单选题 Not all admission processes are as selective as the press would have us believe. For the class that entered in fall 2007, approximately 70 of the more than 3,000 colleges and universities in the United States offered admission to fewer than one third of their candidates. Admission rates describe raw numbers and percentages, but digging a few levels deeper into those figures may allow individual students to see where they fit in the statistics. The lower the overall admission rate, the more likely it is that grades and scores are not the point where a final admission decision will be made by admissions officers. Candidate pools at highly selective colleges tend to be self-selective and academic ability is almost a given. Everything matters, but what draws attention may be something unexpected.
One former Pomona student worked as a garbage collector on Long Island for a couple of summers rather than pursuing more-prestigious internships or travel. He earned much higher pay than his classmates did in their internships, and learned a lot about life from the work and his co-workers. Immediately after graduating from Pomona, he got a job as an investment banker. Was he admitted to fewer colleges or offered a lesser job because of his summer experience? Apparently not.
In the last few years, many students have routinely applied to more than a dozen schools, a huge increase from a decade ago when three to five was more common. This skews the process down the line—and ultimately hurts students. Application numbers rise (far more than population increases should suggest) and rates of admission drop, potentially stimulating even more applications the following year. Waiting lists grow and April notification may become May or June or July notification. As students submit more applications, they inevitably and perhaps necessarily may communicate less with each college where they submit an application and may dig less deeply into the information available that could help them target their real needs and interests.
Students and their families have a wealth of information available about colleges and the admission process, and should take advantage of the resources. Understanding your talents and interests while working to understand the academic structures and offerings of a college is a vital step. Gaining insight into the social fabrics, geographic and even political environments of colleges should help students think more clearly about their own interests as they align with realistic possibilities. It takes hard work and real thinking. No student should have to look at a handful of bad news in April because he didn"t take the admission process seriously enough or had insufficiently developed his college list. And none should be left on May 1 with complete confusion and an inability to decide among multiple offers. In this case, homework is not busywork. It is time very well spent.

单选题 To those who apply to highly selective colleges, ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 在第一段最后两句中，highly selective colleges指那些录取要求高的学校，candidate pools指申请者的总量或总人数，所谓self-selective(自我选择的)这里指有些学生感到自己有能力才会申报这样的学校，所以后面说学习能力(academic ability指学术上的或学业上的能力)几乎是不在话下的事(given作名词，指“给定的事情”)。既然申报好学校的人成绩或学业都会很好，那么，一名学生究竟能否被录取就不单单是靠grades和scores，所以最后一句说Everything matters，而使你被录取的那个东两可能是你预料之外的。

单选题 The example of the Pomona student shows that ______.

单选题 When students apply to more colleges ______.

单选题 The applicant should do all of the following except ______.
A. reassessing his interests and intelligence
B. making exploration into the colleges he applies to
C. studying how the colleges meet his academic interests
D turning his homework into busywork and doing it well

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 在第四段，作者实际上用homework作了一个比喻。他建议学生多了解自己想申报的学校，在了解这些信息的过程中发现自己真正感兴趣的学校和领域。他说，这需要付出时间，需要认真思考。只有这样认真对待申报学校的事儿——而不是盲目地多报学校，学生才能明白自己的兴趣所在，才能选择出自己想上的大学。因此，花在这方面的时间是值得的。作者所说的homework，指阅读有关想申报的学校的信息，多了解它们。