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  3. Politicians and the public are quick to blame college faculty members for the decline in learning, but professors — like all tea

Politicians and the public are quick to blame college faculty members for the decline in learning, but professors — like all tea

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问题    Politicians and the public are quick to blame college faculty members for the decline in learning, but professors — like all teachers — are working in a context that has been created largely by others: Few people outside of higher education understand how little control professors actually have over what students can learn.
   Here are some reasons:
   Lack of student preparation. Increasingly, undergraduates are not prepared adequately in any academic area but often arrive with strong convictions about their abilities. 【T1】So college professors routinely encounter students who have never written anything more than short answers on exams, who do not read much at all, who lack foundational skills in math and science, yet are completely convinced of their abilities and resist any criticism of their work, to the point of anger and tears: "But I earned nothing but A’s in high school, " and "Your demands are unreasonable. Such a combination makes some students nearly unteachable.
   Grade inflation. It has become difficult to give students honest feedback. 【T2】The slightest criticisms have to be cushioned by a warm blanket of praise and encouragement to avoid provoking oppositional defiance or complete breakdowns. As a result, student progress is slowed, sharply. Rubric-driven approaches give the appearance of objectivity but make grading seem like a matter of checklists, which, if completed, must ensure an A. 【T3】Increasingly, time-pressured college teachers ask themselves, " What grade will ensure no complaint from the student, or worse, a battle over whether the instructions for an assignment were clear enough?" So, the number of A-range grades keeps going up, and the motivation for students to excel keeps going down.
   Student retention. As the college-age population declines, many tuition-driven institutions struggle to find enough paying customers to balance their budgets. 【T4】That makes it necessary to recruit even more unprepared students, who then must be retained, shifting the burden for academic success away from the student and on to the teacher. 【T5】Faculty members can work with an individual student, if they have time, but the capabilities of the student population as a whole define the average level of rigor that is sustainable in the classroom. At some institutions, graduation rates are so high because the academic expectations are so low. Failing a lot of students is a serious risk, financially, for the college and the professor.
【T2】
选项
答案稍加批评，就得施以各种赞美鼓励来缓和，以防引发对立情绪、无视老师的要求，或情绪完全崩溃。
解析 该句的词汇难点是“be cushioned by”。如果能够从“cushion”的名词词义“垫子”引申出“用垫子加以保护或缓冲”之意，那么整个句子的理解就简单多了。
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