单选题 Jill Ker Conway, president of Smith, echoes the prevailing view of contemporary technology when she says that "anyone in today's world who doesn't understand data processing is not educated". But she insists that the increasing emphasis on these matters leave certain gaps. Says she: "The very strongly utilitarian emphasis in education, which is an effect of man-made satellites and the cold war, has really removed from this culture something that was very profound in its 18th and 19th century roots, which was a sense that literacy and learning were ends in themselves for a democratic republic. "
In contrast to Plato's claim for the social value of education, a quite different idea of intellectual purposes was advocated by the Renaissance humanists. Overjoyed with their rediscovery of the classical learning that was thought to have disappeared during the Dark Ages, they argued that the imparting of knowledge needs no justification --religious, social, economic, or political. Its purpose, to the extent that it has one, is to pass on from generation to generation the corpus of knowledge that constitutes civilization. "What could man acquire, by virtuous striving, that is more valuable than knowledge?" asked Erasmus, perhaps the greatest scholar of the early 16th century. That idea has acquired a tradition of its own. "The educational process has no end beyond itself," said John Dewey. "It is its own end. "
But what exactly is the corpus of knowledge to be passed on? In simpler times, it was all included in the medieval universities' Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) and Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic). As recently as the last century, when less than 5% of Americans went to college at all, students in New England establishments were compelled mainly to memorize and recite various Latin texts, and crusty professors angrily opposed the introduction of any new scientific discoveries or modern European languages. "They felt," said regretfully Charles Francis Adams, Jr. , the Union Pacific Railroad president who devoted his later years to writing history, "that a classical education was the important distinction between a man who had been to college and a man who had not been to college, and that anything that diminished the importance of this distinction was essentially revolutionary and tended to anarchy. "

单选题 The first paragraph shows that Jill Ker Conway accepts utilitarian emphasis in education______.

A. wholeheartedly
B. with reservation
C. against her own will
D. with contempt

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】分析推理题。推断的依据是第一段第二句：But she insists…leave certain gaps(但她坚持认为，随着这些观点的不断强化，也带来了一些问题)。由于前一句说明她讲的“不懂数据处理的人没有受过教育”是在赞同(echo)当下的(实用主义)观点，而这一句又对该观点进行了修正，因此可以说她对实用主义教育观点是有保留地赞同的，即本题应选[B]。其余各项中，[A]指“全心全意地”，[C]指“违心地”，[D]指“轻蔑地”，它们都无法由原文合理推知。

单选题 Education for education's sake was probably opposed by______.

A. scholars in the Renaissance period
B. Jill Ker Conway
C. scholars in the Dark Ages
D. Plato

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】分析推理题。短文第二段论述了文艺复兴时期的人文主义者的教育观点。他们认为，知识的传授不需要宗教、社会、经济或政治理由，其目的仅仅是将知识整体代代传承下去，还引用Erasmus和John Dewey 的话，说明教育的目的就是教育本身(即题目中所说的“为教育而教育”)。而在说明这种观点时，作者是将其与Plato(柏拉图)的观点对立论述的，因为段首句即有In contrast to Plato’s claim for the social value of education(与柏拉图认为教育应具社会价值的观点相反)一句，据此可推知柏拉图应是反对“为教育而教育”这种观点的，所以本题选[D]。部分考生误选了[C]项，认为根据Overjoyed with their rediscovery…during the Dark Ages一处可以推知“黑暗时代”的学者们也反对“为教育而教育”。但事实上，该句说明的是人们认为人文知识(classical learning)在“黑暗时代”消失了，并且是was thought to have disappeared，所以并不能推知这一时代的学者是否反对“为教育而教育”的观点。

单选题 The idea that education transmits knowledge is dated back to______.

A. the Renaissance humanists
B. the medieval universities
C. the 18th century's American scholars
D. the cold war period

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】分析推理题。短文第三段第二句指出：In simpler times…and Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic)，即在中世纪这样较为简朴的时代，知识总体指的是大学所教授的四学科(算术、几何、天文和音乐)和三学科(语法、修辞和逻辑)。这个时期的大学已经在进行课程教授，那么教育传授知识的观点当然也就可以追溯到这一时代，故本题答案是[B]。其余三项都无法由原文推知。

单选题 It can be inferred that Charles Francis Adams, Jr.______.

A. devoted his later years to classical education
B. was an advocate of education in history
C. was an opponent to classical education
D. regretted diminishing the importance of the distinction

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】分析推理题。文章提到Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 这个人物是在最后一段，只引用了他的一段话，因此应细读该段直接引语来判断答案。他认为，他们(那些顽固教授)觉得古典教育是区分一个人受过大学教育与否的重要分界，且任何有损于这一分界重要性的事物从本质上来说都是过分激进的，可能会让社会陷入混乱。作者在引用这段话时用了regretfully(遗憾地)一词，从而说明Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 是反对古典教育的，因此本题答案就是[C]。其余三项都属于抓住这一段引语中的个别词句进行发挥，都与原文不符，也无法由原文推知。

单选题 According to the third paragraph, which of the following is true?

A. Five percent of American college students learnt Latin texts.
B. Students in New England learnt Latin texts in official organizations.
C. Students were compelled to learn modern European languages.
D. American college students had to learn Latin grammar by heart.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】细节题。对应的信息位于第三段第三句：As recently as the last century…or modern European languages(近至上个世纪，当美国上大学的人总共还不到5%的时候，新英格兰教育机构里的学生却在被迫着主要记忆和背诵各种拉丁文本，那些顽固的教授愤怒地反对引进任何新的科学发现或现代欧洲语言)。理解了这一句，就不难发现[A]、[C]、[D]三项的说法都不正确，只有[B]项中的official organizations是该句中establishments的改写，意思上与原文相符，因此就是本题答案。