2020考研英语阅读理解精读100篇：Unit 79

Unit 79

The best public higher education in the world is to be found at the University of California（UC）. This claim is backed up by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, which provides an authoritative ranking of research universities. The UC’s campus at Berkeley ranks third behind two private universities, Harvard and Stanford. Several of the other ten UC sites, such as Los Angeles and San Diego, are not far behind. Californians are justifiably proud. It is therefore no small matter that this glory may be about to end. “We are in irreversible decline,” says Sandra Faber, a professor of astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz who has inadvertently become a mouthpiece for a fed-up faculty. University excellence, she says, “took decades to build. It takes a year to destroy it.”

California has been suffering serial budget crises, the latest of which was resolved last month in a rather desperate deal between the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the legislature. It contained huge cuts, including $2 billion lopped from higher education. The UC alone has lost a cumulative $813m of state funding in the last fiscal year and the current one, a cut of 20%. The second-tier California State University（Cal State）, with 23 campuses the largest in the country, and the third-tier community colleges have also been clobbered.

The cuts threaten the legacy of two visionaries, Edmund “Pat” Brown, governor from 1959 to 1967, and Clark Kerr, who was in charge of the UC during those years. Kerr envisioned the state’s public universities as “bait to be dangled in front of industry, with drawing power greater than low taxes or cheap labour.” In a 1960 master-plan he created the three-tiered system.

His ambition was simple. First, to educate as many young Californians as affordably as possible. The best students would go to the UC, the next lot to Cal State and the rest to community colleges with the possibility of trading up. Second, to attract academic superstars. Kerr went about this like a talent scout, and his successors have continued the practice. The UC campuses have collectively produced more Nobel laureates than any other university.

But the master-plan has been under strain for years. State spending per student in the UC system, adjusted for inflation, has fallen by 40% since 1990, says Mark Yudof, the current UC president. The Public Policy Institute of California, a non-partisan think-tank, projects that California’s economy will face a shortfall of 1m college graduates by 2025, depressing the prosperity of the entire state. Public universities, which award 75% of all the state’s bachelor degrees, will be largely responsible.

Academic excellence is likely to be the first victim. Both the UC and Cal State are planning to send professors and staff on leave, cram more students into classrooms and offer fewer courses. Attracting and keeping academic stars, and the research dollars that usually follow them, will become much harder. It is already happening, says Ms Faber. She recently hired three world-class assistant professors whose salaries are now at risk. Other universities have begun to get in touch with them, she says, and they will probably leave. Their best students may go with them. “We are eating our seed corn,” the professor laments.

注（1）：本文选自Economist；

注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象为2005年真题Text 1。

1. In the opening paragraph, the author introduces his topic by ______.

A) explaining a phenomenon

B) justifying an assumption

C) posing a contrast

D) making a comparison

2. The statement “It takes a year to destroy it.” （Line 8, Paragraph 1） implies that ______.

A) it usually takes one year to destroy university excellence

B) university excellence is much harder to build than to destroy

C) it takes a short time to destroy university excellence

D) to build university excellence is more time-consuming than to destroy it

3. Clark Kerr designed the three-tiered system for California in order to ______.

A) make public higher education more available and recruit more talents

B) fulfill his job as the head of UC when Edmund “Pat” Brown was the governor

C) make public higher education more attractive than low taxes and cheap labour

D) produce as many Nobel laureates as possible

4. The statistics in Paragraph 5 help us draw a conclusion that ______.

A) the Californian public universities are suffering from financial crises

B) California will soon face the embarrassing situation of talent shortage

C) due to lacking fund, the Californian public universities will have fewer graduates

D) California is going to sink in a long-term economic recession

5. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A) The UC and Cal State are forced to fire some faulty and staff.

B) The Californian higher education may lose its core competitiveness.

C) The UC and Cal State are actively fighting against the financial constraint.

D) The Californian higher education will lose all its best professors and students.

篇章剖析

本文讨论的主要问题是，经济危机给加州带来的财政限制将给加州卓越的高等教育带来久远的负面影响。第一、二段先介绍了加州大学在全世界声誉卓著，但现在可能将失去这种荣誉，原因在于加州政府预算大幅削减，其中包括教育支出；第三、四段介绍了加州教育体系创始人的办学理念；最后两段进一步分析了削减预算对加州的公立大学造成的影响，包括学生的减少及学术水准的降低。

词汇注释

astrophysics /ˌæstrəʊˈfɪzɪks/ n. 天体物理学

inadvertently /ˌɪnədˈvɜːtəntli/ adv. 无心地，非故意地

mouthpiece /ˈmaʊθpiːs/ n. 代言人；喉舌

lop /lɒp/ v. 砍，删，削减

cumulative /ˈkjuːmjulətɪv/ adj. 累积的，累加的

clobber /ˈklɒbə/ v. 痛打；击倒

legacy /ˈlegəsi/ n. 遗产；遗赠

dangle /ˈdæŋgl/ v. 悬摆，悬荡

scout /skaʊt/ n. 球探、星探等人才发掘者

laureate /ˈlɒrɪət/ n. 得奖者

partisan /ˌpɑːtɪˈzæn/ adj. 党派的

cram /kræm/ v. 填满，塞满

难句突破

The Public Policy Institute of California, a non-partisan think-tank, projects that California’s economy will face a shortfall of 1m college graduates by 2025, depressing the prosperity of the entire state.

主体句式：The Public Policy Institute of California projects that...

结构分析：本句的主体句式比较简单，只不过中间夹了一个同位语a non-partisan think-tank，用来对前面提到的institute进行补充说明。that引导了一个宾语从句，该从句的主干是California’s economy will face a shortfall，句子最后的depressing...部分是分词作状语，说明前面提到的问题将造成的后果。

句子译文：无党派智囊团，加州公共政策研究所预测，到2025年，加州将面临短缺100万大学毕业生的问题，这将给整个州的经济前景蒙上一层阴影。

题目分析

1. C 论证方式题。文中第一段先描述了加州大学一直以来在世界上享有盛誉，紧接着指出，现在这种荣耀可能即将结束。这其实是把加州大学的前后情况做了对比，因此C是正确答案。

2. B 语义题。引文是第一段最后桑德拉·费伯说的话，这句话前面说道“创造卓越需要几十年的时间”，下面马上指出“毁掉它却只需要一年”，这并不是说一般要毁掉大学的卓越声誉需要一年时间，因此可以首先排除A项。本题的难点在于C项和D项的从表面上看来都没有问题，关键是要理解文中对比的隐含意义，桑德拉·费伯在这里要强调的是，毁掉一所大学的卓越声誉要远远比建立这种声誉容易得多，所以B才是最佳答案。

3. A 细节题。本题主要针对文章第四段，该段第一句话就提到His ambition was simple，可见接下来要讨论他建立这个三层体系的目的，主要有两点：首先，在能力可承受的范围内，尽量为更多的加州年轻人提供受教育的机会；其次，吸引学术界的超级明星。各个选项中只有A项最好地概括了这两点。

4. C 推理题。本题主要针对文章第五段，这一段主要有三个数据，分别是40%、100万、75%，分别指教育财政支出的下降比例、毕业生的短缺数量和加州公立大学授予学位的比例。首先看A项，该项只与第一个数据40%有关，不够全面，所以可以排除。B项的描述不够准确，原文说的是到2025年，并非很快就要面临大学毕业生短缺的问题，因此可以排除该项。虽然原文中提到“这将给整个州的经济前景蒙上一层阴影”，但这并不意味着加州的经济会长期陷入萧条，所以D项也不正确。只有C项比较好地概括了资金短缺和由此导致的未来毕业生短缺的情况，所以C是正确答案。

5. B 推理题。本题考查对文章最后一段的理解。A项的描述不准确，因为原文提到的on leave是“休假”的意思，而不是说要解雇教职员工。C项针对的是该段中提到的各种应对措施，但是我们可以看出这并不是积极的应对，而是无奈的举措，而且最后一段重点要说明的问题是资金的短缺将导致人才的流失和学术水平的降低，所以该项也不正确。文章最后一句引用了费伯教授的话“我们现在可是在吃玉米种呀！”这句话的意思是我们现在根本没有为今后着想，而D选项的表述中说lose all its best professors and students，all一词过于绝对，所以也不正确。从前面提到的人才流失和学术水平降低，可以推断这将必然影响这些大学的核心竞争力，因此B是正确答案。

参考译文

要说世界上最好的公立高等教育恐怕非加州大学莫属，这一说法得到了由中国上海交通大学发布的一份研究型大学权威排名的鼎力支持。在这份排名中，加州大学伯克利分校位居第三，仅次于哈佛大学和斯坦福大学这两所私立大学。而加州大学其他十所分校中还有另外几所，如洛杉矶和圣地亚哥分校的排名也相当靠前。加州人完全有理由因此而感到自豪。这也是为何我们不能把这种荣耀可能行将终结视为小事。“我们的处境正在不可逆转地日益恶化。”加州大学圣克鲁斯分校的天体物理学教授桑德拉·费伯说，她的话道出了教职员工的心声，目前他们已经怨声载道。谈及大学的卓越，费伯说：“我们花了几十年的时间来创造，但毁掉它却只需要一年”。

加州一直处于一系列预算危机之中，最近的一次直到上个月州长阿诺德·施瓦辛格与立法机关达成了一项几乎令人绝望的协定而得以解决。根据该协定，加州预算大幅削减，其中高等教育部门的预算被砍掉了20亿美元。光是加州大学就在上一财年累积丧失了8.13亿美元国家基金，本财年则被削减了20%。处于第二层级的加州州立大学有23个分校，是全美最大的州立大学系统，它与处于第三层级的社区大学都在财政上遭受了沉重的打击。

这些削减威胁到两位富有远见的人士留下的遗产，他们是1959至1967年任加州州长的埃德蒙·“帕特”·布朗，和那几年加州大学的负责人克拉克·克尔。克尔预见到加州的公立大学是“实业面前晃来晃去的诱饵，比低税率或廉价劳动力更具吸引力。”在一份1960年做出的整体规划中，他创造了三个层级的体系。

他的目标很简单。首先，在能力可承受的范围内，尽量为更多的加州年轻人提供受教育的机会。最优秀的学生入读加州大学，较为优秀的人就读加州州立大学，其余人则进入社区大学，而且也有可能升入前两个层级的大学。其次，吸引学术界的超级明星。克尔像人才发掘者那样开展了这项工作，其继任者也纷纷效仿。加州大学各分校造就的诺贝尔奖获得者总人数比任何一所大学都要多。

但是，这个三层级的规划多年来都面临着各种压力。加州大学现任校长马克·尤多夫表示，自1990年以来，按通货膨胀因素进行调整后，分摊到加州大学体系内每个学生的州财政支出下降了40%。无党派智囊团，加州公共政策研究所预测，到2025年，加州将面临短缺100万大学毕业生的问题，这将给整个州的经济前景蒙上一层阴影。授予该州75%学士学位的公立大学将对此负有主要责任。

首先牺牲掉的就是学术水准。加州大学和加州州立大学正计划让教授和工作人员休假、扩大班级规模，并减少课程数量。要想吸引并留住学术明星以及随他们而来的研究资金将更为困难。费伯女士说，现在这个问题已经出现了。她最近聘请了三位世界一流的助理教授，但现在他们的工资可能不保。她说，其他大学已经开始与他们接洽，他们很可能会离开加州大学，而他们最优秀的学生也可能随之而去。费伯教授感叹道：“我们现在可是在吃玉米种呀（根本不替今后着想）”。