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  3. In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparator

In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparator

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问题     In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. I’ve twice been to the wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. We see our kids’ college background as a prize demonstrating how well we’ve raised them. But we can’t acknowledge that our obsession (痴迷) is more about us than them. So we’ve contrived various justifications that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn’t matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stan ford.
    We have a full-blown prestige panic, we worry that there won’t be enough prizes to go around. Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever. Underlying the hysteria (歇斯底里) is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts. All that is plausible-and mostly wrong. We haven’t found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters. Selective schools don’t systematically employ better instructional approaches than less-selective schools. On two measures--professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams—selective schools do slightly worse.
    By some studies, selective schools do enhance their graduates’ lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2 4 % for every 100-point increase in a school’s average SAT scores. But even this advantage is probably a statistical fluke (偶然). A well-known study examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went else where. They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.
    Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may signify intelligence, talent and ambition. But it’s not the only indicator and, paradoxically, its significance is declining. The reason: so many similar people go elsewhere. Getting into college isn’t life’s only competition. In the next competition--the job market and graduate school--the results may change. Old-boy networks are breaking down. Princeton economist Alan Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph. D. program High scores on the GRE helped explain who got in; degrees of prestigious universities didn’t.
    So, parents, lighten up. The stakes have been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can rationalize our pushiness. America is a competitive society; our kids need to adjust to that. But too much pushiness can be destructive. The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.
选项 A、They have the final say in which university their children are to attend.
B、They know best which universities are most suitable for their children.
C、They have to carry out intensive surveys of colleges before children make an application.
D、They care more about which college their children go to than the children themselves.
答案D
解析 由题干中的parents are true fighters in the college-admissions wars定位到第一段第一句In the college-admissions wars，we parents are the true fighters．本题为推断题。题于中的内容与原文首句几乎无异。但是题干由why提问，考查原因，从第一段的信息词our first choice，a prize demonstrating how well we raised them等，可以看出孩子要上我们首选的大学，并且大学情况如何将表明我们对孩子的教育的优劣。处处体现出家长的攀比心理。最后三句表明家长虽然不承认他们比孩子在上大学问题上更痴迷、更在意，但是他们却承认在此基础上所设计的种种理由都是不真实，有偏见和虚幻不切实际的。最后一句更能体现作者的态度，对于他的孩子Aaron和Nicole而言，是否能上斯坦福大学并不重要。由此可见，更在乎的是父母而不是孩子，即D)所述内容。因此选项D)是本题的正确答案。
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