American scholars Daniel Bates and Fred Plog define culture from intercultural perspecti
A、perception
B、communication
C、sensation
D、intellectual
A、perception
B、communication
C、sensation
D、intellectual
第1题
Why are American scholars worried about education today?
A.The STEM subjects are too challenging for students to learn.
B.Some Asian countries have overtaken American in basic sciences.
C.America is lagging behind in the STEM disciplines.
D.There are not enough scholars in humanistic studies.
第2题
A.is very impressive by American standards
B.sounds too emotional by American standards
C.sounds too flowery and exaggerated by American standards
D.is very bad English by by American standards
第3题
A.They wanted to improve their own status within the current education system.
B.They believed the stability of a society depended heavily on humanistic studies.
C.They could get financial support from various foundations for humanistic studies.
D.They realized science and technology alone were no guarantee for a better world.
第4题
How Europe fails its young
Those Europeans who are tempted, in the light of the dismal scenes in New Orleans this fortnight, to downgrade the American challenge should meditate on one word: universities. Five years ago in Lisbon European officials proclaimed their intention to become the world's premier "knowledge economy" by 2010. The thinking behind this grand declaration made sense of a sort: Europe's only chance of preserving its living standards lies in working smarter than its competitors rather than harder or cheaper. But Europe's failing higher-education system poses a lethal threat to this ambition.
Europe created the modem university. Scholars were gathering in Paris and Bologna before America was on the map. Oxford and Cambridge invented the residential university: the idea of a community of scholars, living together to pursue higher learning. Germany created the research university. A century ago European universities were a magnet for scholars and a model for academic administrators the world over.
But, as our survey of higher education explains, since the second world war Europe has progressively surrendered its lead in higher education to the United States. America boasts 17 of the world's top 20 universities, according to a widely used global ranking by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. American universities currently employ 70% of the world's Nobel prize-winners, 30% of the world's output of articles on science and engineering, and 44% of the most frequently cited articles. No wonder developing countries now look to America rather than Europe for a model for higher education.
Why have European universities declined so precipitously in recent decades? And what can be done to restore them to their former glory? The answer to the first question lies in the role of the state. American universities get their funding from a variety of different sources, not just government but also philanthropists, businesses and, of course, the students themselves. European ones are largely state-funded. The constraints on state funding mean that European governments force universities to "process" more and more students without giving the TM the necessary cash—and respond to the universities' complaints by trying to micromanage them. Inevitably, quality has eroded. Yet, as the American model shows, people are prepared to pay for good higher education, because they know they will benefit from it: that's why America spends twice as much of its GDP on higher education as Europe does.
The answer to the second question is to set universities free from the state. Free universities to run their internal affairs: how can French universities, for example, compete for talent with their American rivals when professors are civil servants? And free them to charge fees for their services—including, most importantly, student fees.
Asia's learning
The standard European retort is that if people have to pay for higher education, it will become the monopoly of the rich. But spending on higher education in Europe is highly regressive (more middle-class students go to university than working-class ones). And higher education is hardly a monopoly of the rich in America: a third of undergraduates come from racial minorities, and about a quarter come from families with incomes below the poverty line. The government certainly has a responsibility to help students to borrow against their future incomes. But student fees offer the best chance of pumping more resources into higher education. They also offer the best chance of combining equity with excellence.
Europe still boasts some of the world's best universities, and there are some signs that policy makers have realised that their system is failing. Britain, the pacemaker in university reform. in Europe, is raising fees. The Germans are trying to create a Teutonic Ivy League. European universities
A.Y
B.N
C.NG
第5题
听力原文: Experts on dyslexia say that the problem is not a disease. They say that persons with dyslexia use information in a different way. One of the world's greatest thinkers and scientists named Albert Einstein was dyslexic. Dr Einstein said that he never thought in words the way that most of us do. He said that he thought in pictures instead. Other famous people who suffered from dyslexia include Leonardo Da Vinci, a celebrated Roman artist, Thomas Edison, a well-Known American inventor and a former American Vice president, Nelson Rockfeller.
Dyslexia was first recognized in Europe and then in the United States over 80 years ago. Many years passed before doctors discovered that people with this disorder were not mentally slow or disabled. The doctors found that the brains of dyslexia persons are rather different. In brains of most people, the left side, the part that controls language, is larger than the fight side. In the people with dyslexia, the right side of the brain is much bigger. However, research has shown that dyslexia is more common in men than in women, and it is also found more often in people who are left-handed.
(30)
A.The left-handed women.
B.The left-handed men.
C.Excellent female scientists or artists.
D.Some celebrated female presidents.
第6题
第7题
According to the passage, scholars and students are great travelers because ______.
A.salaries and conditions are better abroad
B.standards are higher at foreign universities
C.they are eager for new knowledge
D.their governments encourage them to travel
第9题
Scholars such as Prof. Dunn and Prof. DeLeire agree that______.
A.richer people feel happier and more satisfied
B.most consumers prefer leading brands like Armani
C.spending on vacations brings long-term happiness
D.people should curb their spending on material things
第10题
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A.Modern scholars tend to deny the influence of culture on social development.
B.Only after the 1950s did scholars realize the great impact of culture.
C.Positivism believes in the truth that culture has a lot to do with economic development.
D.Laymen would be surprised to see that the agriculture is so influential on society.
第11题
Culture and nurture count in making us what we turn out to be, although that will perhaps come as no great surprise to those outside the close world of academic theory.
This part of the rediscovery of the wheel, since before positivism largely took over the social sciences in American universities in the 1950s, it was generally assumed by professors. As well as laymen, that culture had a great deal to do with how material civilization developed. Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children:" We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. '
That argument, however, relied on historical evidence and reasoning, which had come to be considered "soft" knowledge--unscientific, subjective, itself culture-bound--and, even more recently, as a self-serving tale told by white male parent in order to oppress the rest.
To suggest that modern liberal civilization, science and technology emerged in Western Europe because of a particular cultural development linked to the assumptions, values and philosophies of classical Greece and Rome, the Jewish and Christian religions, and the ideas of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, was thought to put down other civilizations where such development had not taken place.
This notion," popular early in the 20th century", according to a New York Times report on the matter, is now "unsettling scholars and policymakers", since it "challenges the assumptions of market economists and liberal thinkers". These are nearly ail, to some degree, economic determinists.
The matter is of practical concern in making policy. Take the worst case: the problem of contemporary Africa.
Until the 1950s, Africa was generally considered to be a region of pre-modern cultures, developed among a variety of peoples originally practicing simple agriculture, or hunting and gathering. Some cultures were of great artistic complexity; ail had complex codes of value and ceremony; some were quite advanced politically, resembling in many respects European feudalism(灭亡), but all were without written languages or written knowledge.
What was possibly assumed about humans and the fruit fly in the past?
A.They were equally complicated in terms of gene.
B.Humans were much more genetically complicated than the fruit fly, genetically speaking.
C.Humans were twice as complicated as the fruit fly in gene.
D.The fruit fly was less stably than humans in the structure of genes.