单选题
In recent years, we have all watched the increasing
commercialization of the campus. The numerous ad vertising posters and the
golden arches of fast food outlets may be an affront to our aesthetic
sensibilities, but they are, arguably, no worse than ugly. Some of the other new
features of commercialized campus life do, however, constitute a serious threat
to things we rightly revere. "Privatization" and the "business model" are the
potential menace. What do these notions mean? To me, they
involve an increased dependence on industry and philanthropy for operating tile
university; an increased amount of our resources being directed to applied or
so-called practical subjects, both in teaching and in research; a proprietary
treatment of research results, with the commercial interest in secrecy
overriding the public's interest in free, shared knowledge; and an attempt to
run the university more like a business that treats industry and students as
clients and ourselves as service providers with something to sell. We pay
increasing attention to the immediate needs and demands of our" customers "and,
as the old saw goes, "the customer is always right."
Privatization is particularly frightening from the point of view of public well
being. A researcher employed by a university-affiliated hospital in Canada,
working under contract with a pharmaceutical company, made public her findings
that a particular drug was harmful. This violated the terms of her contract, and
so she was fired. Her dismissal caused a scandal, and she was subsequently
reinstated. The university and hospital in question are now working out
something akin to tenure for hospital-based researchers and guidelines for
contracts, so that more public disclosure of privately funded research will
become possible. This is a rare victory and a small step in the right direction,
but the general trend is the other way. Thanks to profit-driven private funding,
researchers are not only forced to keep valuable information secret, they are
often contractually obliged to keep discovered dangers to public health under
wraps, too. Of course, we must not be too naive about this. Governments can
unwisely insist on secrecy, too, as did the British Ministry of Agriculture,
Fisheries, and Food in the work they funded in connection with the bovine
spongiform encephalopathy epidemic. This prevented others from reviewing the
relevant data and pointing out that problems were more serious than government
was letting on. A recent study found that more than one-third
of recently published articles produced by University of Massachusetts
scientists had one or more authors who stood to make money from the results they
were reporting. That is, they were patent holders, or had some relationship, for
example, as board members, to a company that would exploit the results. The
financial interests of these authors were not mentioned in the publications. If
patents are needed to protect public knowledge from private claims, then simply
have the publicly funded patent holders put their patents in the public domain
or charge no fee for use. Even philanthropic groups can
sometimes do skew research and teaching. The Templeton Foundation, for example,
offers awards to those who offer courses on science and religion. I teach such a
course myself and feel the temptation to seek one of their awards. It seems
innocent enough; after all, I am already teaching the course and they are not
telling me what I have to believe. Moreover, they will put $ 5000 in my pocket
and give another $ 5000 to my chronically underfunded department. Everybody
wins, so why say no.?
单选题
We can tell from the first paragraph the author's attitude towards
commercialization of the campus is one of
单选题
According to the author, which of the following is NOT a result of the
commercialization of the campus?
A. The change of teacher-student relationship.
B. The disclosure of students-secrecy.
C. The loss of its independence.
D. The tendency to application-orientation.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】细节题。根据题干定位至第二段。该段首句提问,第二句指出,校园商业化会让我们对企业的依赖性增加,对学校运营的慈善捐助的依赖性增加,[C]符合文意。该句中的"an increased amount of our resources being directed to applied or so-called practical subjects”表明[D]符合文意。该句最后的“an attempt to run the university more like a business that treats industry and students as clients and ourselves as service providers with something to sell”,这种“将学生视为客户”的观念与传统的师生关系大为不同,[A]符合文意。[B]是对该句中“thecommercial interest in secrecy overriding the public's interest”的曲解,故为答案。
单选题
The expression "keep...under wraps" in the third paragraph probably
means
A. keep sth. wrapped up.
B. make sth. done.
C. consider sth. bad.
D. keep sth. dark.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】语义理解题。由题干定位至第三段。该段前面叙述一个加拿大医院的研究人员透露了某种药物有害的研究结果,被开除后,引起关注,恢复了工作。作者对此的评价是第六句提到的"This a rare victory…, but the general trend is the other way",可见,第七句说的是与此相反的情形:researchers are not only forced to keep valuable information secret,they are often contractually obliged to keep discovered dangers to public Health under wraps,too。显然,后面的keep…under wrapped与前面的keep…secret意思相同,为同义替换,故[D]为答案。
单选题
According to the passage, ______ affects the objectivity of the results
of scientists' research.
A. the government's permission
B. the financial benefits
C. the private claims
D. the public tendency
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】细节题。由题干中的scientist及选项内容定位至第四段。首句指出:one-third of recently published articles…scientists had one or more authors who stood to make money from the results they were reporting。