更多"[单选题]Text 4 The two-year degree is "的相关试题:
[单选题]Text 4 The two-year degree is back.The idea of increased flexibility in higher education is,in the broadest sense,a good one.But it is a sign of how captured we have been by market-centric thinking that"flexibility",to this government,is manifested as"squeeze the same amount into a shorter period of time to maximise your financial returns later".The sector has undergone a"catastrophe"as part-time student numbers have collapsed;that the government's response is a degree format-the polar opposite of part-time-is indicative of its approach to governance in generaL For most demographics whose access to higher education is restricted,condensing the course doesn't address the barriers they're facing.If you're balancing employment and childcare with a full-time education,especially if you're relying on sketchy public transport infrastructure,it's unrealistic to squeeze any more into your schedule.Many universities currently structure their courses around the reality that many students work,at least part-time,while studying.None of this is to mention those with disabilities who may face additional barriers to access.There are no doubt some-the independently wealthy,for example-who may benefit,but it seems perverse that these people should be the focus of a major policy change.Troublingly,we seem to have fully accepted the shift from education as a social good to a product sold to students on grounds of higher earnings in the job market.Often,the grand promises of access to employment don't hold up.The labour market has been increasingly casualised and"hollowed out",with a gap emerging between the skilled and"unskilled".Progression through the ranks is vanishing,with a degree becoming a requirement for all sorts of jobs beyond simply those with high wages.Even beyond the gap between the promise and reality,though,lies a philosophical flaw with the current approach.The two-year degree,in and of itself,is neither a good nor a bad thing.For some people it will be a positive,for the majority of others an irrelevance.What is troubling is what it represents about how Britain's political establishment sees education.It fits well into the reductive free-market philosophy,where every aspect of life can be sold as a commodity.A government that sees the price of everything and the value of nothing will inevitably be drawn to the idea of squeezing maximum output into minimum time.A government that really wanted to make higher education more flexible,open and accessible would be exploring options that made sense for those with restricted access.There is no evidence,though,that this government thinks the choice between being stuck in a low-wage hellscape or taking on thousands of pounds in debt to play a roulette wheel with better odds is a bad thing.The days of education policies that address none of the problems with education are far from over
We can infer from Paragraph l that the two-year degree_____
A.will hopefully increase flexibility in higher education
B.indicates that market-centric thinking is all the rage
C.may help ease the debt burden of college students
D.is a result of the collapse of higher education
[单选题]Text 4 Eva Ullmann took her master's degree in 2002 0n the part that humour has to play in psychotherapy,and became hooked on the subject.In 2005 she founded the German Insiitute for Humour in Leipzig.It is dedicated to"the combination of seriousness and humour".She offers lectures,seminars and personal coaching to managers,from small firms tO such corporate giants as Deutsche Bank and Telekom.Her latest project is to help train medical studenis and doctors.There is nothing peculiarly German about humour training.It was John Morreall,an American,who showed that humour is a market segment in the ever-expanding American genre of self-help.In the past two decades,humour has gone global.An Intemational Humour Congress was held in Amsterdam in 2000.And yet Cermans know that the rest of the world considers them to be at a particular disadvantage.The issue is not comedy.of which Germany has plenty.The late Vicco von Biilow,alias Loriot,delighied the elite wiLh his mockery of German senousness and stiffness.Rhenish,Swabian and other regional flavours thrive-Gerhard Polt,a bad-tempered Bavarian,now 72,is a Shakespeare among Lhem.There is lowbrow talent ioo,including OLto Waalkes,a Frisian buffoon.Most of this,however,is as foreigners always suspected:more embanassing Lhan funny.Germans can often be observed laughing,loudly.And they try hard."They cannot produce good humour,but they can consume it,"says James Parsons,an English man teaching business English in Leipzig.He once rented a theatre and got students,including Mrs Ullmann,to act out Monty Python skits,which they did wiLh enthusiasm.The trouble,he says,is that whereas the English wait deadpan for the penny to drop,Germans invariably explain their punchline.At a deeper level,the problem has nothing to do with jokes.What is missing is the series of irony,overstatement and understatement in workaday conversations.Immigrants in Germany share soul-crushing stories of atlempting a non-literal turn of phrase,to evoke a hoffified expression in their Gennan friends and a detailed explanaiion of the literal meaning,followed by a retreat into awkward politeness.Irony is not on the curriculum in Mrs Ullmann's classes.Instead she focuses mostly on the bas-ics of humorous spontaneiLy and surprise.Demand is strong,she says.It is a typical German answer to a shortcoming:work harder at it.German comedy is mentioned to show that Germans_____
A.are insensitive to humor
B.have a good sense of humor
C.always embarrass foreigners
D.are not good at performance
[单选题]Text 4 The Big Mac index is built on the idea of purchasing-power parity,the theory that in the long run currencies will converge until the same amount of money buys the same amount of goods and services in every country.A Big Mac cunently costs$5.06 in America but just 10.75 lira（$2.75）in Turkey,implying that the lira is undenalued.However,ot:her currencies are even cheaper.In Big Mac tenns,the Mexican peso is underval-ued by 55.9%against the greenback.Last week it also hit a record low as Mr Trump restated some of his campaign threats against Mexico.The peso has lost a tenth of iLs value against the dollar since November.Of big countries,only Russia offers a cheaper Big Mac,in dollar terms,even though the rouble has strengthened over the past year.The euro zone is also prey to political uncerLainty.Elections are scheduled this year in the Netherlands,France and Germany,and possible in Italy.The euro recently fell to its lowest level since 2003.Britain's Brexit vote has had an even bigger effect on the pound,which has fallen to$1.21,a 31-year low.According to the Big Mac index,the euro and the pound are undervalued against the dollar by 19.7%and 26.3%,respectively.One of the drawbacks of the Big Mac index is that it takes no account of labour costs.It should surprise no one that a Big Mac costs less in Shanghai than it does in San Francisco,since Chinese workers eam far less than their American counterparts.So in a slightly more sophisticated version of the Big Mac index,we take account of a country's average income.Hisiorically,this adjustment has tended to raise currencies'valuations against the dollar,so emerging-market currencies tend to look more reasonably priced.The Chinese yuan,for example,is 44%undervalued against the doUar according to our baseline Big Mac index,but only 7%according to the adjusted one.The deluxe Big Mac index has typically made rich-world currencies look more expensive.Because western Europeans have higher costs of Iiving and lower incomes than Americans,the euro has traded at around a 25%premium against the dollar in income-adjusted burger terms since Lhe euro's inception.But what once seemed to be a constant truth of burgemomics is true no longer.So strong is the dollar Lhat even the adjusted Big Mac index finds the euro undenalued.The dollar is now Uading at a 14-year high in trade-weighted terms.Emerging-world economies may struggle to pay off dollar denominated debts.American firms may find themselves at a disadvantage agzunst foreign competition.And American tourists will get more burgers for their buck in Europe.Which of the following is the best iitle for the text?
A.Big Mac Index:Lhe Undervalued Currencies
B.Big Mac Index:Lhe Underestimated DoIJars
C.Big Mac Index:the Declining Economies
D.Big Mac Index:Dollars VS Euros
[单选题]Text 3 The power and ambition of the giants of the digital economy is astonishing—Amazon has just announced the purchase of the upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods for$13.5bn，but two years ago Facebook paid even more than that to acquire the WhatsApp messaging service，which doesn’t have any physical product at all.What WhatsApp offered Facebook was an intricate and finely detailed web of its users’friendships and social lives.Facebook promised the European commission then that it would not link phone numbers to Facebook identities，but it broke the promise almost as soon as the deal went through.Even without knowing what was in the messages，the knowledge of who sent them and to whom was enormously revealing and still could be.What political journalist，what party whip，would not want to know the makeup of the WhatsApp groups in which Theresa May’s enemies are currently plotting?It may be that the value of Whole Foods to Amazon is not so much the 460 shops it owns,but the records of which customers have purchased what.Competition law appears to be the only way to address these imbalances of power.But it is clumsy.For one thing,it is very slow compared to the pace of change within the digital economy.By the time a problem has been addressed and remedied it may have vanished in the marketplace,to be replaced by new abuses of power.But there is a deeper conceptual problem,too.Competition law as presently interpreted deals with financial disadvantage to consumers and this is not obvious when the users of these services don’t pay for them.The users of their services are not their customers.That would be the people who buy advertising from them—and Facebook and Google，the two virtual giants，dominate digital advertising to the disadvantage of all other media and entertainment companies.The product they’re selling is data，and we，the users，convert our lives to data for the benefit of the digital giants.Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew they produce when they feed,so Google farms us for the data that our digital lives yield.Ants keep predatory insects away from where their aphids feed;Gmail keeps the spammers out of our inboxes.It doesn’t feel like a human or democratic relationship，even if both sides benefit.
The ants analogy is used to illustrate_____
A.a win-win business model between digital giants
B.a typical competition pattern among digital giants
C.the benefits provided for digital giants’customers
D.the relationship between digital giants and their users
