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  3. In the past, American colleges and universities were created to serve a dual purpose to advance learning and to offer a chance t

In the past, American colleges and universities were created to serve a dual purpose to advance learning and to offer a chance t

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问题     In the past, American colleges and universities were created to serve a dual purpose to advance learning and to offer a chance to become familiar with bodies of knowledge already discovered to those who wished it. To create and to impart, these were the distinctive features of American higher education prior to the most recent, disorderly decades of the twentieth century. The successful institution of higher learning had never been one whose mission could be defined in terms of providing vocational skills or as a strategy for resolving societal problems. In a subtle way Americans believed higher education to be useful, but not necessarily of immediate use.
    Another purpose has now been assigned to the mission of American colleges and universities. Institutions of higher learning—public or private—commonly face the challenge of defining their programs in such a way as to contribute to the service of the community.
    This service role has various applications. Most common are programs to meet the demands of regional employment markets, to provide opportunities for upward social and economic mobility, to achieve racial, ethnic, or social integration, or more generally to produce "productive" as compared to "educated" graduates. Regardless of its precise definition, the idea of a service-university has won acceptance within the academic community.
    One need only be reminded of the change in language describing the two-year college to appreciate the new value currently being attached to the concept of a service-related university. The traditional two-year college has shed its pejorative "junior" college label and is generally called a "community" college, a clearly value-laden expression representing the latest commitment in higher education. Even the doctoral degree, long recognized as a required "union card" in the academic world, has come under severe criticism as the pursuit of learning for its own sake and the accumulation of knowledge without immediate application to a professor’s classroom duties. The idea of a college or university that performs a triple function—communicating knowledge to students, expanding the content of various disciplines, and interacting in a direct relationship with society has been the most important change in higher education in recent years.
    This novel development, however, is often overlooked. Educators have always been familiar with those parts of the two-year college curriculum that have a "service" or vocational orientation. It is important to know this. But some commentaries on American postsecondary education tend to underplay the impact of the attempt of colleges and universities to relate to, if not resolve, the problems of society. What’s worse, they obscure a fundamental question posed by the service-university—what is higher education supposed to do?
选项 A、the future usefulness of the knowledge obtained in college.
B、the missions of different educational institutions in America.
C、the purpose of American postsecondary education in the past.
D、the history of the development of American higher education.
答案C
解析 逻辑结构题。本题问：开头一段是为了阐述什么?第1段第1句写道："过去美国成立大专院校的双重目的是增进知识并为那些想了解已发现的大量知识的人提供机会。创造与传授是本世纪最近几十年动荡不安之前美国高等教育的特征"。接着谈到解决社会问题也不是过去美国高等教育的目的。可见，作者写第1段是为了阐述过去美国高等教育的目的。"高等教育"的英语表达是：higher education，education of higher learning，college education，postsecondary education。"美国不同教育机构的使命"不能入选，因为"不同教育机构"的内涵太宽，不仅仅指"高校"。D也不能入选，因为从全文内容来看，第1段写过去高等教育的任务，后面各段写到这个任务现在的变化。所以，第1段不是在谈"美国高等教育的发展历史"。
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