单选题 .  Several years ago I was teaching a course on the philosophical assumptions and cultural impact of massive multi-user online games at Williams College. The students in the course were very intelligent and obviously interested in the topic.
    But as the semester progressed, I began to detect a problem with the class. The students were working hard and performing well but there was no energy in our discussions and no passion in the students. They were hesitant to express their ideas and often seemed to be going through the motions. I tried to encourage them to be more venturesome with tactics I had used successfully in the past but nothing worked.
    One day I asked them what was or, perhaps better, was not going on. Why were they so cautious and where was their enthusiasm for learning? They seemed relieved to talk about it and their response surprised me. Since pre-kindergarten, they explained, they had been programmed to perform well so they could get to the next level. They had been taught the downside of risk and encouraged to play it safe. What mattered most was getting into a good elementary school, middle school and high school so that they would finally be admitted to a top college.  Having succeeded beyond their parents' wildest expectations, they did not know why they were in college and had no idea what to do after graduation.
    In today's market-driven economy we constantly hear that choice is the highest good and that competition fuels innovation. But this is not always true. Choice provokes anxiety and competition can quell (压制) the imagination and discourage the spirit of experimentation that is necessary for creativity. In a world obsessed with ratings, well-meaning parents all too often train their children to jump through the hoops they think will lead to success.
    This was a bad bet—the course many young people were forced to take has not paid off. The lucrative jobs they expected as a reward for years of hard work have vanished and show little sign of returning in the near future. The difficult truth is that their education has not prepared them for the world they face.
    Though many young people have become disillusioned with Wall Street and all it represents and would like to pursue alternative careers, they have neither the educational nor financial resources to do so. The situation is critical—colleges and universities must be reformed in ways that allow students to develop the knowledge and skills they need for creative and productive fives. And parents must give their children the freedom to explore possibilities they never could have imagined.1.  By saying that students "seemed to be going through the motions", the author most probably means that the students were ______.