单选题
Talk to any parent of a student who took an adventurous gap
year (a year between school and university when some students earn money,
travel, etc. ) and a misty look will come into their eyes. There are some
disasters and even the most motivated, organized gap student does require family
back-up, financial, emotional and physical. The parental mistiness is not just
about the brilliant experience that has matured their offspring; it is vicarious
living. We all wish pre-university gap years had been the fashion in our day. We
can see how much tougher our kids become; how much more prepared to benefit from
university or to decide positively that they are going to do something other
than a degree. Gap years are fashionable, as is reflected in
the huge growth in the number of charities and private companies offering them.
Pictures of Prince William toiling in Chile have helped, but the trend has been
gathering steam for a decade. The range of gap packages starts with backpacking,
includes working with charities, building hospitals and schools and, very
commonly, working as a language assistant, teaching English. With this trend,
however, comes a danger. Once parents feel that a well structured year is
essential to their would-be undergraduates' progress to a better university, a
good degree, an impressive CV and well paid employment, as the gap companies
blurbs suggest it might be, then parents will start organizing and paying for
the gaps. Where there are disasters, according to Richard
Oliver, director of the gap companies umbrella organization, the Year Out Group,
it is usually because of poor planning. That can be the fault of the company or
of the student, he says, but the best insurance is thoughtful preparation. "When
people get it wrong, it is usually medical or, especially among girls, it is
that they have not been away from home before or because expectation does not
match reality. " The point of a gap year is that it should be
the time when the school leaver gets to do the thing that he or she fancies.
Kids don't mature if mum and dad decide how they are going to mature. If the
18-year-old's way of maturing is to slob out on Hampstead Heath soaking up
sunshine or spending a year working with fishermen in Cornwall, then
that's what will be productive for that person. The consensus, however, is that
some structure is an advantage and that the prime mover needs to be the
student. The 18-year-old who was dispatched by his parents at
two weeks' notice to Canada to learn to be a snowboarding instructor at a cost
of ￡5,800, probably came back with little more than a hangover. The 18-year-old
on the same package who worked for his fare and spent the rest of his year
instructing in resorts from New Zealand to Switzerland, and came back to apply
for university, is the positive counterbalance.
单选题
It can be inferred from the first paragraph that parents of gap
students may ______.
A. help children to be prepared for disasters
B. receive all kinds of support from their children
C. have rich experience in bringing up their offspring