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The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become “better” people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don’t go.
But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don’t fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other’s experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Other find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out—often encouraged by college administrators.
Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves—they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that is a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn’t explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We have been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can’t absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either.
Some adventuresome educators and watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn’t make people intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, or quick to learn things—may it is just the other way around, and intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up.
1.According to the author, ___.
A.people used to question the value of college education.
B.people used to have full confidence in higher education.
C.all high school graduates went to college.
D.very few high school graduates chose to go to college.
2.In the 2nd paragraph, “those who don’t fit the pattern” refer to___.
A.high school graduates who aren’t suitable for college education.
B.college graduates who are selling shoes and driving taxis.
C.college students who aren’t any better for their higher education.
D.high school graduates who failed to be admitted to college.
3.The dropout rate of college students seems to go up because___.
A.young people are disappointed with the conventional way of teaching at college.
B.many people are required to join the army.
C.young people have little motivation in pursuing a higher education.
D.young people don’t like the intense competition for admission to graduate school.
4.According to the passage, the problems of college education partly originate in the fact that___.
A.society cannot provide enough jobs for properly trained graduates.
B.High school graduates do not fit the pattern of college education.
C.Too many students have to earn their own living.
D.College administrators encourage students to drop out.
5.In this passage the author argues that___.
A.more and more evidence shows college education may not be the best thing for high school graduates.
B.College education is not enough if one wants to be successful.
C.College education benefits only the intelligent, ambitious, and quick-learning people.
D.Intelligent people may learn quicker if they don’t go to college.
