is the move toward evaluating colleges
选项 A、more by using statistical data as part of the ranking methodology.
B、less by using the online version in the ranking as a pioneering step.
C、more by the success the school has in getting the students better graduated.
D、less by the diligence of the students the school attract.
答案C
解析 事实细节题。由题干关键词shift of the ranking formula和evaluating colleges定位至第四段。从第四段第二句可知，最大的转变是，较少地通过它们吸引的学生质量(输入层面)来评估，而更多地转向通过学校使大学生在毕业上的成功(输出层面)来评估，因此正确答案是[C]。[A]和[B]在第三段中有所涉及，但不是排名最大的转换点；从文中相应文字可知，“较少地通过它们吸引的学生质量(输入层面)来评估”，而不是“通过吸引学生的勤奋程度来评估”，因此[D]错误。
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