Part B: Ordering Utterances (2011)
Directions:
The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent text by choosing from the list A-G and filling them into the numbered boxes. Paragraphs E and G have been correctly placed. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
[A]
No disciplines have seized on professionalism with as much enthusiasm as the humanities. You can, Mr. Menand points out, become a lawyer in three years and a medical doctor in four. But the regular time it takes to get a doctoral degree in the humanities is nine years. Not surprisingly, up to half of all doctoral students in English drop out before getting their degrees.
[B]
His concern is mainly with the humanities: literature, languages, philosophy and so on. These are disciplines that are going out of style: 22% of American college graduates now major in business compared with only 2% in history and 4% in English. However, many leading American universities want their undergraduates to have a grounding in the basic canon of ideas that every educated person should possess. But most find it difficult to agree on what a "general education" should look like. At Harvard, Mr. Menand notes, "the great books are read because they have been read" - they form a sort of social glue.
[C]
Equally unsurprisingly, only about half end up with professorships for which they entered graduate school. There are simply too few posts. This is partly because universities continue to produce ever more PhDs. But fewer students want to study humanities subjects: English departments awarded more bachelors degrees in 1970-1971 than they did 20 years later. Fewer students require fewer teachers. So, at the end of a decade of thesis-writing, many humanities students leave the profession to do something for which they have not been trained.
[D]
One reason why it is hard to design and teach such courses is that they cut across the insistence by top American universities that liberal-arts education and professional education should be kept separate, taught in different schools. Many students experience both varieties. Although more than half of Harvard undergraduates end up in law, medicine or business, future doctors and lawyers must study a non-specialist liberal-arts degree before embarking on a professional qualification.
[E]
[固定位 3] Besides professionalising the professions by this separation, top American universities have professionalised the professor. The growth in public money for academic research has speeded the process: federal research grants rose fourfold between 1960 and 1990, but faculty teaching hours fell by half as research took its toll. Professionalism has turned the acquisition of a doctoral degree into a prerequisite for a successful academic career: as late as 1969 a third of American professors did not possess one. But the key idea behind professionalisation, argues Mr. Menand, is that "the knowledge and skills needed for a particular specialisation are transmissible but not transferable." So disciplines acquire a monopoly not just over the production of knowledge, but also over the production of the producers of knowledge.
[F]
The key to reforming higher education, concludes Mr. Menand, is to alter the way in which "the producers of knowledge are produced." Otherwise, academics will continue to think dangerously alike, increasingly detached from the societies which they study, investigate and criticise. "Academic inquiry, at least in some fields, may need to become less exclusionary and more holistic." Yet quite how that happens, Mr. Menand does not say.
[G]
[固定位 1] The subtle and intelligent little book The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University should be read by every student thinking of applying to take a doctoral degree. They may then decide to go elsewhere. For something curious has been happening in American universities, and Louis Menand, a professor of English at Harvard University, captured it skillfully.
Answer Sheet
答案解析 (Answers & Analysis)
[G] 固定位 (首段)。 G段引出了本书的作者 Louis Menand 及其著作 The Marketplace of Ideas，为全文定下了讨论美国大学教育现状的基调。
41. [B] 代词指代衔接。 G段末尾介绍了 Louis Menand，B段首句直接以 “His concern is mainly with the humanities” 开头，His 完美指代 Louis Menand。同时，B段指出了人文学科（humanities）遇冷的现状，并提出大学在“通识教育（general education）”上面临的共识困难。
42. [D] 核心词汇复现。 B段末尾提到难以在通识教育上达成一致。D段首句立刻回应：“One reason why it is hard to design and teach such courses is that...”。D段解释了通识教育（liberal-arts education）和专业教育（professional education）被强行分离（kept separate）是导致课程设计困难的原因。
[E] 固定位。 E段首句 “Besides professionalising the professions by this separation...” 中的 this separation 完美承接D段提到的 kept separate。E段进一步指出，大学不仅将职业专业化，也将教授（professor）专业化，并把获取博士学位作为门槛。
43. [A] 概念延伸与例子。 E段提到了博士学位（doctoral degree）和专业化（professionalism）。A段首句紧接着指出：“No disciplines have seized on professionalism with as much enthusiasm as the humanities（没有人文学科对专业化如此狂热）”。接着，A段用获取人文学科博士学位需要9年，且有一半人退学（drop out）的例子来支撑这一观点。
44. [C] 逻辑副词呼应。 A段末尾提到，读人文博士的人有一半会退学（Not surprisingly... half... drop out）。C段首句紧跟：“Equally unsurprisingly, only about half end up with professorships...（同样不令人惊讶的是，只有大约一半的人最终获得了教授职位）”。Not surprisingly 和 Equally unsurprisingly 构成了完美的并列排比逻辑，指出了人文学科博士出路狭窄的惨状。
45. [F] 总结全文。 经过前面各段对大学教育和博士培养制度的分析，F段作为全文总结，首句借 Menand 先生之口得出结论：“The key to reforming higher education... is to alter the way in which the producers of knowledge are produced.”，呼吁改革知识生产者的培养方式。这也是典型的书评总结段落。
全文翻译
[A] 没有任何学科能像人文学科那样如此热情地拥抱专业化。梅南德先生指出，你可以在三年内成为律师，在四年内成为医学博士。但在人文学科获得博士学位通常需要九年时间。毫不奇怪，多达一半的英语专业博士生在获得学位之前就辍学了。
[B] 他的关注点主要在人文学科：文学、语言、哲学等。这些是正在过时的学科：现在 22% 的美国大学毕业生主修商科，而只有 2% 主修历史，4% 主修英语。然而，许多顶尖美国大学希望他们的本科生具备每一个受过教育的人都应拥有的基本思想经典的基础。但大多数人发现在"通识教育"应该是什么样子上难以达成一致。梅南德指出，在哈佛，"伟大的著作之所以被阅读，是因为它们一直被阅读"——它们形成了一种社会粘合剂。
[C] 同样毫不奇怪的是，只有大约一半的人最终获得了他们进入研究生院时所追求教授职位。职位实在是太少了。部分原因是大学在继续培养越来越多的博士。但想学习人文学科的学生更少了：英语系在 1970-1971 年授予的学士学位比 20 年后还要多。更少的学生需要更少的教师。因此，经过十年的论文写作后，许多人文学科的学生离开了这个行业，去做一些他们没有被培训过的事情。
[D] 设计和教授这些课程之所以困难，一个原因是它们与美国顶尖大学坚持通识教育应与专业教育分开、在不同学院教授的主张相冲突。许多学生两种教育都经历。尽管超过一半的哈佛本科生最终进入法律、医学或商科，未来的医生和律师在开始专业资格教育之前必须先学习一个非专业的文科学位。
[F] 梅南德总结说，改革高等教育的关键在于改变"知识的生产者如何被培养"的方式。否则，学者们将继续以危险的方式思考相似的东西，越来越脱离他们所研究、调查和批评的社会。"学术探究，至少在某些领域，可能需要变得不那么排他，更加全面。"然而，梅南德先生并未说明这究竟如何实现。